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Letters of Fr. General |
Advent 2009 |
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The Future of the Vocationary |
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To All the Memebrs of the Vocationist Family My Dear Confrere, May the holy Spirit unite us ever more with the Son to the Father.! Introduction “In History Towards the Future: Geographical and Cultural Changes in Consecrated Life - Challenges and prospectives” was the theme of the 73rd General Assembly of Superiors General. The documents of this assembly offer me the right theme of this letter at the end of this year 2009 dedicated to the Vocationaries. After having spoken of the different types of Vocationaries, of its formative method and its nature as school of holiness, it comes spontaneous to ask, what shall be of the Vocationary? The Vocationary, being the specific work of our family, or better, in the words of Fr. Justin: “its characteristic work”, it follows to say that the Congregation cannot exist without it. Its future is strictly related to and associated with the future of the Congregation, as the future of the Congregation is strictly related to and associated with the future of the Vocationary. The content of this letter could be of great interest to the Vocationist communities throughout the world in the various phases of the initial and permanent formation. I wish that this consideration could open new lines of research and study and it be like a seed of vocational fertility. Geographical and Cultural Changes Cardinal Rodrigues Maradiaga, in his conference during the general assembly, after confirming that the Church should continue her commitment to overcome bounderies and reach all peoples, declared, “Catholic geography began to change from the moment Peter left Jerusalem and established himself in Antioch.” From that time onwards, the geography of the church, in a certain sense, has always been in a flexible and continuous expansion. At present, the center of gravity of the Church is not anymore in the North but in the South where 75% of the Christian population is found in Africa, Asia and in the Americas. The universality and globalization that condition social life and culture in the actual world make their repercussion felt in consecrated life. In the reality of this changing world, consecrated life must continue to testify Christ and his gospel in a more real and authentic manner. The phenomenon of immigration, free market, free movement and web communication make religious life more multicultural both in the context of evangelization in which it operates and in the internal physiognomy of the Congregation. The multicultural realities of the backgrounds of our new members of religious families continue to pose the question of why the religious continue to give concrete responses to the questions asked and needs of the present time and why do they continue to be sign and testimony of communion for the same mission and charism. Challenges and Opportunities of Consecrated Life Consecrated life has to face new challenges regarding the mission, the charism, communion, community life and government of every Institute. The fundamental religious realities have to be reviewed and reproposed in a multicultural perspective. The mission pushes us to dialogue, respect and acceptance of differences, integration and reconciliation of cultures and the convergence towards unity. The living together of persons of different cultures in religious life is not anymore something accidental caused by a particular field of action or the scarcity of vocations but a reality that characterizes consecrated life that commits every religious to discover and appreciate that which is positive, good and beautiful that is found in the world of the other and to accept it as a gift of God. The communion of cultures in a religious community is founded on a common witnessing, founded on the only Word that calls and sends the religious according to the specific charism of the Congregation. This Word, notwithstanding the possible differences, is that which makes us capable to profess the same faith, to continue the same mission and to live the same charism, speaking a common language of love and living a common culture of the Congregation. Each culture can present a keyword in community life and fraternal love. After each and every possible consideration in cultural diversity, it remains always true that if there is no love of God there could not be fraternal love, and if there is not fraternal love it is only because there is no God’s love. Inculturation of the Charism and Formation The world that we live in is in a continuous process of change in a rythm that is going even faster. It does not give us anymore the opportunity to habitualize and fossilize ourselves in a certain way of looking and operating. That which once was a religious state (a permanent way of being) has become consecrated life (a dynamic and changing reality). Our small world, our religious family is not excempted from geographical and cultural changes that make life less stable, more flexible and in a condition of constant ulterior enrichment in the constant reading of the signs of the times and of the people that sourround us. In the last twenty years, our Congregation has seen an extraordiniary part of its history that has enriched us in various ways, leaving us on a merrygoround of changes that are superior and that are over and above our forces oftentimes leaving us unaware of their existence. Our Congregation that was and that operated as an italian congregation has become (as it has been in the mind of God and of Fr. Justin) an international Catholic Congregation, authentically universal. This family, 20 years ago during the collapse of the Berlin wall, was 95% Italian. Now we see new faces, many colors, a harmony of sounds, multiple geographical faces, many different cutlures that make it impossible to imagine, in the reality of today, the history that it was yesterday. Today, the composite face of the Congregation is as follows: 128 Nigerians, equal to 34.13% of our total population; 93 Italians, 25%; 