Fr. José Rodríguez Carballo, ofm
REKINDLE
THE GIFT OF GOD
WITHIN YOU
Letter of the Minister General OFM
to young OFMs Professed
Under Ten Years on the occasion of
the 4th Chapter of Mats
Roma 2012
1
Grafica e impaginazione:
Joseph Magro per Ufficio Comunicazione - Roma
Dear brothers under ten:
“May the Lord give you peace!”
1.
I write this letter to you, Rekindle the gift
of God within you (cf. 2Tim 1, 6), on the eve of
the 4th Chapter of Mats “under ten”, in order
to continue the dialogue with you that I have had
during these years of my service to the Universal
Fraternity as Minister General. This has come
through visits to the various Entities of the Order
and through messages from you, to which I have
tried to reply as well as I could.
2.
I consider it a real grace to have participated in the three Chapters of Mats under ten
celebrated up until now: the first in Santiago
de Compostela (Spain) (1995), when I was
Minister Provincial of that Province; the second
in Canindé (Brazil) (2001), when I was Definitor
and Secretary General for Formation and
Studies; the third in the Holy Land (2007), when
I was already Minister General. For me and for
many others, to judge from the evidence I have
received, these meetings have been a real grace
because of what we have shared in them, how
we have reflected and prayed together, and also
because they have been an important occasion
for celebrating the gift of fraternity that stretches
beyond the boundaries of our own Provinces and
Custodies, which are always quite limited. A climate of joyful fraternity has marked these meetings. All of this is what you and I certainly hope
for in this Chapter under ten 2012.
3. As I did on the occasion of the Chapter
of Mats under ten celebrated in the Holy Land,
and as a preparation for the coming one of 2012,
I am now writing this letter to you. In it, begin3
ning with the theme the brothers wanted to use
for this Chapter, I will speak about our identity
in light of what we promised at our profession,
keeping in mind the challenges that come to us
from contemporary society, in such a way that,
with our eyes always fixed on Jesus, aspicientes
in Iesum (cf. Hb 12, 2), as we are by the slogan
of our Chapter, “let us run with perseverance the
race that is set before us,” and “lay aside every
weight and the sin that clings so closely,” (Hb
12, 1). In this way, my intention is simply to
help you to rekindle the gift of God within you,
the gift of the vocation to which we have been
called (cf. 2Tim 1, 6).
For this reason, I now wish to invite you to
fix your eyes constantly on the Lord to whom
you have dedicated your life. Making use of the
words of our Sister Clare, I invite you to gaze on,
to consider constantly the Mirror, Christ, in order that you may be transformed, internally and
externally, into Him, and become a mirror for
others (cf. 4LtrCl 15-17; 3LtrCl 12-13). Finally,
I invite you to take on passionately “the life according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (cf. 1R
1, 2), and likewise take on the Beatitudes as the
criteria for living at every moment.
4.
I would like to be able to discuss with
each of you what I am about to say to you, but
since I am not able to, for obvious reasons, I am
writing you this letter, aware of my obligation
to “serve and administer the fragrant words of
my Lord” (2LtrF 2). “Kissing your feet”, as is
fitting for one at the service of all (cf. LtrOrd
12), I ask you to receive my words kindly, seeing
in them the affection I feel “with burning charity” for each and every one of you (cf. 4LtrCl
37), so that, without removing your gaze from
Him “whose love enamors” (cf. 4LtrCl 10), and
clinging to Him with your very heartstrings (cf.
4LtrCl 9), you may do what seems to you best to
please the Lord and, as best you can, to follow
His footprints and poverty (cf. LtrL 3).
4
What I say in this letter to you, my dear
brothers under ten, I say also to myself, and to
all the brothers of the Order, since we all need
to recall our resolution, looking with the eyes
of the heart at our beginning (cf. 2LtrCl 11), so
that, “with swift pace, light step, and unswerving feet”, we may follow, joyfully and willingly,
“the path of the beatitudes” (cf. 2LtrCl 12).
5
I
Point of departure:
Some dominant traits
of our society and
culture that can
call our
identity into question
“Always be ready to give an explanation
to anyone who asks you for a reason
for your hope”
(1Pt 3, 15)
7
5.
In speaking of our society and culture,
I cannot pretend to carry out a complete study
of them. That is not the purpose of this letter,
nor would I be the best person to try to do that.
With my emphases, and recognizing that I may
be rather subjective in making them, though that
is certainly not my intention, I simply wish to
share with you, my dear brothers, some traits
that can affect our identity as consecrated persons and Lesser Brothers, and invite you to be
vigilant and discerning, since, considering the
influence that today’s culture exercises in the
Church and in all of us who are part of her, we
may well say that the correlation of forces within
the Church and in society has changed direction.
Confronting a weakened Church is a strong and
attractive post-modern culture that in large part
shapes the sensitivity of believers, conditions
their perception of values and the development
of their choices.
6. As Lesser Brothers, since we do not
come from some other galaxy, we are not exempt from this influence. Therefore it is necessary to put ourselves on guard, without falling
into the obsession of being in a city under siege,
so that we do not let ourselves be swept up in the
negative signs of our society. We cannot simply
close ourselves off to all that comes to us from
contemporary culture, nor can we be so ingenuous that we fail to see its dangers. Our society,
as already recognized by Pastores dabo vobis,
harbors within itself both values and countervalues. As the same document tells us, even
within its negative factors “there may lie hidden
some value which awaits liberation and restoration to its full truth” (Pdv 10). Our attitude, as
Christians and as Lesser Brothers, must therefore
be one, let us say it once more, of vigilance and
discernment, in order to be able to distinguish
what comes from the Lord and what is opposed
to Him (cf. VC 73). How well Paul was able to
express this when he tells us, Test everything; retain what is good (cf. 1Thess 5, 21)!
8
7.
Our society has been defined as a “liquid” or “fluid society”. This leads us to think of
“fluid” or “liquid” as the most apt metaphors for
understanding contemporary culture, defined by
Bauman as a society of uncertainty, in which
almost nothing can be considered permanent or
usually predictable. What exists now may at any
moment stop existing; what is now happening at
the same moment stops happening.
This society can be characterized by some
constant features that I will only briefly note
here.
Precarious commitments and
a weak sense of belonging
8.
In a society that is “liquid and fluid” a
person lives without roots, in relationships that
are fragile, thin, uncertain and provisional. What
is more, for Erickson and other great psychoanalysts, one of the characteristics of recent generations will be a deficit of “basic trust” and a
radical insecurity, which will not allow them to
ground themselves on a firm footing, and leads
them to live in fear of an uncertain future. One’s
own insecurity and the difficulty of trusting in
others and in the Other are paired with this syndrome of basic mistrust.
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I - Point of departure
A liquid or
fluid society
All of this lends a precarious quality to commitments, to unions and attachments, to the
point that institutions that just yesterday seemed
points of reference, like the family, the neighborhood, the community, are today, in the words
of U. Beck, “zombie categories … dead but still
alive”. At the same time the sense of belonging is weakened. Persons of the stature of A.
Maslow include this sense of belonging among
the six basic life needs of a person and, as such,
an important component of identity. One does
not know who he is when he does not know to
whom he belongs. Everyone knows that a life
that is broken up and fragmented creates a multitude of weak examples of belonging, and at the
same time weakens strong examples of belonging, above all in relation to institutions with a
universal character. In such cases the attachment
tends to be rather precarious, and the trust invested in them rather weak.
All of this ends up killing passion and choking out commitment as soon as it is formulated,
opening the way to a path of sensitivity totally
directed by affectivity: what is pleasing to a
person, whether good or bad, such that a behavior has value because one does it, not because
it has value in itself. And it ends up preferring
pure spontaneity to authenticity. Here arise the
conflicts between today’s culture and a life-long
commitment, one of the inalienable dimensions
of our form of life (cf. 2R 2, 12-13). And we ask
ourselves: How is it possible to propose a commitment for all of one’s life? How can we demand a fidelity that is not simply obstinate perseverance?
But even in spite of these difficulties, thanks
be to God, there are many brothers who remain
faithful to this commitment. There is no lack,
of course, of those who leave, which makes us
suffer greatly and weakens the Order so much.
And there are brothers who live a tepid fidelity
or a mechanical one; brothers who comply externally but have lost inner motivation and vital10
Franciscan life, professing the Gospel as its
norm of life, and which gives itself perpetually
to the following of the poor and crucified Christ,
is a song of praise of this fidelity as a noble aspiration and careful spiritual task. In our culture
of “contract,” fidelity is not in style, and for this
reason the world needs witnesses of that which
endures forever. Our society needs hearts open
to grace, which remain faithful to their initial
commitment. Yes, our culture needs Franciscans
who remain faithful, despite the difficulties that
the path includes.
The crisis of interpersonal relationships
9. As a consequence of what was said ear-
lier, we are witnessing today a major crisis in
interpersonal relationships. Though we are unbelievably skillful in the complexities of technology, we are almost illiterate in interpersonal
relationships, and in place of authentic relationships merely virtual relationships are built and
preferred over authentic ones. Our world is one
of multiple relationships: brief relationships,
and without commitment. This ends in rejecting that which one does not like or is not useful
to him, and does not serve him. Carried away
by the most extreme individualism, many men
and women, including more than a few in consecrated life (which remains a profound paradox)
will make no commitment to anything or anyone. Their concept of freedom is fundamentally
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I - Point of departure
ity, and whose lives for that reason have ceased
to be meaningful. There are also brothers who
maintain a solid basic fidelity even though the
lively spirit of continuing evangelical growth
is blurred. Though all of this is true, I am glad
to say nevertheless that in many brothers, and
I would say the majority, there is a lively and
admirable evangelical fidelity marked by being
thankful, modest, concrete and merciful.
flawed: it is pure freedom “from”, with no freedom “for”. “Discard after use” seems to be the
philosophy of many of our contemporaries.
All of this converges in an indifference in the
face of the needs of the other, and in a lack of responsibility toward others. Many of our contemporaries seem to be by-standers, silent witnesses
who see and hear but do not act, forgetting that
“Today too, the Lord’s voice summons all of
us to be concerned for one another. Even today
God asks us to be “guardians” of our brothers
and sisters (Gen 4:9), to establish relationships
based on mutual consideration and attentiveness to the well-being, the integral well-being of
others”1.
We are not immune to this deformation or
crisis of interpersonal relationships. It is true that
there are many brothers who live for others, who
consciously look at others in order to discover
what they need even before they ask, in such a
way that, concerned for each other (cf. Hb 10,
24), they are aware of the reality in which they
live and constantly foster an outlook of fraternity, solidarity, justice, mercy and compassion.
Our tradition has always emphasized fraternity
as a basic value of the form of life we have embraced, and there are many, I would say the great
majority, who live joyfully the gift of fraternity
and build it up with a great spirit of generosity and expropriation. These brothers live their
bonds with the other brothers in a healthy way,
without creating forms of dependency nor tolerating them, and in their daily lives show a high
level of availability, just as our consecration
asks of us, agreeing to the most humble forms
of service in the fraternity in a spirit of loving
obedience and communal co-responsibility.
