The Verbum Dei charism originated in 1958 with the apostolic movement of preaching called "Encounters" (Convivencias), generated by Fr. Jaime Bonet in the diocese of Mallorca (Spain).
From the beginnings of the Encounters in 1958 until now two lines of force have moved the preaching and the life of Fr. Jaime Bonet, founder of the Verbum Dei: the radical conformation with Christ in his life and mission of announcing the Kingdom of God, and secondly, the apostolic promotion of all the members of the people of God from their baptismal identity.
These fundamental intuitions have resulted in the existence of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity (VDMF) as a nucleus of consecrated life within the wider structure of the Verbum Dei Missionary Family, an ecclesial reality made up of people of all states of life, ages, social or cultural conditions called by God to the Verbum Dei charism. The Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity receives its first official recognition as a Pia Union on January 17, 1963 and on April 15, 2000 was given the status of Pontificial Right by Pope John Paul II. The Verbum Dei Missionary Family is legally bound to the Fraternity by the appropriate regulations provided by it.
The Church is the body of the Three, said Tertullian, in awe of that living and interior presence of God in humanity historically expressed in the Church. The Church, with its light and shadows, is an event of grace, where the Word of God is made flesh, as it did once in Mary of Nazareth. The identity of the Verbum Dei Missionary Family, in the image of the Trinitarian Family, tries to express and make visible this mystery of missionary communion which is the Church.
The members of the VDMFa may be associated according to their vital situations, stages of life, formation processes and similar options of life, according to the social context where this missionary communion is made concrete, sharing one common identity born from the same call of God in the Verbum Dei charism.
