A COMMON VISION
ABOUT MISSIONARY PRESENCE
André
Claessens
Vita Consecrata 73 - new answers : new
evangelization
new problems
for the world
The Word Congress on
Religious Life (2004) which was organized in
1)
globalization, with its ambiguities and its
mythologies ;
2)
migration of people and speediness of
travels ;
3)
destabilizing and unfair economical system of
neo-liberal capitalism and new forms of solidarity ;
4)
culture of death and struggle for life ;
challenges of biotechnology and eugenics ;
5)
increasing pluralism and differentiation ;
6)
post-modern reality ;
7)
thirst for love and emotional disorders ;
8)
thirst for sacred and secular materialism.
What do we think of these?
I. To face new
challenges…
(a) in our
mission
The
« Instrumentum Laboris » (Working Document) of the Congress on
Religious Life (2004) states : « Consecrated life, aware of its
being called to share in the vast project of « new evangelization »
also realizes that it requires a « new ardour » and a new language in
order to connect mission with spirituality, community with individuals, body
with soul. We also acknowledge that the option for the poor and the dropouts is
an expression of the new evangelization from which one can’t get away. »
How do we see the
Within
several
How to live out
the
(b) in our
spirituality
·
« An authentic renewal of consecrated life and a
revival of its mission will come out of an healthy and living spirituality. We
see in our world a thirst for sacred and a longing for spirituality, meaning
and transcendence. »
·
« Consecrated life will recover its identity when
it appears and acts as a witness of God, as an announcement of the Reign of God
and when it uses relevant spiritual means in order to listen with intelligence
and empathy to the feelings of the human heart. »
II. To develop…
(a) a common
vision
Many of our
confreres claim that we need to live out a liberating poverty, in solidarity
with others and with respect towards creation. Some others suggest that we be
careful in our involvements in order not to back any institutions which are
instruments of oppression and foster activities that oppose faith and justice.
Three interesting
aspects are mentioned as basics for living out the vows :
a)
the experience of the grace and the blessings received
from God should lead us into living out of the evangelical counsels in a spirit
of generosity, expecting nothing in return, but deep with an attitude of
service and self-giving ;
b)
the wounds received throughout our personal and
community life lead us into being fewly opened to others in our way of living
out our vows ; we have to do our best to foster an « internal
healing » as a mean to help people living the spirit of their vows with
joy, surrendering themselves in the hands of the Father to service the
others ;
c)
some of the prophetic options which were left under
the only responsibility of individual members should also be taken into account
through both provincial and communal discernment.
Father Kwakman
suggests we look at Jesus as the One who invites people to build up a
« civilisation of love », overcoming the various forms of
discrimination in the society which come out of cultural, political and
religious customs and prejudices. Jesus worked out his mission, proclaiming and
putting into practice an active infinite compassion … For Jesus, compassion was
not only an individual virtue but a vision to build up an alternative society.
The specificity
of Jesus ministry was his unlimited compassion.
Living out the
feelings which were in the heart of Jesus is what matters both in pastoral care
and in community life. Whoever wants to steer his or her life to him, to walk
behind him, is invited to become a friend of those who are exhausted,
overburdened…
The heart of
Jesus does not only reveal the heart of God but also the human heart. It reveals
humanity as intended by the Creator. What are the consequences for us in our
approaching others ?
Do we share this
vision of our
(b) a common
sense of objectives
Statement :
a shared prophetic vision, fruit of a shared faith life, which is concretely
expressed in the love of the neighbour, is drastically missing.
Fr. Kwakman
discerns in his presentation, as a goal for the dynamic of the spirituality of
the heart, an urgent need for authentic dialogue. The first goal of partners in
dialogue must be to support one another in listening to his or her own heart.
The Heart of Christ talks to us also through the deepest desires of the people.
What are the
objectives of
How to elaborate
an
(c) to
re-evaluate our priorities and interests.
The answers we
have received in order to elaborate the Instrumentum Laboris show the following
challenges and chances ahead of us :
1)
a growing desire for authentic community life, which
in fact coexist with a lot of individualism ;
2)
a spirit of rough criticism, in community, and, at the
same time, more and more mutual tolerance and acceptation ;
3)
the desire to be efficient apostles, together with a
lack of interest for ongoing formation ;
4)
a strong activism at one side, which prevents us to
fully communicate with God, with our brothers and with the community, and at
the other side a great esteem for our charism, our mission and our spirituality
of the heart ;
5)
a lack of planning within our provinces and
communities as to what concerns the pursuit of common goals to make up unity,
and at the same time a very efficient planning of pastoral and professional
activities ;
6)
an attitude of tiredness, the adoption of the values
of the middle class, mediocrity, consumerism, and immobility which are as many
obstacles against the opening of new ways, together with a growing desire for
authenticity of our consecrated life ;
7)
the conviction that we have to take seriously our role
of prophets, to present Gospel’s values as counteracting the values of our
today’s society, and the fear to put them into practice ;
8)
the tendency to have a greater interest towards our
professional activity rather than towards our living out our vocation.
Talking about
finance, the general bursar stated at the Chapter 2005 :
« The
conclusion cannot be overlooked. Due to diminishing revenues and increasing
expenses, our way of doing things at an international level cannot be
maintained. »
In February 2006
the new general administration wrote to the Provincials :
« We desire
to make the initial and ongoing formation our first priority. We are talking
about a full and complete formation which will help us facing the challenges of
our current world thanks to the richness of our Spirituality of the Heart,
expressed through both our own personal and community lives « because we
know and we believe in the love of God (1Jn 4, 16).