Nevertheless it is also true that among us there
are brothers who experience difficulty in joining
the fraternity’s plan for life and mission. There
are among us some who are dominated by the
1
Benedict XVI, Message for Lent 2012, 1.
12
A culture of the individual
10.
The crisis in interpersonal relationships is both the effect and, simultaneously, the
cause of a culture of the individual, in which the
other does not count. This has many manifestations, for example: the exaggerated or even desperate cult of one’s body and physical well-being;
extreme individualism; the uncontrolled seeking
of self-realization; social exclusion; the suffocating restrictions of the small territory of our own
narcissism; and above all, an infinite number of
fears: abandonment, insecurity, loss … . The crisis of interpersonal relationships is also manifested in the constant begging for love, appreciation,
praise, unquestioning admiration …
This chain continues with a fear of diversity. In a society like the one we are describing, “the other” bothers us, since he calls into
question the individual, casting doubt on one’s
infallible sources of security, with an invitation
to open the windows, to look outside, to listen to
other voices, and, if this listening is authentic,
oblige us to change, to feel that we are pilgrims
and strangers, to live sine proprio. This creates
fear and, consciously or not, one seeks to cancel
differences, avoid conflict, and “eliminate” the
other, constructing a world of solitaries in company, incapable of establishing meaningful and
solid relationships. One is at the same time the
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I - Point of departure
desire to be always the center of attention. They
are thus incapable of giving up any part of “my”
plan in order to build “our” plan, a community
plan for living, for fraternal relationships and
for mission. These brothers are living in a deep
crisis of interpersonal relationships. What is
needed, as we have insisted, is vigilance and discernment if we do not want to become a part of a
rather large number of those who are consumers
of fraternity, rather than its builders.
victim and also the creator of a relationship vacuum, the absence of common spaces for being
together and sharing a bit of life. In this context
it is necessary to be vigilant in order not to close
ourselves within what belongs to me, in order to
open ourselves to the universal. Our cloister, as
Lesser Brothers, is the world.
Everything and immediately
11.
Another aspect that seems to characterize our liquid society is that it offers a lifestyle marked by “everything and immediately”.
Thanks to technical progress, production and
consumption have been converted into two great
motors of social life, provoking a dynamic that
appears insatiable: we must produce in order to
consume and we must consume in order to produce. In this consumeristic context there is a
growing inability to defer satisfaction and there
is little tolerance for the frustration of our desires, plans and expectations.
This “everything and immediately” has a great
effect on the senses with its great sensory impact,
from which the idea arises that existence itself is
a spasmodic search for a carefree state of pleasure
for which the body is merely an instrument. And
if feeling pleasure is in itself a characteristic of
the human being, and indicates a positive capacity, the problem arises when it becomes a radical
and exclusive motivation for human actions, as
seems to happen today, as it is concentrated more
in sensations than in the action itself.
And yet we still meet brothers who, with a
mature attitude and an option to live sine proprio which immunizes them against the relentless temptation of consumption, show they are
able to defer their desires and to manage well
even the frustration of these desires. The life of
a Lesser Brother is called to be today as never
14
Indifference, disenchantment,
eclipse of an ethic of commitment
12. Our society is one that is profoundly
marked by indifference, dominated by disenchantment, and scourged by the eclipse of an
ethic of commitment.
Indifference can be felt in relation to God,
to evangelical values, and to “the other.” God
is not denied, but is simply not a problem for
many. The evangelical values are not opposed
openly, there are simply many who do not consider them a way of living that could touch them.
The “other” is there, but ignored, and for many
he counts only when useful for carrying out my
personal plans.
A fruit of nihilism, the syndrome of indifference is even more perverse than affirmation
or negation, because it is disguised as tolerance,
though it imposes a fiction of reality masquerading as present-ism, a culture of “live for the day,”
which ends by showing itself as a dictatorship of
what exists. And the price paid to liberate oneself from the weight of the past is the denial of
inhabiting the future.
Disenchantment, especially regarding technical and scientific resources, is becoming generalized. But as we have already mentioned,
there is also disenchantment toward ideals, eroding the search for utopian horizons and ending
in the eclipse of an ethic of commitment, especially if this is definitive, in favor of any type of
growth, personal and social, with the prevailing
law of minimum effort and going with the flow.
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I - Point of departure
before an alternative way of living that produces
freedom and joy, and that denounces, meekly
and intrepidly, a consumerism that produces insensitivity, slavery and idolatry.
Our identity
at stake
13. I have spoken of disenchantment and
it is true. Yet, on the other hand, post-modernity, in which we are completely immersed, has a
great seductive capacity; it fascinates; and it is
thus attractive, becoming for many the gospel of
the present moment, which is based on neutralizing the past, or even forgetting it entirely. It contains many dangers, because as it wishes to save
history from the memoria passionis, it uproots
the human person, making the person forgetful,
floating. Its exclusive paradigm is a distorted
humanism, based on experience, subjectivity,
intimacy. In this way the person becomes the
center of the interpretation of all experience, criterion of decisions and plans for all of reality,
including even God.
What we have just said questions our identity and can influence it. What aspects of our
life can be shaken by what we have called the
seductive sensitivity of post-modernity? Let us
examine a few of these.
A choice for a lifetime
Our vocational choice to follow Christ according to the way of life given to us by Francis
is a choice that involves the whole person, and
is made for a lifetime. Our vocational choice
16
And since God has not given us a spirit of
cowardice, but of strength (cf. 2Tim 1, 7), our
vocational choice also grows out of trust in the
ability to detach ourselves from sensory data and
enter into the search for truth, allowing ourselves
to be attracted by the world of values, of what
is true, good and beautiful, and transcending the
present moment, which is changeable and passing, to grasp the meaning of life and love, of sexuality, and the capacity for relationship, until we
discover that beyond things, beyond feelings and
desires, beyond the passions, there is something
definitive and solid, something that is the source
of all affection, that gives meaning to every encounter.
A choice for Someone who transcends us
Another characteristic of our form of life
is that it is fundamentally oriented toward
Someone who transcends us, toward Someone
who is above us. In other words, our form of life
moves us to discover the reality hidden beyond
immediate appearances, and to have the courage
to make a choice and embrace all the essential
values of our identity, in such a way that we are
ready to risk our very lives for Him who has first
loved us.
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I - Point of departure
as Lesser Brothers is based on a perspective that
goes beyond the hic et nunc, opening itself to a
“forever” based on trust in Him for whom nothing is impossible (cf. Lk 1, 37), and in the certainty that everything is possible in Him who gives
us grace (cf. 2Tim 1, 4; Phil 4, 3). A lifelong
commitment is one of the fundamental dimensions of the existence of every Lesser Brother,
and it demands a fidelity that, far from being obstinate perseverance based on mere will-power,
is instead the love that resists the wear of time,
because, if it is real, love never fails (cf. 1Cor
13, 8).
For this reason renunciation has a meaning,
as a part of every person’s existence and, for this
reason, part of religious life and Franciscan life,
in such a way that whoever does not learn renunciation grows ever more distant from reality,
from the possibility of accomplishing something
serious and definitive in life.
Living within the logic of gift
Our life does not make sense from a narcissistic point of view, curved inward exclusively on
itself, and which has nothing to do with healthy
self-esteem. Our life is for the Other and for the
others. Our self-realization, as Lesser Brothers,
necessarily stands on that unconditional selfgiving, without refunds, to the Lord and to the
brothers. “I give myself with all my heart to this
fraternity,” we said on the day of our profession
(CCGG 5 §2). We have freely accepted to live
based on an attitude of oblation and on the logic
of gift, as a prophetic alternative to the logic of
price, of power and of possession (cf. BGG 12).
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I - Point of departure
Choice of a
countercultural life
14.
Because of what was said above, we
must be very conscious that our form of life, our
life choice as Lesser Brothers, is countercultural
within the cultural context whose most significant traits we have just sketched. In fact, our
choice of life has the pretension, and certainly
an evangelical pretension, to be an alternative to
that culture, in that it arises, like any consecrated
life, to reaffirm the basic characteristic of the human person: unconditional openness to the Other
and to the others, so that one may be oneself, and
the capacity for relationship with God, with others, –those nearby and those far away-, and with
other creatures.
But our life will be alternative to the degree
that it is careful and vigilant not to become a victim of that culture of cellophane, of appearance,
which we rightly criticize; of the subtle virus of
individualism, self-ism, and narcissism; of an
obsessive search for self-realization, of misunderstood spontaneity … Our life, is it wishes
to continue being alternative, significant and a
legible sign, first of all for ourselves and then
also for others, must be on guard, in order not
to allow itself to be violently dragged away by
the negative tendencies of today’s culture which
we have already mentioned. If we do not wish to
lose places and spaces of relationship and identity, and live within a precarious identity, fragile
and liquid, constantly questioning itself and re19
turning to choices that have already been made
definitive, giving in to a relativism that puts everything at the same level, and that pretends that
what exists today may not exist tomorrow, we
must live in a constant attitude of discernment.
In this context of a choice for a countercultural life, I reaffirm a strong personal conviction:
ongoing and initial formation must be much
more demanding that what they are currently,
which does not mean they should be rigid, not
at all. Called to be masters in humanity, our formation, that which we receive and that which we
give, must join humanity with the radicality of
the Gospel. Only in this way will it prepare us
adequately to give the reason for our vocational
choices in a world like ours, where such choices
are far from being valued and which are, paradoxically, always contemporary.
It is not permisiveness with ourselves and
with those who call at the doors of our houses
that which will prepare us to be prophets in a
society with a deep need for prophetic witnesses.
The times in which we have been called to live
are not for cowards, but for strong men, “rooted
and built on Christ, and established in the faith”
(Col 2, 7), solidly founded on a hope that does
not disappoint (cf. Rom 5, 5).
Our formation must develop many topics,
such as: basic trust, deepening of faith and the
experience of belief, a passion for the Lord and
for humanity, self-discipline, a sense of belonging to the Order, to the Church, to Christ, and
fidelity. This is a certainly a challenge, but in
the answer we will give there is at stake our very
identity.
20
How does the fluid society in
which we live call into question
your identity as a Lesser Brother?
How are you trying to respond to
that questioning and those challenges?
What positive aspects do you think the
“new culture” has contributed to our life?
How does the formation to fidelity that we
receive prepare us when faced with a society like ours?
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I - Point of departure
Which of the challenges noted
above do you think are having the biggest influence on
your life right now?
II
AN IMPORTANT
CHALLENGE:
REVITALIZING OUR LIFE
AND MISSION
IN ORDER TO EVANGELIZE
POSTMODERNITY
“New wine in new wineskins”
(Mt 9, 17)
23
15.
