About us

The Friends of Christ(Amis du Christ) are religious, priests or brothers, members of a missionary institute: the Congregation of the Friends of Christ under the protection of Saint John the Apostles.

This institute was born more than 30 years ago, in the diocese of Luebo, from the initiative of the private secretary of the Holy Pope John Paul II, His Excellency Archbishop Emery Kabongo, with a view to training priests who were destined to serve poor people in distant missions, neglected or lacking pastors.

Devoted to the Holy Spirit and taking Jesus as a model, the Friends of Christ live in fraternal, welcoming and prayerful communities. Brothers or priests, they go on mission to the peripheries, to Africa, Haiti, the Caribbean, France or abroad, where the Church has difficulty finding workers. For several years, lay people have joined their mission, while maintaining their state of life. These are the Associates of the Friends of Christ.

OUR SPIRITUALITY

The spirituality of the Friends of Christ is directly linked to the mystery of the Revelation of the Friendship of Christ in prayer and by the commitment to perfection: his birth, his passion, his death and his resurrection. They participate actively in the mission of Jesus: the salvation of the world.

OUR MISSION

Our mission aligns with our spirituality. Through our life and our action with the poor and for the poor, we seek only one thing: to announce, through lively and appropriate preaching, that the love of Christ brings us new hope and thus gives meaning to our existence.

OUR CHARISM

Jesus passed by doing good. Acts of the Apostles 10, 34.37-43

The charism of the Friends of Christ is bequeathed to us by Monsignor Emery Kabango: responding to the pastoral urgencies of our time. Evangelization of the poor, care for the marginalized and education of the abandoned. The Friends of Christ discover, in the time and in the places where they are inserted, the abandoned people and the unloved who urgently need a word of action and hope.

OUR ACTION

There is only one way to be Friends of Christ: to devote one's entire life to announcing the good news to those who hunger and thirst for Justice. However, there are several ways to live the same spirit, the same mission and the same charism.

“Jesus of Nazareth, God consecrated him with the Holy Spirit and filled him with his strength. Wherever he went, he did good, and he healed all those who were under the power of the demon. Because God was with him.

And we, the Apostles, are witnesses of all that he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on the wood of execution.

And behold, God raised him up on the third day.”

OUR LIFESTYLE

A Friends of Christ is first and foremost a religious, priest or brother, that is to say a Christian who, by the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, responds to the call of Christ to bring the Good News to the poor.

The daily life of the lÁmi of Christ is characterized by an authentic desire to consecrate himself to God in a life of prayer, a life of community and a life of work in the service of the people of God.

PRAYER LIFE

At the base of the option of life of the institute, there is the taste of face to face and heart to heart with God. The missionary action of the Friend of Christ is nourished by a life of individual and community prayer.

WORK LIFE

At the base of the option of life of the community of the Friends of Christ, there is a great need to give and to give oneself through a variety of pastoral actions in the service of others. The Missionary Institute is inhabited by the sincere desire to devote its know-how, its talents and its time to the service of the work of God. The Friends of Christ, fathers or brothers, through complementary and varied tasks, are all sowers of hope at the service of the Holy Church.

COMMUNITY LIFE

At the base of the option of life in the missionary institute, there is the choice of community life, that is to say the desire to share with other brothers the same passion for God, the same desire for service to others, with respect, support and fraternal mutual aid. For the Friend of Christ, living and working together is an essential law

The Friends of Christ devote themselves to a wide variety of pastoral tasks. Whether priests or brothers, they are all animated by the same spirituality, the same mission, the same charism, in the diversity of actions.

The priests of the Friends of Christ carry out their ministry as priests by celebrating the sacraments

and preaching the Good News explicitly.

The Brothers participate in this mission of evangelization by taking on manual tasks

and getting involved in pastoral work.