With the help of
all our formators and the participation of other persons able to help us in
this task, we desire to re-evaluate the documents of
In most of the European provinces, there is no more confreres in initial
formation. Do we have any recommendations as far as on-going formation is
concerned ?
(d) to
focus on the extended mission of the Congregation not only on local or regional
interests.
The feeling of
belonging to the Society is weak because the feeling of being a member of a
Province rather than of an international Society prevails.
·
« We are a group which looks mainly at oneself,
with little openness to the challenges of the foreign mission… Reasons to this
situation are mainly found in an attitude of easiness and in the human weakness
which constitute our reality as Province. The questions which arise among us
are filtered through personalized perceptions of the reality… We are too
much concerned with our own problems. »
· Could
we imagine that confreres from Southern countries would come in the European
communities to participate in our pastoral projects and/or look after
palliative care for our older confreres ? Are our aging communities still
strong enough to welcome these confreres and consequently suffer an unavoidable
self-questioning ?
How to foster
such an interest for this world wider than our local community, knowing that at
the eyes of many confreres « mission is accomplished » and that the
physical and psychological status drains most of the remaining forces
available ?
(e) to
take risks (cf. Fr. Chevalier and
Fears and
protections. The work and the action of the Spirit of love is blocked when we
are driven by fear, when we avoid to take risks and we refuse to take position
or decisions that may bother other people. Such breaches of duty make our
presence and ministry inefficient and incapacitate our spirituality. Not seeing
the Spirit’s signs of creativity, we try to smother any initiative which could
answer the urgencies and the challenges of our time with an evangelical
enthusiasm. Therefore, individuals may become defensive, reluctant to renewal
and to challenge, only because of that kind of protector fundamentalism, or
they may become excessively radical and condemn those who are different. The
responsibility is less severe when superiors, for a reason or another, try to
please everyone and to challenge none. Evangelical obedience requires discernment
and taking risks.
(i) in a spirit of creativity
Sense
of mission : missionary challenges which face our members throughout the
world nowadays are quite diverse. Answers to the Lineamenta witness to a great
creativity in diversity. The older provinces whose numbers decrease are still
searching for new ways to make the Heart of Jesus, in their particular social
environment, better known and better loved. Indeed, the answers reflect the
constant « vitality » of these Provinces. In fact, some of the older
provinces are still founding new missions abroad. In the more recent regions or
provinces, challenges are enormous as well, in the sense that
What
kind of creativity would I like to see in my
to discern the will of God for us in
« faithfulness to human beings and to our times, faithfulness to Christ
and to the Gospel, faithfulness to the Church and its mission in the world,
faithfulness to religious life and to the charism of our institute ».
The
charism of our congregation is the one of Fr. Chevalier. Fr Hans Kwakman
describes it as follows :
« The
three basic elements of Fr. Chevalier’s charism are a particular vision, an
internal inspiration and an awareness of the mission. The vision of
compassionate Jesus in the Gospel touched his heart in such a way that it
became an internal inspiration, « a fire within ». In the heart of
Fr. Chevalier, these vision and inspiration created a special answer, an
awareness of the mission, and a strong desire to spread everywhere this faith
in the divine compassionate love ».
He
continues : « this was his conviction that it is not first of all
our ministry as such which will change the world but the manifestation of the
unconditional love of God through our ministry. » This is our mission
to show out the compassionate love of God as revealed by Jesus.
(f) to nurture
and develop an international sense
(i) of
missionary responsibility
« How
can we witness to the fact that we are ready to grow old with dignity, hope and
confidence ? To accompany our aged confreres is a special and valuable
ministry. Specially in this area, we must be clear as to what the presence in
Europe of
In
this context we must keep in mind that solidarity is a two-way street :
our solidarity with the needs of the developing Provinces but also their
solidarity with us in our aging and weakness. Time may have come to think about
creative ways for the presence of young Provinces close to the aging European
Provinces and vice versa. When young confreres from developing Provinces are
invited, there must be an appropriate preparation not only on their part but
also on the part of the communities who will welcome them. »
In his
report for the General Chapter 2005, Fr. Curran writes, talking about the need
to put an end to the economical dependence of Africa in term of subsidies from
mother Provinces and from our Solidarity Planning : « We have to
discover ways which will enable our African communities to open themselves to
funds raising apostolate for their communities, specially those in formation
houses. We have to be perceptive in our choices and apostolate, without
excluding the possibilities of working outside the boarders of our countries of
origin. »
(ii) and
a common vision of the objectives
to
nurture and develop an international sense and a common spirit of
collaboration. « In our meetings, we often heard talking about the
emergency for us to restructure, following some other Congregations, in order
to ensure our survival and our mission in the world, to create
« congregational property » in which we all would share the
responsibility and to open ourselves to a greater internationalization ».
Because of lack of personnel resources,
provinces help one another more and more, whether for formation tasks or for
apostolic ministries. Such a melting of various entities and worldwide
experiences help to affirm a greater sense of international solidarity and the
pursuit of a common missionary goal. Fortunately, this process is to continue
to grow. Sometimes, such an arrangement may require a particular sacrifice from
the Province which helps but it strengthens the bounds of Love.
Guidelines and orientations
(Acta p. 84-86)
Which ones do we
think are the most urgent to realize in
André Claessens msc