Our era is not a hostile environment
for the experience of God, nor for taking the
Gospel as Rule and life, just as we have done
by our religious profession in the Order of Friars
Minor (cf. 2R 1, 1). Post-modernity is simply a
particular opportunity to live the experience of
God and our condition as men consecrated to the
Gospel cause. It is a new way of seeing the world
and life which, obviously, has important consequences for the way we live. In this context the
principal challenge confronting us, and to which
it is urgent that we give an adequate response, is
that of revitalizing our life and mission, as the
last General Chapter of 2009 asked us to do (cf.
BGG 31).
Such revitalization, among other things,
includes: Leading a life that is radically evangelical; being signs of meaning, communicating
meaning; and revisiting our identity as Lesser
Brothers.
24
16.
The time in which we live, “full of
hopes, new experiments and proposals aimed
at giving fresh vigor to the profession of the
evangelical counsels”, is also a time that is difficult and trying, as we were reminded by Vita
Consecrata (cf. VC 13). Religious life, and
with it Franciscan life, need a profound renewal
which, based on a creative fidelity (cf. VC 37) to
its own charism, will lead it also to respond to
the signs of the times and places, “pleas that the
Spirit makes to us and which ask for a response”
from us (cf. BGG 14). The effort to revisit our
own identity, which I will address in the third
part of this letter, aims to do precisely that.
In this commitment we can do no less than
begin from the Gospel. If all religious life, as
Benedict XVI affirms, is born from listening to
the Word of God (cf. VD 83), I believe that is especially true of Franciscan life, since it claims its
originality within religious life in the fact of professing the Gospel as “rule and life” (1R 1, 1).
Facing the tiredness, routine and even stagnation that we frequently decry, if we wish to
stir up the fire hidden beneath the ashes of our
life and mission, it is not enough to make an
analysis of the present situation, nor to think of
strategies designed to shape our future. Today
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II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
A life that
is radically
evangelical
it is absolutely necessary to start out from the
Gospel, the origin of our fraternity (cf. BGG 6),
to place the Gospel, in every moment and in all
circumstances, with its most radical demands, at
the foundation of our daily life, the first and last
criterion of our choices, both as individuals and
as a fraternity. After all, what is most urgent is
to listen and obey what Jesus asks of us at the beginning of His mission: “Repent, that is, believe
in the Gospel” (Mk 1, 15).
In this context, we must allow the Gospel to
dwell within us, as the determining element of
what we are and what we do. This is not simply
a Gospel made into doctrines or morality, and
even less an ideology, but taken on as a form of
life and communicated more by our life than our
words.
Dear brothers under ten, the world, even our
society that is post-modern or, as some say, preChristian, has need of witnesses, of living gospels, like Francis. The disciples of Christ, and
even more those of us who have professed to live
the Gospel, are called to be a living exegesis of
the Word, that is, of Christ Himself, as Benedict
XVI asks us to be (cf. VD 83). Our contemporaries certainly will not follow those who appropriate the Gospel as a dead letter, those “who
only wish to know the words and interpret them
to others”, but rather one who lets himself be
brought to life by the spirit of the divine letter
and “with word and example” restore them to
others (cf. Adm 7, 3-4). This is the time for witnesses and also of teachers as long as they are
also witnesses (cf. EN 14). This is the moment
for welcoming the Gospel with complete openness, like Mary, in order to be its witnesses, in
fraternity, to a world that on many occasions has
more than enough reasons to mistrust us. This is
your moment!
In his account of the impression of the
Stigmata, the Seraphic Doctor tells us that, once
“concluded the space of forty days that he had
26
A group of Greeks wanted to see Jesus, and
Philip serves as intermediary with Him (Jn 12,
20- 21). Today there are many men and women,
especially young people, who wish to see Jesus.
It is up to us, especially you younger brothers,
to show Jesus to them with an evangelical life,
with an existence transformed by the love of
Christ, Gospel of the Father to humanity. It is
up to us, after gazing attentively at the Mirror, to
be transformed into images of His divinity (cf.
3LtrCl 12-13). Only in this way, with words and
with deeds, will we be able to give witness to
His voice and make known that there is no other
Almighty One besides Him (cf. LtrOrd 9).
For Francis the Gospel has a very specific
face: Jesus Christ, the Son of God (cf. Mk 1, 1).
“Let us go and ask Christ for counsel”, Francis
would say to one who asks what we should
do. And immediately he opens the book of the
Gospels (cf. 2Cel 15). In the book he meets the
Word, in the words the Word hides and speaks.
And since for us, as for Francis, the Gospel is a
person, the person of Jesus (cf. 2Cel 15; L3C 2729; AP 10-11), this means, then, to identify ourselves with Him, let ourselves be transformed by
Him, let the uncontainable fire of His love be set
in us, and once having searched for God’s good
pleasure, to conform our life to it in everything.
Having professed the Gospel as rule and life
27
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
proposed to spend in solitude”, Francis, the
friend of Christ, “came down from the mountain
[…] bearing the likeness of the Crucified” (LM
XIII, 5). Francis is now not just the herald of the
Great King, but the living icon of the Crucified, a
reproduction and living copy. Francis is one with
Christ. The lover, Francis, was transformed internally and externally into the Beloved, Christ.
With good reason the Poverello is called alter
Christus. This is, my dear brothers, the first form
of evangelizing the society in which we live: being parables of Christ, His epiphanies, His diaphonies.
thus means putting Christ at the center of our life,
to have an experience of the Absolute, receiving
it as the totality of our life and mission, until we
can say with Francis: You are all, “the good, allgood, the highest good,” “You are all our riches
to sufficiency (PrG 3. 5), or with Paul: “I consider all as loss because of the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I
have suffered the loss of all” (Phil 3, 8ff).
On the other hand, to speak of a life and mission that has the Gospel as its rule and form of
life, is to speak of something radical, or, if you
wish, of a life that is rooted (which is what radical really means) in the Gospel. Neither what is
today’s fad, nor what all the others are doing can
be the point of reference at the moment for discerning and evaluating our life and mission. The
Gospel, and only the Gospel, is to be the enduring criterion of discernment and evaluation of
our existence and of all that we do. Only in this
way will we be able to respond fully to our vocation to be a living Gospel, a living exegesis of
the Word. To adopt other criteria of discernment
or evaluation would quickly lead us to a style of
living marked by mediocrity. And for a Lesser
Brother mediocrity is infidelity, grave infidelity,
to the form of life he embraced by his profession.
28
What does it mean for you to
have professed the Gospel as
“rule and life”?
What does the Gospel mean for
you? An ideology or a person, the
person of Jesus?
Do you allow yourself to be questioned by
the Gospel? Do you attend the school of
the Gospel?
What positive experience have you had in
your life of making the Gospel your food?
What difficulties do you find in this?
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II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
When you have an important decision to make in your life, do you
ask Christ for counsel, as Francis
did?
The Beatitudes
and our life as
Lesser Brothers
17.
A life oriented to evangelical radicality
cannot simply be reduced to the observance of
some texts, nor a list of behaviors, nor a return to
elements of the past. A life oriented to evangelical radicality includes welcoming the message
of Jesus in its totality, following his footprints,
as our father Saint Francis wished. And here we
touch directly on the subject of the Beatitudes in
our life.
How can we define the Beatitudes? The
Beatitudes are like a “type of self-portrait of
Christ” (VS 16). He is the Blessed One, the
Holy One par excellence, the fullness of the
Law. What Jesus affirms is what He lives. On
the other hand, and this stands out dramatically,
the Beatitudes, in the words of H. de Lubac, are
some of the paradoxes with which the Gospel is
filled, thanks to which the spirit is awakened2.
And this page of the Gospel contrasts so strongly with our present way of thinking, of seeing
things, of living, that of course it must have the
effect of shocking us, and this is its paradoxical character, and facing it neither you nor I can
stay neutral. Since, like every human being, we
are called to happiness, and by our profession we
have embraced a form of life that requires that
2
Cf. H. de Lubac, Paradojas seguido de Nuevas paradojas, PPC, Madrid 1997, 10.
30
we observe the Holy Gospel, we have obliged
ourselves – no one forced us – to take on the
Beatitudes as a path to happiness.
The Beatitudes can be classified in three
groups. Three of them touch on the interior dispositions of the disciple: the poor, the meek and
the clean of heart. Three of them concern action
and apostolic purposes: those referring to hunger
and thirst, to the merciful and those who work
for peace. Finally, the third group is made up of
those regarding the consequences of Christian
behavior and apostolic commitment, that is,
those that speak of the injured, persecuted and
afflicted.
These three groups coincide with the three
types of recommendations that Jesus gives to his
disciples when He sends them out on mission
(cf. Lk 10, 1-20). The first refers to the attitude
of detachment and poverty: take with you no
purse, nor sack, nor sandals. The second has as
its object the mission: a mission of peace and of
justice, when you enter a house, first say, “Peace
to this house”. Finally, the third confronts the
likelihood of persecution: See, I am sending you
like sheep in the midst of wolves. On the other
hand, the canticle of the Magnificat (cf. Lk 1, 4631
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
But some of you might ask, What does it
mean to take on the Beatitudes in our own life? I
think that to take on the Beatitudes in one’s own
life demands changing profoundly our manner
of existence, our way of thinking and loving, our
way of behaving and acting. As baptized persons, and even more as consecrated persons and
Lesser Brothers, we are called, in Jesus, to be
converted into new men, to adopt a new spirit,
to acquire a new heart. And it is this unheardof novelty, surprising and disconcerting, that the
Beatitudes describe: the special fortune of the
poor, the rare joy of the persecuted, the strange
power of the meek, the humanly inexplicable joy
of the afflicted, of those who weep and are persecuted, because God intervenes in their favor.
55) and the eight signs of the Spirit in the Letter
to the Galatians (cf. Gal 5, 22-25), offer, each
in its own way, the same totality of Beatitudes,
which, like the text of the Beatitudes in Matthew
and Luke, reveal paradoxical attitudes that are
diametrically opposed to the philosophy and the
customs of the world.
Since the Beatitudes are the portrait of Jesus,
and summarize His life, they are also the portrait
and summarize the life of the disciple of Jesus.
In this sense, the Beatitudes are a baptismal catechesis and a breviary of Christian life, an indicative that becomes an imperative for everyone
who wishes to follow Jesus, called to enflesh the
attitudes described in that discourse. This means
that, like Jesus, the disciple is called to be in his
environment a living sign of contradiction, a
stumbling block for the Jews, and folly for the
Gentiles, but wisdom for those called by God (cf.
1Cor 1, 17-29; 4, 9-13).
What we have said of the disciple is applicable to every Lesser Brother, who also is called to
follow the footprints of Jesus (cf. 1Pt 2, 21), and
have His same sentiments (cf. Phil 2, 5). The following of Christ in our life brings with it real and
progressive configuration to Him. On the other
hand, our life is a fundamental option for Christ
and a passionate search for the Kingdom that the
Lord proclaims and promises in the Sermon on
the Mount. As Lesser Brothers, citizens of the
Kingdom, we are called to enflesh the plan of
life contained in the Beatitudes, to live the style
of life that this program contains.
