{"id":6563,"date":"2026-09-01T20:52:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T20:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/?p=6563"},"modified":"2026-09-01T20:58:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T20:58:29","slug":"the-g50-course-begins-reflecting-on-the-past-to-renew-our-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/the-g50-course-begins-reflecting-on-the-past-to-renew-our-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"The G50 Course Begins: reflecting on the past to renew our mission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Participants in the G50 Course at the General House in Rome. Photo: Jaime C. Patias<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Convened by the General Council, a group of 11 Consolata missionaries has gathered at the Generalate House in Rome for a new session of the G50 ongoing formation course, running from September 1 to 26, 2026.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

By Jaime C. Patias *<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming from various nations and engaged in proclaiming the Gospel in different countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, the participants bring with them not only their years of life – 70, 75, 78, 80\u00a0 \u2014 but above all a rich missionary experience built up over 50 years of priestly ordination or religious profession, as indicated by the acronym G50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The course is therefore offered as an opportunity to look back on the long road traveled, to share the experiences gained, and to continue living one’s vocation with awareness and renewed enthusiasm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the course program itself notes, “in many cultures, old age is considered a time of grace, since it brings wisdom and honour. On the other hand, it is a stage of life that gradually leads to a progressive withdrawal from active life, a certain slowing down, and at the same time, the emergence of certain difficulties. It is therefore a period of life that must be lived intensely and actively, as one of the stages of one’s ongoing formation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The initiative is organized by the General Office for Formation and coordinated by the General Councilor, Father Mathews Odhiambo Owuor, together with Father Antonio Rovelli, and proposes a theme for each week: the Word of God and Consecrated Life; the seasons of life; mission today; and an informative dialogue with the General Council. The methodology includes presentations by experts, personal reflection, group sharing, retreat, meditation, prayer, and celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group will visit various historic sites in Rome, Assisi, and Tivoli, as well as the Institute’s formation communities. They will also visit sites of memory in Turin and Castelnuovo Don Bosco as part of the Centenary of the Founder Saint Joseph Allamano’s birth into heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Formation, an Activity of the Highest Importance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opening Mass, this Tuesday, September 1st \u2014 World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation \u2014 was presided over by Father Mathews Odhiambo. In his homily, the person in charge of formation recalled that “the Institute considers the formation of its candidates and members an activity of the highest importance. It is an indispensable path leading to maturity and vocational fulfilment in consecration as Consolata missionaries; but ‘first saints, then missionaries!’ In this dynamic, Saint Joseph Allamano emphasized that the missionary must carry out his duties well, while at the same time caring for his physical and spiritual health,” he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Father Mathews Odhiambo and Father Antonio Rovelli<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Father Mathews then highlighted the importance of the “theology of the pause” according to the Founder. “The pause is seen as a means of serving God better, not as an escape from responsibilities. In short, for Saint Allamano, mission requires a dynamic balance: the missionary must work with commitment, but also knows how to stop to rest the body and nourish the spirit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a missionary, “to stop today, after fifty years of faithfulness, means honoring body and spirit. It is in the silence of the pause that Consolation \u2014 the founding spirituality of the Institute \u2014 ceases to be merely a message for others and becomes a personally lived experience. A rested missionary is a missionary who radiates peace, because he has learned that his worth does not depend on what he produces, but on who he is before God,” Father Mathews recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Pause in the Context of the Year of Community Life<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This year, the Institute places special emphasis on community life, guided by the slogan ‘one family for the same mission’ \u2014 Father Mathews explained. “This adds a precious nuance to the ‘pause’ understood as ‘a coming together.’ Often the frenetic rhythm of mission turns us into soloists of evangelization; the communal pause, on the other hand, allows us to rediscover the face of our brother, to share the memory of the journey, and to support one another in the fragility of advancing age.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this Year of Community Life, “your pause becomes a shared experience to rekindle the spark of consecration. It is not a time of nostalgia, but a rediscovery of the beauty of old age: a season in which wisdom becomes the most precious gift for younger confreres and for the whole Church,” Father Mathews emphasized, wishing the older brothers “that this jubilee pause may be a time of deep physical and psycho-spiritual refreshment, so as to continue being authentic channels of Consolation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening Ceremony<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the opening ceremony, the G50 group gathered in the courtyard of the Generalate House, before a small altar on which were placed the Word of God, a painting of the Consolata, and the relic of Saint Joseph Allamano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After a moment of prayer, the missionaries processed toward the Auditorium, the venue for the sessions. The procession, accompanied by the Founder’s relic and a panel bearing photographs of the participants, the Word of God, and the painting of the Consolata, unfolded in an atmosphere of prayer and song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The celebration continued with a penitential rite, accompanied by the sign of the cross, the sprinkling of holy water, and the invocation of the Holy Spirit. Another significant moment was the lighting, by each missionary, of a candle taken from the Centenary Candle \u2014 a sign of the light received and passed on along the path of missionary vocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Afterward, each missionary had the opportunity to introduce himself. This gave rise to an initial sharing of life and mission stories, marked by successes and joys, but also by hardships and challenges, as is proper to the experience of discipleship of Christ in mission ad gentes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The superior and the bursar of the House, Father Osvaldo Coppola and Father Gabriele Casadei, welcomed the confreres, presenting them with the reality and dynamics of the Generalate House community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the afternoon, Father Mathews presented the course along with participants’ responses to the questionnaire sent beforehand. This was followed by a detailed presentation of the program by Father Antonio Rovelli, outlining the various stages and activities planned for the month of formation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this atmosphere of fraternity and listening, the missionaries prepared to take up the first theme of the course: “The Word as a Guide in Consecrated Life,” at the center of the retreat day guided by Father Stefano Bittasi, scheduled for the following day, Tuesday, September 2nd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the coming days, the G50 group will share various aspects of the richness of the experience lived during this month of pause, formation, sharing, and renewal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* Father Jaime C. Patias, IMC, Communications Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Convened by the General Council, a group of 11 Consolata missionaries has gathered at the Generalate House in Rome for a new session of the G50 ongoing formation course, running from September 1 to 26, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153,6,20,4,16,24],"tags":[121,425,92,172],"class_list":["post-6563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-consolata-missionaries","category-featured","category-mission","category-news","category-spirituality","category-vocational","tag-consolata-missionaries","tag-g50","tag-ongoing-formation","tag-rome"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6563"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6578,"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563\/revisions\/6578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consolataafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}