We celebrate this year the 200th anniversary of the Missionary Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. This Second Centennial is a call to thanksgiving and commitment.

Praised be Jesus Christ. And Mary Immaculate! Laudetur Jesus Christus. Et Maria Immaculata! Every Oblate of Mary Immaculate prays this invocation daily.

How true it is to give praise and thanks to the Lord Jesus and to his Blessed Mother, Mary Immaculate! Countless blessings have been poured by the Lord through the intercession of Mary Immaculate for the past 200 years on thousands of Oblate Priests and Brothers and on the millions of people to whom they were sent as missionaries by the Holy Spirit.

We work in all the continents of the world. In the Philippines, our small contingent of missionaries work among Christians, Muslims, Lumads, and peoples of other faiths in the Dioceses of Kalookan, Novaliches, Quezon City, Kidapawan, and Marbel.

But our pastoral and missionary presence is most significantly felt in the Archdiocese of Cotabato and in the Apostolic Vicariate of Jolo. In these two places of southern Mindanao we are with our Christian brothers and sisters, likewise with peoples of other faiths. But in a special way we are with people in the peripheries of life and society, with our Muslim and Lumad brothers and sisters.

We have embarked on a mission of love and justice, of dialogue and peace, of religious harmony and integral development. Inspired by the Good News of the Lord and guided by Mary Immaculate, we wish to accompany everyone, especially the poor and the needy, on the common journey to the Kingdom of God.

We want to follow in the footsteps of our Founder, St. Eugene de Mazenod, who desired all his missionary sons to be full of love, faith and hope, who are courageous, innovative, close to the people, especially the poor, and who leave nothing undared.

We thank all the people we are serving. We thank all our collaborators and mission partners — diocesan priests, religious brothers and sisters, and lay faithful. We cherish and treasure you dearly in our hearts and in our prayers.

Thanks be to the Lord! And to Mary Immaculate. God bless everyone.

+Orlando B. Cardinal Quevedo, O.M.I.
Archbishop of Cotabato
January 2016