Like every disciple, as Lesser Brothers we
also are called to make the Beatitudes the daily
criterion of life, seeking with hunger the justice
of the Kingdom, remaining of one piece and
clean of heart, suffering because this world is
far from justice, but also knowing that God will
change this situation. Like every self-respecting
disciple, the genuine Lesser Brother will remain
humble before God and people and full of pa32
tience, will give himself to others without judging them, pardoning them, helping them and mediating their conflicts. And if because of this he
is persecuted, he must consider himself fortunate
and happy, for he will inherit eternal blessedness.
This implies living in a permanent attitude
of conversion that will be expressed in a change
of logic. Moving from an “economic” logic that
dominates in our society, and that consists in
seeking the maximum benefit with the minimum
effort and cost, to the logic of the Kingdom,
which consists in reaching the maximum of love,
cost what it will, including death. This is the
logic presented to us by the Beatitudes: “there
is greater happiness in giving that in receiving”
(Acts 20, 35; cf. Lk 14, 12-14). This is the logic
of giving without possibility of refund, without
personal interest, and without seeking a way to
be paid or recompensed.
“Blessed …”
18.
The key word that will be repeated at
the beginning of each Beatitude and which give
the title to the Sermon on the Mount, or the Plain,
is “blessed”. In Greek makarios can be translated by “blessed, fortunate, happy, lucky”, and
expresses the condition of the person on whom
divine benevolence has come to rest, coming in
this way to the realization of his highest aspirations. Such a person is happy because he feels
loved by a faithful love, and he realizes that his
33
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
Religious life and, with it, Franciscan life,
are unthinkable without the presence of the
Beatitudes, without their radicalism, their spirit.
Paul VI already noted this in affirming that in
religious life it is necessary to have “a true initiation oriented toward Christianizing one’s being
at the deepest level, according to the evangelical
Beatitudes” (ET 36).
condition, which in human terms is unfortunate,
has finally been given value and exalted.
In the Beatitudes Jesus speaks to every candidate for happiness, and to each one of us, to
each one of you, my dear young brothers. The
Master speaks to our restless heart, our thirst for
love, our need for happiness, the need that dwells
in the deepest part of our heart to be recognized
in our most authentic identity, loved with pure
affection, total, beautiful, enduring forever.
My dear brothers: I invite you to place yourselves, even if only for a brief moment, at the
foot of the mountain, where Jesus is speaking,
according to the version of Matthew, which we
will follow in our brief commentary. There,
close to the Sea of Galilee, the very Word of God
that resounded on Sinai to give Moses the written Law, is that which Jesus allows us to hear
once again on the “mountain”, with one great
difference: while the ancient Law was written
on stone, the new Law is written on the human
heart. From the lips of Jesus we hear:
Blessed are the poor (cf. Mt 5, 3; Lk 6,
20), those who leave all for Jesus (cf. Lk 5,
11), and choose to be of no account, to be beggars of God, and mendicants of meaning. In a
Franciscan logic radical poverty is expressed in
living sine proprio, living free from any attachment: free in relation to ourselves, knowing that
what one is before God that one is, and no more
(cf. Adm 19, 1-2); free in relation to God, returning to the Lord God all that one receives (cf.
Adm 18, 2), and glorying only in one’s weakness
(cf. Adm 5, 8); free in relation to others, without
exalting oneself more over the good that God
says and does through him than what he says
and does through others, and does not demand
from others what he is not ready to give himself
(cf. Adm 8, 3; 11, 2-4; 17, 1-2), free in relation to
things, despising them and keeping free from attachments to them (cf. Adm 16, 2). The rich man
considers himself lucky because he can enjoy
34
his possessions. The poor, like Francis of Assisi,
derive their happiness from another source: in
God in whom they trust. The one who is poor is
the one who relies on God and abandons himself
into God’s hands. One is poor, really poor, if all
that he has is God.
Blessed are those who weep (cf. Mt 5, 5; Lk
6, 21), those who share the joys and sorrows, the
anguish and hopes of our brothers and sisters.
And they not only share, even more: they suffer
with others. As Lesser Brothers, aware that our
vocation is to follow Christ (cf. 1Pt 2, 21; 1R
22, 2: Adm 6, 1-2), to whom we deeply long to
belong, we wish to open ourselves to the sufferings and hopes of humanity and the world,
in whose midst our evangelical consecration is
present in order to be ourselves the consolation
of those who weep (cf. Is 61, 2; cf. 40, 1), and
in this way, to be a special sign of the presence
of God.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst (cf.
Mt 5, 6; Lk 6, 21). As those who are hungry and
thirsty for God, the God who is living and true
(1Thess 1, 9), we want to be Lesser Brothers
during the whole time of our lives. Hungry and
35
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
Blessed are the meek (cf. Mt 5, 4), those who
conquer evil with good, those who are humble
before God, the patient and those who are kind
toward others (cf. Col 3, 12-14). This is true
meekness. Facing the hardness and Pharisaical
self-justification the meek person is humble before God, because he is aware of his sin, and
he is sweetness, relief and strength for others,
whose burdens he bears (cf. Adm 18, 1). Called
to be meek, as Lesser Brothers we want to follow the Lord who is meek and humble of heart
(cf. Mt 11, 29). The Lesser Brother who is meek
before the Most High, Almighty and good Lord,
asks, like Francis, who he is; and before others
he does not impose himself, masters himself, always ready to bend down and humble himself
(cf. Adm 10, 3; 22, 2).
thirsty for justice for those who see their rights
infringed in an unjust social situation; hungry
and thirsty for a justice which is not that of the
Pharisees, formed on the basis of observances
and fulfilling directives (cf. Mt 5, 30), but a justice that consists in loving our enemies, doing
good to those who hate us, blessing those who
curse us, praying for those who mistreat us (cf.
Lk 6, 27s), showing love to all of them with our
deeds (cf. James 2, 18), (cf. Adm 9, 4). Hungry
and thirsty for a justice that is universal fraternity, boundless love for our brothers, whatever
their condition: friends or enemies, domestic or
foreign, near or far, rich or poor.
Blessed are the merciful (cf. Mt 5, 7), those
who have a heart full of mercy and act with
motherly tenderness, as God acts (cf. Lk 6, 36),
those who do not grieve over injuries done to
them (cf. Adm 9, 2; 10, 1); those who always
pardon, without setting themselves up as judges;
those who do not refuse mercy to those who ask
for it and offer it to those who do not ask for it
(cf. LtrMin 7ff.); those who, after the example
of Christ (cf. Hb 4, 15), have no conditions for
sympathizing with the weaknesses of others. In
the Lord we Lesser Brothers experience the mercy that God shows to us. From Christ we learn
to be merciful.
Blessed are the pure of heart (cf. Mt 5, 8;
Adm 16), those who cling internally and unconditionally to the will of the Lord (cf. Ps 24, 4),
those who like Mary truly say: “Here I am, let it
be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1,
38), and those who like Francis, having heard the
Gospel of the sending of the disciples, immediately put it into practice (cf. 1Cel 22). Those are
pure of heart who do not return to the vomit of
their own will (cf. Adm 3, 10), nor appropriate it
to themselves (cf. Adm 2, 3), but rather by word
and example put into practice the will of the
Lord (cf. Adm 7, 4); and those who never cease
to adore the Lord God living and true with a pure
heart and soul (Adm 16, 2). Since we have prom36
ised to observe the Gospel faithfully (cf. 2R 1,1),
as Lesser Brothers we can say that this Beatitude
is the basis for all the others.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for the
sake of justice (cf. Mt 5, 10; 1Pt 3, 14; 4, 2-19),
those who because of their love for the Father
and their brothers combat evil in all its forms;
those who are persecuted because of their faith
in Christ and their fidelity to Him; those who do
not look back after putting their hand to the plow
(cf. 2R 2, 12-13).
Dear brothers: this is our plan of life: making
Jesus our life and our rule of life; this is the Good
News that Jesus has given to us, which the wise
cannot understand, but which the Spirit allows
the poor and simple to understand, like Francis
(Cf. Mt 11, 25). This is our way of living and of
proclaiming what we live, as the Franciscan fraternity did from its very beginnings (cf. BGG 7).
37
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
Blessed are the peacemakers (cf. Mt 5, 9),
the builders of fraternity; those who work untiringly in order that all may consider themselves
and be respected as brothers; those who live fully reconciled with themselves, with others and
with God; those who place their trust not in war
but in dialogue, in respect for justice and in unconditional pardon; those who recognize themselves and others as children of one and the same
Father; those who “in the midst of the things they
suffer in this world, preserve peace in their soul
and body, out of love of our Lord Jesus Christ”
(Adm 15).
Read once again the text of the
Beatitudes:
How do you feel toward this
plan of life that Jesus offers us
in the discourse on the mountain?
What aspects in your life do you
discover as being in harmony
with this discourse, and what aspects do you need to work on in
order to make the Beatitudes the criterion of your being and doing?
How can you continue integrating the
Beatitudes constantly into your life?
38
19.
We touch here, dear brothers, a basic
aspect of our life: the need to be meaningful, that
is, to produce meaning, to communicate meaning.
If our life is in crisis it will not be because
we decrease in number or because our median
age increases, but because perhaps we are losing
meaning, becoming insignificant. If this were
true it would be a clear sign of decadence in us.
Contrary to what we often think and what many
think, the decadence of religious life and of
Franciscan life is not found in numerical diminishment, but in the terrifying possibility that we
allow the salt – the salt of our life – to become
tasteless, and the light – the light of our form of
life -- remains hidden (cf. Mt 5, 13-16).
It is clear that when we speak of the need to
be meaningful we are focusing on the meaning
of the Gospel, that which refers to the Gospel
according to the form of life left to us by our father and Brother Francis. On the other hand, the
question about meaning is based on the capacity
to be a language of witness that notices the questions people have about themselves and about
the ultimate meaning of life.
On the other hand, to speak of meaning is to
39
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
To be meaningful,
to communicate
meaning
speak of signs that are visible, credible, eloquent
and, in our case, Franciscan. A sign is valid if it
is clear, eloquent and transparent. The same is
true of our life. But be careful: meaning disappears and makes values disappear when it looks
only toward reinforcing externals, forms, works,
and forgets the roots, the essence, the foundations of our life and mission. It is evident that
we need external signs, as for example the habit
– the sign is visible or it does not exist -, but it
must be, at the same time, credible and eloquent,
and this will be possible if it is accompanied and
explained by our life. This is not just any life,
but an existence that responds to the demands
of the form of life we embraced by our profession3, with an existence that points toward the
Essential that we wish to proclaim by our life
and our word. Nothing would be gained from an
external sign if our life contradicts what the sign
in itself signifies.
To live in obedience,
without anything of our own, and in chastity
20.
Among the elements that can make
our life more meaningful, besides the others we
will examine in relation to our identity, are the
vows. When lived adequately, and for those who
have received the grace to understand (cf. Mt 19,
11), they not only lead to fullness of life, but also
become prophecy in action, like the life of some
of the prophets (cf. Jer 16, 1ff). For this reason
the vows cannot be considered as private property. The vows are to be lived in such a way that
they are legible signs for the men and women of
today and, in this way, they can contribute positively to the evangelization of our postmodern
society. In this sense the vows are to be lived as
freedom from, from the predominant character
of passion, and as freedom for, in order to love
3
Cf. LG, 44.
