On Pentecost, the Church is born through the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is also the day on which, more than three centuries ago, the Congregation of the Holy Spirit was founded—our principal patronal feast. Each year, the Spiritan community at the Generalate in Rome celebrates this solemnity as an extended family.
From its very origins, Spiritan spirituality has carried a profoundly Marian imprint. Poullart des Places intended Spiritan consecration to be inseparable from a special bond with Mary, the model of total docility to the Spirit.
Libermann was imbued with a deep conviction: God acts in life and in events through his Spirit. This discreet yet real presence gives sacred value to even the smallest details of existence. In every situation, he recognized the Holy Spirit as the One who animates, strengthens, directs, and guides, inviting each person to walk with confidence in the path God desires.
The Spiritan is a man of community—not simply out of practical necessity, but because shared life is the lifeblood that sustains our spiritual and missionary identity. From the beginning, our founders understood that mission cannot be carried out by isolated individuals, but by a body shaped by the Spirit. Community is therefore not merely a setting; it is a theological space, the place where the Gospel takes flesh.
Spiritan spirituality rests on a fundamental conviction: mission is born in prayer and fulfilled in service. These two dimensions respond to one another: prayer shapes the missionary’s heart, and service reveals the truth of that prayer.
Across generations, a deep conviction has shaped our way of being: the Spiritan is one who is sent. This insight is woven into the very history of our origins. It is part of our spiritual DNA.
In the light of our Founders, Spiritan poverty appears as an inner journey in which a person allows themselves to be shaped by God so as to become a source of apostolic life. It involves material detachment, but it is fulfilled above all as a way of standing before God: an attitude that consists in receiving everything from Him, living from Him, acting through Him.
“Green Wenje” is an important environmental and ecological initiative designed to combat climate change, restore degraded landscapes, and improve community livelihoods. The project is led by Father José Martins Mandele, C.S.Sp, an Angolan Spiritan missionary serving at St John the Baptist Parish in Wenje, Diocese of Garissa, Kenya.
Availability is one of the most consistent features of Spiritan spirituality. It is both openness to God and attentiveness to our brothers and sisters — an inner movement that runs through our history from Poullart des Places to Libermann and remains today at the heart of our vocation.
Poullart des Places and Libermann each express, in their own way, this same understanding of docility to the Holy Spirit. For Poullart, it is expressed first and foremost as a trusting surrender to the divine breath. From the very beginning, he invited his companions to become hearts open and available to God’s action: to adore the Holy Spirit, to ardently seek the fire of divine love, to imitate the inner openness that allows God to act freely.