What Is ODL?

Where does Reform Begin?

St. Catherine of Genoa, like many saints before her, saw that reform must begin with the individual, in one’s own heart.  Hector Vernazza, a very successful businessman, met St. Catherine when he was twenty-three years old.  She was at that time the director of the largest hospital in the world for poor people.  Desiring to work for reform and to care for the poor, especially plague victims who at that time numbered in the tens of thousands, they worked together to bring the love of God inspired by the Gospel into their world.  Vernazza himself died heroically ministering to plague victims about ten years after St. Catherine’s death.  Scholars mention that Catherine’s teaching influenced people as different as the young Jesuit, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, who himself died ministering to plague victims, as well as St. John of the Cross, Cardinal Berulle - the founder of the French Oratory, and the founder of the French Carmelites, Madame Acarie.  As time goes on we will examine at length the influence of this great laywoman reformer and her faithful associate Hector Vernazza, as well as the influence of the Oratory of Divine Love. 

A Lay Movement

The canon law of the Church recognizes the right of lay Catholics to organize themselves into groups for various reasons. The purpose of the Oratory is to help people grow in the love of God and neighbor by prayer and by reading scripture.  All members are required to enrich the life of the Church by reverence and prayer.  Individual spiritual direction is out of the reach of most people at the present time, simply by reason of the shortage of priests and others trained in this art of the care of souls.  The weekly meditations published on the Internet are an attempt to provide direction to a wide range of people who otherwise would not receive it. 

What do we mean by a prayer group?

There are several very successful prayer group movements operating in the United States already – for example, the Charismatic prayer groups focusing on the inspiration and gifts of the Holy Spirit.  There are prayer groups dedicated to the spirituality of the particular holy person like the “Padre Pio Prayer groups”.  We do not intend to compete with these groups.

The prayer groups we are proposing will have a very simple outline: 

The prayer meeting will be designed to be especially effective in the spiritual life of the individual member.
  1. It will be designed to help a person grow spiritually.  The title of these prayers groups, “The Divine Love”, indicates that they will assist the members in an unqualified seeking of Gospel holiness. 
  2. The group’s activities will be confined to prayer, but all of the members will pledge themselves to working directly with the poor and needy, and to the encouragement of a prayerful attitude in the church by good example and reverent devotion at Mass and other services. Members would also make themselves available for good works in their parish and their diocese – although the Oratory of Divine Love would not carry out these good works.   Over the course of time these goals, which were taken from the original Oratory could be more clearly defined.  The members will also bind themselves to work every day effectively for their own spirituality, and for the spiritual growth of others.  By inviting people to join them, both lukewarm Catholics and other non-Catholic Christians, the prayer groups themselves would be a method of evangelization.