40
God and others, especially the excluded, the suffering, the unloved, and all of this in an unlimited way, since authentic love, as Saint Augustine
would say, has as its only limit no limits.
What is the ultimate reason for the vows?
Consecrated life, including ours, is what J. B.
Metz would call passion for God. The passion
of God is contagious and spreads its contagion to
humanity, in such a way that consecrated life is
nothing other than a passionate search for God as
a response to His passionate search for humanity. This passion of consecrated person springs
from our personal relationship with Jesus.
Only based on this passion for God, placing
God in first place, can we understand our vows,
as constitutive elements of consecrated life, and
the subordination of the passions to this passion for God. In this way, the vow of chastity
directs our passion for pleasure to the one who is
beauty; the vow to live without anything of our
own orients our passion for ownership toward
the One who is all our riches to sufficiency; the
vow of obedience directs and informs our passion for power toward the power that is humility.
In this way with Francis we can say that only He
is good, all good, the highest good, Deus meus et
Omnia (cf. PrG 4. 5).
Thus the vows are not the repression of pas41
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
We frequently complain of the growing
distance of our society from the values of the
Gospel and of the slavery suffered by human
beings today to things, to sex, to their ego, but
we have difficulty recognizing that all of that
is possible also because those of us who should
guarantee a certain contribution of spirituality to
this world and this society, which would be able
to impede this process, do not do this: whether
because we are not convinced, or because we are
ashamed to do this, or because we do it partially
and in a way that is hardly convincing or barely
understandable.
sion, nor can they be lived as repression. Clearly
the vows place limits, but this is a limitation that
liberates from passion. Even if in them there
is an element of negation, it only concerns the
predominant character of passion. The vows, in
order to have meaning in today’s world, must be
understood and lived as means to orient our existence to the passion of God for us, and based
on that, passion for others. The vows are to liberate our passions from their aggressive aspect,
in such a way that we may live in fullness the
Law and the Prophets: “you shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your strength” (Dt. 6, 5), and our
neighbor as ourselves (cf. Mt 22, 39), and, in this
way, to orient all our life toward God and toward
others. Therefore the vows are, as St Augustine
argued, a particular way to live as risen people,
in the perspective of the resurrection and eternity, an anticipation of the life that is to come.
It is in this way that the vows can be understood and lived as a potential for the freedom to
open oneself to the “thou,” and to be, in this way,
authentically oneself in strategic dimensions like
those linked to affective life, to the sense of autonomy and freedom, to the instinct for possessing. When considered and lived in this way, the
vows are not simply a path toward self-perfection, but the willingness to construct new relationships, liberated from the mania of possessing (with nothing of our own), from seduction
(chastity) and from competition (obedience),
and thus be able to build a new humanity. From
this perspective, consecration to God by means
of the three vows does not only signify living
an intense relationship with God, center of our
very love (chastity), riches to sufficiency (with
nothing of our own), the first and last criterion
of action (obedience), but also with Christ, poorchaste-obedient, and, at the same time, generating a new relationship with others.
It is in this way that the vows create and order fraternity, and in turn the life of relationship,
42
The vows lived in the key of evangelical
freedom thus are a sign to the world and today’s
society. When it places security in possessions,
its gaze on pleasure and carrying out one’s own
plan, the consecrated person, the Lesser Brother
places his security in the Lord, his gaze on the
following of the footprints of Jesus, and his
self-realization in the evangelical plan and the
Franciscan form of life.
All for God, all for others, stretching out
the tent of the heart (cf. Is 54, 1-3), let us start
a search for God that will never end: “our
hearts are restless until they rest in Thee”, as St
Augustine says4. This is the true itinerancy of the
heart, the highest expression of our poverty: to
be eternally mendicants of meaning. In this quest
there is searching and there is renunciation (cf.
Phil 3, 7-9), but above all there is passion and
joy; a joy that no one can take from us (cf. Jn
16, 22), rejoicing over the treasure found that
justifies many times over our having sold everything (cf. Mt 13, 44-52), which justifies any type
of renunciation. How great and beautiful is that
which we have found …! It is so great and beautiful to know we are planned, created and loved
4
Cf. St Augustine, Confessions, I, 1, 1.
43
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
fraternal life, becomes the thermometer of our
living of the vows. This must allow the movement from community to fraternity or communion of life, from an anonymous relationship to
a welcome of each one as a gift of the Lord (cf.
Test 14), from companionship to free and freeing friendship. In this sense obedience will be
fraternal obedience, fruit of the shared search for
the will of the Father; living without anything of
our own will be shown in solidarity and in sharing material goods and goods of the spirit; and
chastity will be disinterested love, offered freely to others. This does not take anything away
from obedience to the ministers, or take away
from nothing of our own as having only essential
goods, or from chastity as a life in continence.
by God (cf. LegCl 46), that we will never cease
to give thanks to the Father of mercies (cf. 2Cor
1, 3) for the vocation to which we have been
called, and that “our blessed father Francis, true
lover and imitator” of the Lord “showed to us by
word and example” (cf. TestCl 5)!
What is missing or what is superfluous in your life if you
wish it to be evangelically
meaningful?
Does your daily life refer to the
Essential?
Speaking in the sense of a vocation, can you say that your life is
contagious?
How are you living the vows?
What difficulties do you find in living
them in light of what we have said?
44
Passion for Christ, passion for humanity
21.
But such passion is born of an encounter,
from the seduction produced in us by a person,
by a “love that enamors” (4LtrCl 11), by a conquest of our heart: “You seduced me, Lord, and
I let myself be seduced” (Jer 20, 7).Let us return
for a few moments to the experience of Francis
on the mountain of La Verna. The mystery of
the Stigmata is above all a mystery of love. The
lover identifies himself with the Beloved; the enamored, Francis, encounters the Beloved, Christ,
poor and crucified. The mendicant of meaning
and of fullness par excellence, the Poverello, in
Christ discovers love – you are love, Francis will
say in the Praises of God Most High (PrG, 4).
What is more, Francis discovers in the Crucified
the excess of love that makes him cry out without ceasing: love is not loved, love is not loved,
because, as Nikos Kazanzakis says in commenting on this episode, God is the never-enough.
Our Sister Clare in her Testament calls Francis
true lover of Christ (TestCl 5) and the Seraphic
Doctor calls him friend of Christ (LM XIII, 3).
This is Francis precisely: lover and, therefore, a
friend of Christ, to the point of identifying himself fully with Him and able to say with Paul:
“I bear in my body the marks of Christ” (Gal 6,
17), and also: “I live now, not I, but Christ lives
in me” (Gal 2, 20). The lover opens a space to
45
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
Passion for Christ and passion for humanity make our life truly meaningful and responds to its prophetic mission. Only in this way
will our life open itself to the future with hope,
because it will be lived in the present with passion (cf. NMI 1). That passion, my dear brothers,
is one of the most eloquent, visible and credible
signs that our life can offer. It is like the fire that
spreads its heat and which we cannot responsibly allow to be extinguished or diminished in intensity. To lose that passion would be like losing
the soul of our life.
the Beloved, all the space that a man can make in
his heart for the person he loves, to the point of
identifying, transforming and configuring himself fully with the other. After the experience of
La Verna, the heart no longer belongs to him but
is rather occupied by Him who becomes the ALL
for Francis: “You are all”, the Poverello can say
(PrG 3). Deus meus et omnia. With good reason
St Bonaventure, when speaking of the love of
Francis, presents it as a passionate love. In our
life, God is everything or nothing. He does not
share the altar with idols. Our God is a “jealous”
God (cf. Hos 2, 4ff).
As I already said, the problem is not our
weakness or diminishing number, but mediocrity. The real challenge is becoming aware of
the poverty of our own lives and to awaken the
desire for a life lived to the full, in the logic of
giving, as an alternative to the logic of efficiency, of power, and of profit that seems to be the
ruling logic of our days. Yes, what we should really fear, even to make us panic, is not weakness
but mediocrity.
My dear brothers: the worst that can happen
in life is to lose our passion for the Lord, for then
we will not even have a passion for humanity.
The contrary of passion is apathy, resignation,
routine, turning in on ourselves. If these situations occur, our life would lose its meaning for
us and for the others who see it. And then there
are only three alternatives: leave the Order, lead
a life marked by mediocrity, or return to our first
love (cf. Hos 2, 9). In this case this means a following that has been purified, perhaps less poetic, but more real and certainly more spiritually
mature.
Leaving would be the easiest solution, but
if one has been called to follow Jesus Christ
more closely as a Lesser Brother, to leave would
be simply a leap in the dark and a betrayal of
the Lord. It would mean abandoning the Lord,
“source of living water” and to seek water in
46
Do you feel a passion for your
vocation?
To what degree can you say
with the Psalmist: “My heart is
steadfast”?
Where is your heart?
How do you feed your passion for
the Lord?
How do you show your passion for humanity?
47
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE
cracked cisterns that cannot hold water (cf. Jer
2, 13). Mediocrity would mean choosing a life
without life, like the Church of Laodicea (cf.
Rev 34, 15-16), a life without color, that which
comes from one’s own identity (cf. 2R 1, 1-2),
and without flavor, that is, without meaning (cf.
Mt 5, 13). For those of us who have been called
“to observe faithfully the Holy Gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ” (2R 1, 1) there is only one
way out: to stop adoring ourselves, and regain
the passion for our first love: the passion that led
us to abandon the nets that gave us security (cf.
Mt 5, 20), to leave everything in order to follow
Jesus (cf. Lk 5, 11).
III
AN URGENT TASK:
REVISIT OUR IDENTITY
AS
LESSER BROTHERS
“Jesus went up the mountain and
summoned those whom he wanted and
they came to him. He appointed twelve
that they might be with him and
he might send them forth to preach”
(Mk 3, 13- 14).
49
22.
In these times of winter and aridity at
the same time, in these difficult and trying times
(cf. VC 13), we are faced with an urgent task:
revisit our identity as Lesser Brothers (cf. BGG,
mandate 2). Without a renewed approach to our
identity fidelity is not possible, at least not creative fidelity (cf. VC 37).
The Order, and all of us with it, beginning
with Vatican II have travelled a long road in order
to clarify and modernize our charismatic identity. Our General Constitutions are the fruit of
this effort. For their part, the most recent General
Chapters, like the magisterium of the Ministers
General, have helped us continue deepening the
theme of identity. Nevertheless we are aware that
this is no longer enough. Now is the time to pass
from theoretical identity to existential identity,
to clarity about the essential and non-negotiable
elements, those without which we cannot speak
of Franciscan life. We must now move from orthodoxy to orthopraxis.
