Our Mission

The Pius X Secular Institute Mission:
A Gift from Jesus!

“Lord Jesus, my Everything! Everything for You! I love you and I want to rejoice your Heart and make You loved by a great number. What is most urgent: to make You known! Give us the means to do it well and fast: sanctify us.”
Father Henri Roy, January 12, 1965

Texts have been written to define the mission that the Pius X Secular Institute members exercise. But more than words, this mission has been lived out since the 1940s by people who believed in Jesus Christ and wanted to share their experience. This mission expresses itself in just one way: through apostolate – and an apostolate as wide as the world! Through our presence in the world, in the workforce, through direct evangelization, by apostolic works, the Pius X Secular member wants through his whole being that Jesus be better known, loved and served. This apostolic action is done especially among the popular classes, with the little and poor.
This mission is large and vast. We try to specify it in an objective to be pursued to realize the mission:

“Members of the Pius X Secular Institute are concerned with wanting to reach people of the popular “milieus”, particularly the humble and the poor who are especially entrusted to their care. Conscious that their apostolic life has its source in their union with Christ, members must make themselves available at all times and in all places for this apostolate, seeking to affirm the worth of every person who crosses our path each day. Through personal testimony and direct proclamation, members will help people they meet discover Christ living within them. By means of this apostolate, they reveal to people that Christ has a mission to entrust to them, and thus discover Him more fully in their own lives. ‘To know, love and serve Christ in order that he be known, loved and served’, such is the concrete application of their mission.”

The leaders of the Institute, since Father Roy’s time through today, have always wanted the apostolate of the presence to the world. Today, this type of apostolate is evermore necessary and important. It is to “infuse the living energies of the Gospel in the veins of the modern world”.

This presence to the world realizes itself when men and women irradiate Christ in their different surroundings. Be they professionals or laborers, technologists or artists, they can proclaim the Good News of Christ – who wants to reach out to men and women in their daily tasks – through their life, words, attitudes and actions. By a discrete presence, the Pius X Secular Institute members will awaken in their work colleagues a great questioning: “Who is this man, this woman? What gives him this inner fire?”

One day, the door to their heart will open and the Pius X Secular Institute member will be invited to clearly state that Jesus is the center of his life. He will proclaim that the love of Christ is the motor of one’s existence and the source with gives a profound meaning to his whole life. By a precise commitment, one’s presence in the midst of human realities becomes a witnessing of faith. The mission to find God in the midst of the world becomes a constant calling: a call to discover Him and make Him known to so many men and women searching for happiness.

For the Pius X Secular Institute members, direct evangelization has always had a primary importance and that remains true today. When a society is no longer able to carry a message of faith commitment in daily life, it is essential that men and women stand as prophets to call out to the world.

That is why along with a presence in the world in ordinary conditions of life, we are present to the world by apostolic works that permit a direct proclamation of Jesus Christ and His salvation offered to everyone. The members make Jesus known through different apostolic works and activities: evangelization projects, preaching, hospitality at the “Maison du Renouveau”- a Catholic retreat house, publication and distribution of religious literature, involvement in different Church movements, volunteer work, etc.

But, the Pius X Secular Institute was founded in priority for the little and the poor. “The poor are our masters!” This cry of all great spiritual masters has been received as a slogan by all Institute members. Our preferential and primary option for the poor is therefore an inalienable condition for all vocation to evangelization for people called to the Institute. There are the little and poor of bread but also the little and poor of light. The profound wish of each member is that everyone lives an encounter with Jesus who saves through His love and becomes a “multiplier” for the mission.