47 Indians, 12.53%; 38 Brazilians, 10.11%; 14 Filipinos, 3.73%; 12 Malgash, 3.20%; 9 Colombians, 2.40%; 8 Argentinians, 2.13%; 6 North Americans, 1.60%; Ecuadorians, Cileans, Congolese and Peruvians, 3 religious from each contry equal to 0.80%. Myanmar, Venezuela, Camerun and Benin are also represented by 1 confrere from each country equal to 0.27%. The Congregation is composed of one bishop, 190 priests, 1 permanent deacon, 10 trasitional deacons, 52 religious students in perpetual vows and 114 religious in temporary vows. In this statistics, those who are outside of the congregation (extra donum) are not included. Like after Penecost, the Holy Spirit opened new geaographical areas, peoples and cultures to the Gospel, so it is today that the same Spirit continues to open the doors of the Congregation to new horizons because this, like the Church, could be an instrument of sanctification for human beings without distinction of race, culture, color or tongue. Like in the first christian communities where Gentiles became christians without converting first to Judaism, our Congregation must face and overcome the challenge that everyone can be a Vocationist without first becoming an Italian! Like the ancient Church that has not lost anything but was enriched in her expansion to the Greek-Roman culture and all other cultures after that, a religious family will never be reduced to poverty but will certainly be proportionately enriched by her opening to new cultures. Sometimes, there is an impression that the Congregation is not aware of the changes that are happening. The demographical changes in Italy and in the old European continent have tremendous repercussions in vocational growth and therefore, in the Vocationary. The reality of aging forces many Congregations to abandon their specific work or remedy it by importing vocations from other countries. Consecrated life today presents more and more the reality of multicultural communities that does not only enrich but also divides and complicates it. In the midst of these phenomena, it is not enough to give up. It is necessary that each one of us make himself responsible and take the initiative to live our charism in the new reality that comes to us. In order to achieve this, enculturation is necessary. Enculturation, to really be effective in religious life, must be bilateral and not only unilateral . It is not enough that those who are sent to a mission familiarize temselves and live the local culture of the territory where they are sent. The receiving community must also study and familiarize itself to the culture of the missionary so that they can enjoy a more profitable communion and cooperation. If, for example, in an Italian community there be a confrere from Nigeria, the Philippines, from a Latin American country or from another part of the world, it is not enough that the non-Italian confrere study and understand the local culture. The local community must also make extra effort to study and understand the culture of its non-Italian confrere. This openness should make the effort to build a bridge between these two realities. Those coming from outside find it difficult to open themselves to the new reality where they now live and the community finds the difficulty in opening to the new confrere that comes from outside. How many sufferings are caused by this lack of openness! An individual who goes to another place has to inculturate himself to the new reality where he finds himself in. The Congregation and its charism has to acculturate itself to the new realities found in other countries. It follows that also the formation process cannot excempt itself from enculturation. We cannot form everyone in the same manner. We cannot form a candidate from the East with the same method that we use to form a candidate from the West. In this, the preparation of the Ratio Formationis can help us. Even though it is based on the Ratio Institutionis Generalis, it should consider the local realites and culture. The same Vocationary could not be transplanted from Italy as it is to another part of the world. While maintaining and conserving the concepts of initial formation, vocational accompaniment and the formation to holiness, it should have the color and the taste of the land where it is now based. If we cannot find this symbiosis between the Vocationary and the place where it is found, we run the risk of loosing vocations or producing vocations that are not well-formed. What Will the Future be for the Vocationary? The future of the Vocationary will be that which we want it to be, and do to it. The future of the Vocationary is in my hands and yours. I am not afraid to make a mistake in saying that the future of the Vocationary will be that of our own lives! What will be of me in the future will be of the Vocationary. Let us not forget that the futurre is built on the present lived on the shoulders of the past. It does not fall from heaven. It is not invented but is a result of a continuous process of growth and transformation. In a changing world, the only thing that does not change of the Vocationary is its role as a place of vocational discernment and formation as a school of holiness. To have an idea on how the Vocationary will be in the future, I am thinking of our orphanages and institutes of the past. Various religious families were born to assist orphans and big insititutes were built to house hundreds and thousands of youth needing formation and education. Oftentimes, the size of the orphanages and the number of those who were housed in them were considered the most important aspects or characteristics of an institute. How many times, we too, look back in time and nostalgically think of how full and overflowing our vocationaries where! Maybe, we can still look with envy at our vocationaries in Nigeria, the Philippines, India, Madagascar, Indonesia, etc. Like the orphanages that have given way to entrusting orphans to families or family centers, the Vocationary could give way to a small religious community or to a single Vocationist. When I meditate on the fact that Fr. Justin wanted a Vocationary beside every parish, I become more convinced that