Before addressing these non-negotiable elements, I want to make some clarifications about
identity. Who am I? This is a fundamental question in the life of a person. This is an open question and one that, as such, must stay with us for
all of our existence, also as Lesser Brothers. On
the other hand, for us as Franciscans, this question is also fundamental inasmuch as it is on the
answer that we give to it will depend our identity
as persons, and also as Lesser Brothers.
You, my dear brothers under ten, have made
solemn profession and thus a definitive choice of
the form of life revealed to Francis by the Most
High, and which we have made our own by our
profession. This could lead us to think that all
is clear. No, this definitive choice will not spare
you the effort to continue constantly revisiting
your identity as Lesser Brothers. This is not to
call into question the choice you made on a day
not so long ago, with your heart aflame with love
50
for Jesus and with the conviction that this is your
life, but rather in order to keep that choice always young and to flee from routine, weariness
and mediocrity. In this sense we may well say
that identity always remains open, like the person himself. Both are dynamic realities.
But what is identity? I would define it as the
ongoing sense of one’s own being across time. In
other words, and maintaining what I said about
the need to revisit our identity constantly, as a
dynamic reality, identity is continuity, perseverance, constancy in giving form to ourselves, but
it is also identification with a basic interior structure, without which it is not possible to shape
oneself later. To these elements we must add that
another part of identity is the sense of belonging to an external structure, as in our case, to the
Order.
In other words, taking an image from the
world of the sciences, we may well say that identity is our DNA, an acid found in all the cells of
our body, which contains the genetic information
necessary for the development and functioning
of our organism. In our case, to speak of identity,
to speak of the Franciscan DNA, is to speak of
the essential elements of our charism, discerned
in the light of the spiritual experience of Francis
and his Writings (cf. CCGG 1, 1-2), and also to
speak of the responses we must give to the signs
51
III - AN URGENT TASK
Thus identity is what I am and what I will
be with the passing of time. How can these two
things stand together? We have to work in order
to integrate these two aspects. This is the work of
ongoing formation. Perhaps I can explain myself
better with an example, one drawn from Hindu
literature. Take a drop of water and throw it into
the sea. The drop disappears, but the water remains. In our identity something changes every
day, but there are basic elements that must remain. This is also valid when we speak of the
individual and fraternal life or the sense of belonging to the Order.
of the times and places (cf. BGG 13. 15). While
I leave the second aspect to each one of you, I
wish at this point to touch briefly on the essential elements of our charism, synthesizing them
in three areas: the contemplative dimension, fraternal life in minority, and mission.
52
With our heart
turned to the Lord
23.
Yet it is true that this priority is not always
evident in our life. I have been able to verify this
in personal dialogue with many brothers and in
my visits to the various Entities, as the Visitors
General do on the occasion of chapters. On the
other hand, a very simple exercise would be sufficient to give us an idea of what I am saying:
the daily schedule of the fraternity and the time
in them which is set aside for community prayer.
In many of our Entities community prayer has
been reduced to the minimum: the praying of
Morning and Evening Prayer and, less frequently, community Eucharist. And what about
personal prayer? Another observation in this regard: in the schedules of the fraternities personal
prayer is frequently completely absent.
53
III - AN URGENT TASK
For some time now we have been affirming that the contemplative dimension is
the priority of priorities of our life as Lesser
Brothers. This is nothing new, since we know
well that Francis constantly invited his brothers
to keep their heart turned to the Lord (1R 22,
19) and make sure that nothing can steal their
hearts away from Him (Cf. LtrA, 2R 5, 2): “I beg
all the brothers that, as they overcome every obstacle and put aside every care and anxiety, to
strive as best they can to serve, love, honor and
adore the Lord God … and in them (a clean heart
and a pure mind) let us always make a home and
dwelling place” (1R 22, 26-27).
Faced with such observations we must ask
ourselves seriously about the causes that lead us
to relegate God, to whom we say we have consecrated ourselves totally, to second or third place.
Does this not reflect a deep crisis of faith?
Busy with the work of God, we run the risk
of forgetting God. And no one is exempt from
this danger, even you yourselves, dear younger
brothers. How much time do we need in order to
understand that only if we have seen the face of
God, have contemplated Him and felt his presence in our heart, will we be able to encounter
him in the world? When will we understand,
as Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, that we will
only be able to find a response to Christ’s “I
thirst” on the cross, if we have first followed
him in Gethsemane and have given a positive
response to his request, “keep watch with me”?
When will we understand that a religious vocation needs prayer, as lungs need air to breathe, in
order to be lived in its fullness or even simply to
maintain itself?
“God first, and then the works will follow”,
said Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan. By our profession we are to be specialists in the search for and
the knowledge of God, considering everything
else as “loss” and “refuse”, because of “the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus” (Phil 3,
7-9). The love of Christ should determine all our
actions, giving them a deeper meaning. This implies that any other love has to be integrated with
this unique love.
It is in speaking of love that we enter fully
into the topic of prayer, as an expression of our
personal relationship, a special relationship with
Jesus (cf. VC 14), the true foundation of our life
and the only way to reach an authentic contemplative life. But this is not prayer with a clock
in hand. The contemplative dimension requires
time, and not only time, but giving quality to the
time dedicated to prayer. This, in turn, presupposes choosing God, not as a devout thought on
54
whom to lean in time of need since we have nothing else to lean on, but as the only true support,
as said clearly after a long experience of imprisonment and total isolation by Cardinal Nguyen
Van Thuan, whom we mentioned earlier.
One who has received the grace of sensing
the presence of the Lord in his life will no longer
be content with expanding his knowledge about
Him, but will rather long ardently to maintain a
loving relationship with Him, to the point that
He will be the center around which all his efforts
revolve. This is true prayer, this is the door to the
authentic contemplative dimension: to move the
center of our life, which is now ourselves, toward God, exchanging our activity for a passive
openness, exchanging talking for silence, listening and receiving. Only in this way will be respond to the demand of Francis that we keep our
heart turned toward the Lord, or that of Clare,
who asks her sisters to keep their heart, soul and
mind turned toward Him (3LtrCl 12- 13).
Live a healthy spirituality
24. One of the most important phenomena
of our days is the thirst for God that is revealed
in the world. Though many things could be said
about this thirst, nevertheless it is a phenomenon
that must make us think. If we want to respond to
this thirst we must be open to a new conception
of religious and Franciscan life that is more spiritual and, as such, is a witness to transcendence.
On the other hand, we are increasingly convinced that a true renewal of religious life must
pass through a healthy spiritual life. Vatican II
55
III - AN URGENT TASK
How can we journey toward this goal?
Among the means at our disposal to encourage
the contemplative dimension I would remind
you, my dear brothers, of a few that you undoubtedly know well.
already said this: the spiritual life appeared in the
eyes of the Council fathers as the primary path
for the renewal of religious life (cf. PC 2).
Today’s world has a thirst for spirituality,
but for authentic spirituality that leads us toward constant creation and re-creation, as we
can grasp from Jeremiah’s beautiful metaphor of
the clay pot that is broken and remade (cf. Jer
18, 1-6). This is a spirituality based on the Word
of God, which is at the base of “every authentic Christian spirituality” (cf. VD 86) and on the
liturgy. Let us allow ourselves to be shaped by
the Word and the liturgy. Only in this way will
we live a spirituality that, without falling into an
a-historical essentialism, will distance us from a
rootless existentialism.
In this context I invite you, my dear brothers, to work on an integrated spirituality, one of
dynamic tension, a spirituality of presence. An
integrated spirituality, that makes us children of
heaven and children of earth, in deep communion with God and seriously committed to the
men and women of today. A spirituality in dynamic tension, that makes us mystics and prophets at the same time, that allows us to sense the
eruption of God within the deepest part of ourselves and of history, and that leads us to carry
out transforming action in history according to
God’s plan. A spirituality of presence: disciples
and witnesses, followers of Jesus and his icons
set before a world that has tried to exile God.
With this I invite you, dear brothers under
ten, to live an apostolic spirituality (cf. VC 74).
The key element of this spirituality is the particular understanding of agape translated as
gratuitous love (apostolate), that springs from
reciprocal love (fraternity). Apostolic spirituality or “spirituality of action” is offered to the degree that there is an ongoing dialogue between
contemplation and action. Thus we are not talking about living the apostolate as a dispersion of
spiritual energy and prayer as a necessary mo56
ment for recharging batteries. We are speaking
of living the circularity of the apostolate and
prayer and two moments in the same process of
spiritual growth and sanctification.
What has been said, however, presupposes
a spirituality of communion. Today’s world and
the Church itself (cf. VC 46) expect that of us: to
make communion a concrete reality, by means of
an understandable spirituality and clearly visible
praxis of life. This spirituality arises from the
awareness that the person belongs radically to
Christ, always historically translated into a clear
sense of belonging to the Church, by means of a
specific religious and ecclesial fraternity/ community, in which each one is called to live their
own consecration to the Lord.
These principles, which are basic and valid
for all religious, in our case need to be filled
out with something that seems to me quite specific to Franciscan spirituality. If our vocation
is configured as a Trinitarian journey, as shown
in the Letter to the Entire Order, and following the evangelical life as Francis did means
journeying along the path of Trinitarian communion that is born from the outpouring of the
Spirit, grows in following the footprints of the
Lord Jesus, and reaches perfection in the encounter with the Father, then our spirituality is
57
III - AN URGENT TASK
The spirituality of communion puts to the
test how we live in our houses a life in the Spirit
and our sense of belonging to others which, if
this is an adult spirituality, will lead the individual to understand himself “together” with the others. This requires interior freedom, so that one
recognizes himself as essential to the other and
vice versa. It puts to the test our relationships
with the Church. The spirituality of communion
leads a person to understand himself only in the
Church, not in a generic sense, but in a concrete,
daily way. We are Church in the Church and, for
this reason, we are with the Church in the world
and for the world.
eminently Trinitarian (cf. LtrOrd 62- 65). In this
prayer there appears, furthermore, what is classically called the spirituality of the three ways, and
which, made contemporary by the contributions
of the human sciences and the personal process
of faith, can still be useful for you, my dear
brothers under ten. These three ways are: purification, illumination and union (cf. 1R 23, 8). The
final one has as its goal love without reservation
(LtrOrd 28-29): “Let us all love the Lord God
with all our heart, all our soul, with all our mind
and all our strength, and with fortitude and total
understanding, with all our powers, with every
effort, every affection …” (1R 23, 8). We have
received everything, and everything must be returned; we are the temple of the Trinity and everything must be illuminated by God who dwells
in us. In this way spirituality turns into radical
following of Christ and responds to its ultimate
goal: the final encounter with the Father (cf. 1R
22, 55). In turn, from this encounter is born the
deep sense of a universal fraternity (cf. Cant).
Dear brothers under ten: remember that the
spirituality needed by the person of today is that
which gives and witnesses to the world reasons
for hope; a spirituality that is visible thanks to the
holiness that poses a question to the postmodern
person; a spirituality that is not so much individual as fraternal, lived not simply as individual
asceticism but as a communitarian commitment
in the implementation of the history of salvation.
