Abstract

Barker, Ken One of the lasting fruits of the wide-spread experience of the renewal in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council has been the surprising emergence of new expressions of consecrated life. The Missionaries of God's Love (MGL) is an Australian example of this renaissance. Founded in Canberra in 1986 as a small fraternity of young men around a priest, the MGL brothers have now grown to more than twenty in final vows and more than thirty in formation. The MGL sisters, founded in Canberra in 1987, possess the same charism, but with a separate identity and expression. They currently have six in final vows and fifteen members. To understand the new ecclesial energy that has generated this resurgence of desire for consecrated life, it is necessary to examine the ecclesial context in which the Missionaries of God's Love was born. Three main movements of the Spirit have provided this new ecclesial environment, which has proved conducive to the birth of a new way of consecrated life