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The Possibilities to Serve God's People are Endless
*** Father Leo John Dehon, SCJ
When Fr. Dehon founded the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, he originally called us the Oblates of the Sacred Heart. That name “oblate” captured the heart of what he wanted his community to be about.
Fr. Dehon was passionately aware of God's tremendous love for us, incarnated in Jesus and symbolized in the Sacred Heart. For Dehon the greatest sin was to fail to love in return the God who has first loved us so much. For him the words of Psalm 40, repeated in the letter to the Hebrews in chapter 10 carried the essence of our vocation: Behold I come to do your will. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews endeavors to capture the attitude of Jesus on coming into the world, he quotes those words of Psalm 40. Those words indicate Jesus' total availability to be at the disposition of the Father. Whatever the Father desires that is what Jesus wants to do because of His love for the Father.
*** Ecce Venio -- Ecce Ancilla
Dehon wants that to be the disposition of the members of his community. In the Spiritual Directory which he wrote and which is quoted in number six of our Constitutions Dehon states: “our whole vocation, our purpose, our duty, our promises, are found in these words: Ecce venio (behold I come)…. Ecce ancilla (behold the handmaid).
(The words “ecce ancilla” ascribed to Mary in response to her being invited to be the Mother of the Savior indicate that she has the same attitude as Jesus. She wants of be at the disposition of God, to do God's will because of her great love for the God who loves her.)
*** Prayer of Oblation
Each day we SCJs pray the prayer of oblation. It is a daily reminder of the purpose of our vocation. In Paul's letter to the Philippians he exhorts them to have the same mind in them which was in Christ Jesus. That's what Dehon asks of us when he has us pray daily the act of oblation. We are to unite ourselves with Jesus in his total offering of himself to the Father. As he was completely at God's disposition, so are we to be at God's disposition, totally available and open to what God asks of us out of love for the Father and in union with Jesus.
This means that “as disciples of Father Dehon, we want to make union with Christ in His love for the Father and for people the principle and center of our life.” (Const. No. 17) Furthermore, “we also live out our union with Christ in our availability and our love for all, especially for the lowly, for those who suffer.” (Const. No. 18) It is important to remember that what makes it possible to make the act of oblation, to live with that kind of attitude is the conviction that we are loved infinitely by our God. We can have complete trust in God's great love for us and that empowers us to surrender ourselves and to be at the disposition of God who so loves us.
*** Living a Life of Oblation
Living a life of oblation, praying the act of oblation each day is a part of the spirituality of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, but this is not something that is exclusively ours. There is a hymn that we sing during Lent that describes the sufferings Jesus underwent for love of us during His passion. The first lines of the song read: “When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died” and the hymn concludes with the words: “Were all the realm of nature mine, that were a present far to small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”
The message of that song is that for one who realizes how much we are loved by our God and what price Jesus paid to show that love, the only fitting response is to love in return as totally as we are loved. That is to lead a life of oblation. That means trying to seek what God asks of us and wanting to be available to do what God asks of us and to be the persons God calls us to be. One does not have to be a Priest of the Sacred Heart to live such a life. That is open to all of us. 
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