Be malleable clay, my dear brothers, in the
hands of the potter. Enter, together with Francis
and Clare, into the Trinitarian heart of God.
Become aware that God impregnates your whole
life. Be aware that He is creating you, supporting you and questioning you. Be spiritual men
and be profoundly human.
58
Living your life to the rhythm of the
Word of God
25. Each day, God gifts us with his Word
as daily bread and new manna. It assures the ordinary nourishment of every believer and marks
his itinerary in the growth of faith. As Benedict
XVI says, “the Word of God is at the basis of
every authentic Christian spirituality” (VD 86).
This is the object of the Prayerful reading of
the Word, an extraordinary means, consolidated
with the experience of many centuries, to read,
contemplate and place the Word in front of our
life, and whose fruits are fruits of Spirit: “love,
joy, peace, patience, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5, 22-23). There
should never be wanting among you a “solid formation in the prayerful reading of the Bible” (VD
86). Put this into practice assiduously. Constant
practice of prayerful reading of the Word will
change your lives, and you will truly be agents
of communion and fraternity (cf. VC 86).
This is the goal of the Liturgy of the Hours,
the beating heart of the day for every consecrat59
III - AN URGENT TASK
My dear brothers: so that the Word can respond to what we have said, I consider it absolutely necessary to organize one’s own day in
such a way that in it there is in it always a significant space for what is essential and central in
one’s life. This means a space that is so important that a day never passes without assuring it,
and so essential and central that everything else
must revolve around it. In the life of a Lesser
Brothers, in your life, not a day can pass without reading, hearing and receiving the Word. In
this I ask you to pay great attention and to be
very demanding with yourselves. Not a day must
pass without allowing ourselves to be read by the
Word, without allowing the Word to burn in our
hearts, to question us, judge us, and allow ourselves to be reconciled by it.
ed person, for it makes time into an “in-dwelt
experience” (A. Cencini), and makes our time,
fragmented and fatigued, into the time of God.
The Liturgy of the Hours is “a privileged form
of listening to the Word”, which places us, at the
same time, in contact with the great Tradition of
the Church (VD 62). It allows us to live the day
in the rhythm of the Word. My dear brothers, do
not neglect the Liturgy of the Hours. It would be
like wasting the food which, together with the
Eucharist, the Church offers us as solid food for
the whole day.
This is the goal of the monthly retreat and the
annual spiritual retreat, a time dedicated to the
exercise of recollection (R. Guardini), recollection of life around what is essential and central;
time that allows us to savor the Word of God and
place order in our existence, distancing it from
superficiality; time that nourishes true passion,
one rooted in Jesus, and that is transformed into
being enamored with the Word, who is Christ.
We all need these high points in our journey in
order to know where we are, where we are going and the direction toward which the Spirit is
pushing us, letting ourselves be enlightened and
led by the Word.
This is the goal of the celebration of the
Eucharist. Eucharist and Word go together, as
the Gospel itself makes us understand (cf. Jn 6;
Lk 24), and as reaffirmed by Vatican II (cf. SC
48. 51. 56; DV 21. 26). Word and Eucharist belong to each other so intimately that one cannot
be understood without the other: “The Word of
God becomes sacramental flesh in the eucharistic event” (VD 55). A day without the Eucharist,
when it is possible to celebrate it, is like a day in
the desert without manna.
My dear brothers, life must be lived at the
rhythm of these appointments with the Word.
Only in this way will we be able to pass from
reading to tasting the Word, from lectio to dilectio, from interest and mere knowledge of the
60
letter (cf. Adm 7), to passion and intense and
vibrant love for the Word (cf. Sal 103. 105. 119).
My dear brothers, visit the Word regularly,
learn to welcome Him who never ceases to speak
it, the One who is revealed in the Word. “Learn
to know the heart of God in the words of God”5.
Discover in the Word the loving God in order to
allow ourselves to be loved by Him. And when
you read the Word, always remember: “It is to
me that it speaks, it is of me that it speaks” (S.
Kierkegaard). Let yourselves be caught up in
this current of love that is the Word and you will
learn to speak. May the Word be for you a twoedged sword (cf. Hb 4, 12); allow your heart to
be pierced by it (cf. Acts 2, 37), receive it in your
minds, conceive it in your hearts, and give birth
to it by your deeds and you will be mothers and
brothers of Jesus (cf. Lk 8, 19-21).
The spirit of holy prayer
In my contacts with you many times you
have asked me: what does it mean to pray?
Some even have asked me how I pray. I respond
to these questions from my own poor experience
and from the effort, renewed day after day, to
learn to pray.
From these premises I will dare to share with
you, my dear friends and brothers, not without
some embarrassment, something of what prayer
5
St Gregory the Great, Letters, IV-VII.
61
III - AN URGENT TASK
26.
For Francis, as I said earlier, to have
the spirit of holy prayer and devotion is an absolute priority. I also noted earlier that we have
difficulty maintaining this spirit, perhaps because we have not been formed to the spirit of
holy prayer, but rather to recite formulas with
greater or lesser attention, to say our prayers.
is for me. I think that prayer is allowing our
whole life to be permeated as by a friendship that
enlightens us. Yes, because prayer, in my view,
is nothing other than friendship with the Friend:
experienced, maintained and cultivated carefully
over the hours, the days and the years. To pray is
to allow oneself to be planted in the fertile soil of
the love of God, so as to produce fruits that are
pleasing to Him. To try is the eloquence of faith,
the expression of personal attachment to the
Lord (cf. James 5, 15). To pray is a response and
a search. It is a response to God who speaks -our God is a God who speaks and in the Son has
been made Word -- and is the unceasing search
for the face of God (cf. Ps 26; 63; Sg 3, 2). To
pray means to maintain a loving dialogue as in
the Song of Songs between the spouse and the
beloved. To pray means a dynamic of passivity:
opening ourselves so that the Other may dwell in
us, allowing the Other to act in us, abandoning
ourselves so that the Other may lead us. Because
of this I believe that there can be no prayer unless it lives within the covenant relationship between God and me.
On the other hand, precisely because of what
we have said, learning to pray is a very long process that requires a lifetime, because we need an
entire life to move from our “I” to the “You” of
God. In this regard, I would like to recount a fable that I like very much. It is a conversation between two monks, a young man and an old one.
The young monk says: “I sat there in awe as the
old monk answered our questions. I found myself raising my hand. ‘Father, could you tell us
something about yourself? ‘Myself?’ he mused.
There was a long pause for reflection. ‘My name
... used to be ... Me. ... But now ... it’s you’.”6
This is a process followed by the great examples
of prayer, like Francis of Assisi, who begins his
journey as “I” before the image of Christ in San
Damiano (cf. PrCr), and he concludes by los6
Theophane the Monk, Tales of a Magic Monastery, New York 1981.
62
ing himself in the “You” of the only Lord God,
as witnessed by his Praises of God Most High
which he composes on the mountain of La Verna
(cf. PrG). In this sense, prayer is a great mystery
of poverty, in that prayer, little by little, ends up
extinguishing our illusions of autonomy and our
enthronement of our ego.
The person who prays, the person who really prays, transcends his own ego to the point
that his heart beats in unison with the heart of
God. The true person of prayer is the one who
is able to descend to the deepest part of himself
and, finding there only God, make a leap of faith
and call Him ALL. This is the great mystical experience of Francis on the mountain of La Verna.
Sometimes I have heard this objection, if everything is prayer why do we withdraw in order
to pray? There are many reasons that can be given to justify the need for prayer. I will only mention one at this time. We have said that prayer is
dialogue: the dialogue of friend with a friend, of
the lover with the Beloved, a dialogue between
two people in love. We need to withdraw to pray
because He is our friend, because we wish to
spend time alone with the person whom we love
or, even more, because we want to love Him.
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III - AN URGENT TASK
Prayer is dialogue, but strangely this dialogue cannot happen except in silence. Silence is
this art that has been lost in our noisy city, in our
hearts full of noise. Here is another of the great
difficulties that we find in prayer. It is hard for us
to cultivate silence inside and outside ourselves.
It is hard for us to enter this silence, the silence
of God, to allow ourselves to be transformed by
Him and simply to murmur, “I love you,” “have
mercy,” “thank you.” It is this prayerful silence
which will shape us. And then, you and I, like
the old monk in the fable, will be able to say my
name is now “You.” And for us this You, as for
Francis, will also be ALL. With words from the
Council I say to you, “Enter within yourself,
where God awaits you” (GS 14).
But at the basis of this whole discussion
there is something that we cannot take for granted: faith. Without faith everything we have said
sounds like “hot air“. Prayer is a theological
activity more than any psychological one, one
which presupposes faith and which, at the same
time strengthens it. But what is faith?
Faith is believing, obeying God rather than
human beings (cf. Acts 4, 19), it is listening
and putting into practice what we have heard,
as Francis did after he heard the Gospel in the
Portiuncula (cf. 1Cel 22), it is having the certitude that Darkness is now Light, and, like Mary,
to say, “Here I am” (cf. Luke 1, 38), even if the
mystery of God always lies beyond us; it is having trust in Him for whom nothing is impossible
(cf. Lk 1, 37); it means going beyond confessional orthodoxy, even though it supposes it, in
order to abandon ourselves into the arms of God,
trusting in Him today, and accepting tomorrow
because, whatever day it may be, God is in it.
Faith gives security in the face of doubt, it
gives courage in the face of fear, it is light in
the darkness. Faith puts its roots down into the
mystery of God, and flowers into life, because as
the apostle says, “faith without works is dead“
(James 2, 17). If it is true that the etymology of
the word “believe” in Latin, credere, has as its
root cor-dare, “to give the heart,” that means that
faith is giving the heart, placing it unconditionally in the hands of the Other. To believe is really to live sine proprio, to place our existence
in Him, in such a way that He is our only Lord.
Keeping all of this in mind, we must us ask
how we are doing in our faith. We cannot take
for granted that we are truly believers. We are
reminded of this by Pope Benedict XVI in his
motu proprio, The Door of Faith, by which he
convoked the Year of Faith, which will extend
from October 11 of 2012 to November 24 of
2013. Called to pass through the door of faith
(cf. Heb 14, 27), we are to have the courage to
64
begin once again a journey that lasts our whole
life long, from our baptism until the visit of our
Sister Bodily Death. Called to follow Christ, we
must “rediscover the journey of faith so as to
shed ever clearer light on the joy and renewed
enthusiasm of the encounter with Christ“, remembering that, “only through believing does
faith grow and become stronger; there is no other
possibility for possessing certitude with regard
to one’s life apart from self-abandonment, in a
continuous crescendo, into the hands of a love
that seems to grow constantly because it has its
origin in God.” 7
Franciscan life needs to be renewed or, if you
prefer, to be revitalized. But true renewal and
revitalization will only come from Him. In our
postmodern era, that of the fragmentary, of using
and throwing away, that of weak thinking, that of
looking without really seeing, it is courageous to
affirm: “… without the spirit of holy prayer there
will not be renewal, nor change of persons, nor
of Entities”. What Paul VI wrote continues to be
true: “faithfulness to prayer or its abandonment
are the test of the vitality or decadence of the
religious life” (ET 42). If we believed this, we
could save so much! So much paper, so many
talks, so many crises, so many who leave. It is
Jesus himself who says to us: “Pray, that you
7
Benedict XVI, The Door of Faith, Rome 2012, 1ff.
