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Our Mission Statement
HE WHO SUPPORTS THE PRIEST SUPPORTS THE WORLD
The Holy Spirit led our founder Father Eusebe Menard, to give his life for future
priests, especially belated vocations to the priesthood. The Missionaries of the Holy Apostles continue to carry out the work
of the Holy Apostles, counting on the faithful and indispensable support of thousands of laypersons. Our unique charism is
to promote and form priests and spiritual leaders so that the church may send laborers to the harvest wherever they are most
needed.
Three areas characterize the work of the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles: the laity, the priest,
and the poor. Our charism is to know and love Jesus in order to promote numerous and generous priests, willing to serve God's
people; to prepare priests and lay leaders to recognize the body of Christ in the poor; and to provide the priests
that God's people need especially where their absence is felt so deeply.
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OUR BEGINNINGS
The relationship that was the foundation and later the start of the Society of
the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles in the USA, began in 1945, when a devout businessman on a religious retreat, Mr. Hector
Durand, heard a young Franciscan priest, Father Eusebe Menard, speak for the first time. Their collaboration, driven by a mutual
desire to increase vocations to the Church and Evangelize the Word of God, in the spirit of the original Apostles, led to
the creation of the Society of the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles in 1956.
Never before had a religious
order at its inception been such a balanced effort between laity and religious.
Fr. Menard and Mr. Durand established their working relationship over
a decade before the 2nd Vatican Council Decreed that priests should "collaborate more closely to the apostolate of the
laity." These holy men proved to be ahead of their time.
Father Menard and Hector Durand continued their highly successful working relationship
for 27 years, until Mr. Durand's death in 1972. Father Menard always referred to Mr. Durand as the Co-Founder of the Missionaries
of the Holy Apostles. Father Menard would later go to his heavenly reward in 1987. Their bond in friendship and faith has
been the foundation on which we have continued our mission to spread the Word and love of God to all.
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