The Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity (Fraternidad Misionera Verbum Dei in Spanish) is a Roman Catholic contemplative-active missionary community. It was founded on 17 January 1963, in the Spanish island of Majorca, by Father Jaime Bonet. The community was ecclesiastically approved as an Institute of Consecrated Life, by Pope John Paul II on 15 April 2000. According to the constitutions endorsed on that date their mission is to announce the Word of God and to propagate the Kingdom of God through prayer, the ministry of the Word, and the testimony of evangelical life. The community consists of consecrated religious women, consecrated religious men (brothers & priests), and associated married couples. The name, Verbum Dei, is Latin for "Word of God".
The mission of the VDMF is to promote the greatest dignity for all people by empowering individuals and communities to partake in the journey of Christian discipleship. This discipleship is forged in a spirituality rooted in Scripture and Catholic tradition that leads to witnessing to justice made visible through community. Most celibate members of the community go through several years of academic study of philosophy and theology similar to that which takes place in a Catholic priestly seminary. The daily life of a missionary involves several hours of silent prayer.
Verbum Dei's missionary outreach takes place by organising retreats and regular prayer and discussion meetings with lay people. There is often an attempt to encourage people to commit to a discipleship group or a regular "revision of life" group. To a much lesser extent the community assists Catholic parishes and schools with sacramental programmes and other activities.
The Fraternity Verbum Dei is active in several European countries as well as places such as the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Singapore, Taiwan, the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire (the Ivory Coast), Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Cameroon, Australia, the Philippines, and Taiwan. For periods of time the community has been present in Hong Kong, Nigeria, Zaïre and elsewhere. Across five continents the community involves people of different states and areas of life: single and married, old and young, of different backgrounds and occupations. There is however often a focus on attracting university students. Some consecrated members of the fraternity work as Catholic chaplains in Australian, Portuguese and British universities.
Famous quotes containing the words missionary and/or fraternity:
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)