our holy founder wanted small formative communities rather than big institutes where, with the family spirit, in the shadow of the Eucharist, the young could grow in and accept their vocation. This is the inspiring principle why we are bulding a Vocationary beside the parish of St. Joseph in Ambatondrazaka entrusted to our pastoral care. And this is the principle that pushes me to repeat one more time that every Vocationist house must be, and not only be called, a Vocationary. Let us ask ourselves the question Fr. Justin asked Fr. Ugo Fraraccio on October 24, 1953, “And the Vocationary? It is impossible not to have one with all these young people who frequent us.” And let us see if from these young people who frequent us we can build a future Vocationary. In this type of future for our Vocationary, let us also look at the opportunity to work individually, one by one with those who are called in order to give them a personalized formation rather than a institutional one, a formation that is less academic but realistic and human, adopted to prepare ourselves to face the challenges and needs of the people of God and the Congregation. In the multltural face of the present and future Vocationist communities, we also see a greater facility in preparing the future candidates to a greater cultural opennes, to a greater spirit of adoption and an easier capacity in building relationships with others. If the vocation crisis has brought us to the discovery of many precious lay vocations, the crisis that we are experiencing in our Vocationaries in Italy should help us discover, appreciate and adopt new ways of research and formation of vocations from their birth, to their growth and to their confirmation. Instead of a big oasis in an immense desert, the Vocationary of the future will be a small but beautiful and effective flowerbed that will beautify every corner (parish) of the Church. Conclusion In the midst of the many challenges and promising opportunties that we face in this constantly changing world, we do not have any other choice than to open ourselves to a new multicultural human, ascetical, social and theological formation. Doing so, we do not only avoid isolation but we will be capable of opening our hearts and our doors to those chosen by divine vocations of every color, race, culture and tongue. How it would be desirable to be able to give our students the opportunity to form themselves in another country or at least give them the opportunity to have a formator of another country! If our actual economic situation will not permit us to do so today, it should not be impossible tomorrow. I encourage all confreres, always according to our proper means, to at least organize vacations in one of our communities in another country. It would be a very enriching experience! Blessed be the young Vocationist who assimilates our own Vocationist spirituality of our Congregation and mission. (Opere Vol. 14, p. 132). More or less, in all parts of the world, we see an increase in vocations. It is enough to look at our local seminaries to give us this idea. How come we do not see this increase in our Vocationaries as well? Would you like some simple suggestions? Let us pray more, be more available to the young, be more dedicated to the sacrament of reconciliation and spiritual direction and exert extra effort in vocation ministry. According to our spirit, every local superior can accept young boys and/or adolescents for vocation discernment or for the first phase of vocation accompaniment. The challenge is yours to transform our residences into a small but true Vocationary. Let us not wait for others to do it. Let us do it ourselves! Let us commit ourselves seriously to live our consecration: with Jesus in the Divine Sacrament who continues his hidden and public life in us, sorrowful and glorious, I will apply myself to the special formation of those elected by divine vocation, according to simple pattern of the seventy-two disciples and of the twelve apostles. Beginning with this group of young clerics, I have to and I want to bring all the young people to you! All the young people to you, o Blessed Trinity with us, because to you be the primacy of human life, of intelligence and sentiments, of families and human actions. Among these young people, oblates and blessed daily comunicants and perpetual adorers, choose the elect of divine vocations and missions. I will concentrate more on the higher ascetical manner in my pastoral ministry with them so that they may become the chosen ones of the Trinity. I offer myself more to you Blessed Trinity, in the souls of these young people, of these chosen by divine vocation, o Adorable Trinity, with this consecration of sacrifice that could only be spiritually fruitful in them, worthy instrument and effective cooperation to your sanctifying act! (Consecration of Sacrifice to the Divine Trinty in the Souls of the Faithful and the Just) For the future of the Vocationary, it is necessary that each one of us feel and live the maternal love for vocations and those elected by divine vocations, according to our promise in Consecration of Sacrifice to the Divine Trinity in the Elect of Divine Vocations: I unite myself to your pure love, o divine Father, o Principle of every life and every degree of life, and it will be as if every vocation that I have to transmit and cultivate be born first in myself than in any soul and I will participate thus in the maternal care for vocations and the elect of divine vocations. ...My God and my All, that I loose none of those that you have entrusted or will still entrust to me. That I might be neither cause nor occasion nor pretext of any imperfection in anyone. May the Lord bless us, our vocation ministry and our Vocationaries with the abbundance of his grace and the fire of his love. With all my heart I wish you an Advent filled with hope, an everlasting Christmas, bearer of a new intimity with the Lord and a fruitful 2010 rich with holiness and apostolic joy. Always united in his love. Rome, November 11, 2009 Your devoted servant in Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
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