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III - AN URGENT TASK
Dear brothers, I beg you, kissing your feet,
for the charity that is God, that you do not
abandon prayer, both personal and fraternal. As
Franciscans and religious, we need to awaken to
the face of God. Not praying can be a tragedy
that is almost overlooked. Do you remember this
remark in the monologue of the alcoholic priest
by G. Bernanos in Diary of a Country Priest?
“Little by little – says the priest -, I realized that
I had stopped praying”. Is this not the drama in
many who leave the Order? I confess to you that
more than one has made to me the same confession as the alcoholic priest of Bernanos.
may not fall into temptation” (Lk 22, 46). We
must make time for God, vacare Deo, give time
to God in our lives. Only in this way will we really be ourselves.
Can you say that your spirituality is apostolic, integrated,
in dynamic tension, and one
of presence? Or is it rather an
escape?
What place does the Word of God
occupy in your life?
How much time do you dedicate
daily to its reading and meditation?
How do you live the Eucharist daily?
How do you celebrate the Liturgy of the
Hours, the monthly retreat and the annual
spiritual retreat?
How much time do you dedicate daily to
personal prayer?
66
Fraternal life in
minority
27.
Fraternity is one of the characteristic
and basic notes of our form of life, whether we
look at our charism, or if we keep in mind the
idea that people have of us, from the most simple
to the most learned. To be a Lesser Brother is to
sense that one is a brother, and to show oneself
as such. For this reason, we cannot speak of our
identity without speaking of fraternity.
On the other hand, to speak of fraternity is
to enter into the universal vision of the heart of
God, as M. Hubaut has correctly said. Francis
is not content to live fraternity ad intra. Faith in
God as Father leads him to overcome any kind of
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III - AN URGENT TASK
If, at the beginning, Francis only strove to be
converted to the Gospel himself, nevertheless as
the Lord began to give him brothers (cf. Test 14),
he discovered that the Gospel was something he
could not live or proclaim by himself. The Lord
had given him brothers in order to live and proclaim within a fraternity and as a fraternity the
Gospel that the Lord had revealed to him as their
form of life. For the Poverello, fraternity will be
much more than a psycho-sociological phenomenon. For the universal brother fraternity springs
up from the spirit of Christ: it is a gift of the Lord.
Francis wanted us to be brothers, brothers united
in Christ, and sons of the same Father (cf. LM 8,
6). Therefore fraternity is the privileged place of
our conversion and of our encounter with God.
barrier, whether social or religious. For him, everyone is a brother or sister, even creation itself
(cf. Cant). From the hortus conclusus he moved
to the cloister of the world.
For Francis, fraternity means concern for
all men and women (cf. 1LtrF 1-3), a warm and
simple welcome for all (cf. 1R 7, 14-15), the
place where one experiences pardon (cf. LtrMin
5-10), where gratuity is experienced (cf. Adm
24), where one opens up to diversity (cf. EP 85),
as it translates into concrete gestures the tenderness of God (cf. 1R 11, 5-6). Fraternity is the first
form of evangelization (cf. Jn 13, 35), because it
is the “miracle“ that the world asks of us today,
what it hopes to see and needs to observe in us.
To be brothers then, is to be passionate for peace
and reconciliation (cf. Test 23; 1Cel 29; AP 38;
LP 84).
Building fraternal life
28.
From the importance that Frances
gives to fraternal life we can deduce the importance every Lesser Brother must give to fraternal
life in community. Based on this choice which
characterizes the life of Francis and his brothers,
it is no exaggeration to say that all of us must
have this passion: to create fraternal places, to
build fraternity. Nor does it seem to me excessive to say that our first conversion is to become
each day a little more brothers to all.
How is all of this possible? Fraternal life in
community demands, in the first place, a vision
of faith, that is, to receive the “other“ as a gift of
the Lord, going beyond the laws of human coexistence with its criteria that are so rigorously
based on picking and choosing. Only this act
of faith can allow us to live with one whom we
have not chosen and who has not chosen us. It
is only the certainty that the Lord has brought us
68
together that can bring us to live a fraternity able
to overcome all differences of character, race,
nationality, or culture.
Fraternal life in community also implies
overcoming egocentrism. If the human person
is relational by nature, the greatest temptation
is precisely that of denying such relationship, to
close oneself within one’s own ego, and to see
the other as the enemy. In this sense fraternal life
in communion is a true form of expropriation, of
living sine proprio.
This service that we are speaking about implies knowing their needs. Fraternal life in minority and community is the place where each
one can give, receive, and ask with full confidence (1R 6, 7-9). In this way, fraternity demands brothers who know how to give and receive at the same time. For Francis, human relationships are creative only if they are based on
mutuality and trust.
Fraternal life with these characteristics is really prophetic. It is prophetic especially for myself, since fraternal relationships reveal me as I
am and they place me before the truth about my69
III - AN URGENT TASK
For us fraternal life is inseparable from minority, and therefore from the firm wish not to
dominate but to serve. Service is a key to understanding the spirituality of Francis, and the key
that opens us to fraternity as he lived it and as
he proposes it (cf. 1R 6, 3). Francis will make
service of each other, lived in simplicity and humility, one of the foundations of the fraternity,
and will make of the washing of feet the ministry that makes all equal (cf. Adm 4). In service,
Francis discovers the lifeblood that nourishes
fraternal relationships according to the Gospel.
For the Poverello, service is the Franciscan way
to exercise authority (cf. 2R 10, 5-6). In this context, to be converted to fraternity means gradually letting go of dominating in order to become
a servant of the brothers.
self. Fraternity makes me discover my own sin:
my jealousies, my poverties, my fears of loving without withdrawing into myself. This life
is prophetic also in our fragmented and divided
world, dominated by the struggle for power.
Some means for building fraternity
29. The first means that I see for build-
ing fraternity is ongoing formation. In this sense
we are called to accept ordinary life as a school
of ongoing formation. The realities of everyday
life, the life of our weekdays, ordinary life: these
are the true secret of formation, that which makes
it become something ongoing. To flee from this
reality would be childish and would only give us
ongoing frustration.
Another important means for building fraternity, even though it might appear opposed to
it, is the presence of conflicts. Conflict, when
accepted with a mature attitude, can really be a
constructive element of fraternity. This mature
attitude toward conflict requires dialogue. For
this to be possible we need an inner intelligence,
so that we are aware that every relationship is a
test of both my maturity and my immaturity, my
capacity for relationship, my attitude of humble
listening, in order to tune into what the other is
going through.
Interpersonal communication is very important in building fraternity. This should happen at
three levels: that which one does; that which one
thinks; and that which one feels. The communication that we are talking about here is much
more than a simple interchange of ideas or information. To communicate is to enter into a direct
relationship with “ the other,“ whom I can call
“you.”8 To communicate is to meet a “you“ who
8
Cf. Martin Buber, I and Thou, Edinburgh, 1937.
70
makes me more “me.“ Deep communication becomes a moment of encounter between persons.
But we must be careful: we cannot guarantee at
all that communion is easier in homogeneous
fraternities. It could be a trap designed to create
brothers who are similar among themselves or
members who self-select in order to live “fraternity à la carte.“ As a Franciscan fraternity it is
necessary to learn how to grow with the “other,“
the one who is “different.“ We must remember
that, “Only all of the gifts together can reveal the
whole body of the Lord.“ 9
Another important means is creating interdependence: the ability to collaborate in a common project, to travel together toward the same
goal. Only in this way can cliques disappear
and the path toward an experience of family be
opened up.
Dear Brothers under ten, work untiringly
in the building of fraternity. Do not just be its
consumers. By your profession you have offered
yourself with all your heart to the fraternity. It
certainly needs to be improved in many areas,
but it needs you. We need you in order to construct fraternities that can be oases of humanity
and bearers of humanity, fraternities made up of
persons of faith, who accept joyfully the gift of
brothers as they are; fraternities that celebrate
and manifest the joy of being together based on
9
CIVCSVA, New vocations for a new Europe, Rome 1997, 19.
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A final means that I would like to note is the
plan for life and mission. This does not have as
its goal efficiency in operations, but is rather a
response to the need for harmonious integration
of the whole of our life, and establishing a hierarchy of values that can guide us in our everyday
existence and in our mission. This plan, if it is to
be a means at the service of building fraternity,
must assure a feedback loop within which both
personal and fraternal plans are included.
gratuity; fraternities made up of persons who are
ready to live from a logic of gift; fraternities with
a level of communication that allows each one
to manifest his needs confidently to the other;
fraternities in which the interpersonal relationships are warm and authentic, built on pardon
and mercy; fraternities in constant discernment;
fraternities in which we share our faith and our
vocational story; fraternities in which mission is
carried out based on a plan for life and mission
developed by the brothers.
Fraternal life is a treasure in earthen vessels (2Cor 4, 7), which must be accompanied
by careful attention on our part, a truly maternal
care (LSR 3. 32). Fraternity is not only a gift that
we receive, it is also a plan. In fact, the evangelical fraternity does not yet exist. It is always
something to be made; it is a story, a creative
utopia, a fruitful tension. In this task, beautiful
and difficult as it is, the Order, my dear brothers,
needs this kind of builders of fraternity. Are you
ready to sign on? The Order is counting on you.
My dear brothers, be prophets of communion,
and your fraternities will become a prophecy of
communion. This is the witness that is needed
in today’s world; this is what we as Franciscans
are called to offer to the men and women of our
time.
72
What marks would you give
yourself in the sense of belonging to your fraternity,
Province/Custody and to the
Order?
In what concrete aspects can you
consider yourself a builder of fraternity, and in what aspects must
you recognize that you are simply
a consumer of it?
How do the brothers of your fraternity
consider you?
How do you deal with conflicts?
What do you do to improve communication in your fraternity?
III - AN URGENT TASK
73
Bearers of the gift
of the Gospel
30.
Called to be with Jesus, we have also
been called to preach (Mk 3, 14-15). Regarding
Francis and his first companions, Jacques de
Vitry tells us that, “during the day they go into
the cities and villages giving themselves over to
the active life in order to gain others to the Lord.
At night they return to their hermitage or solitary
places to devote themselves to contemplation.“10
In this way, “from its earliest days the fraternity discovers that it is called to proclaim what it
lives“ (BGG 7), and manifest with its life what
St. John wrote about proclaiming the Gospel:
what we have seen, heard, and touched, this is
what we proclaim to you (cf. 1Jn 1, 1-3).
Mission is at the very heart of religious life.
The Pope reminded us of this in an audience
which he granted to General Superiors. Benedict
XVI said: “Mission is the Church’s mode of being and, in it, of the consecrated life itself; it
is part of your identity.”11 There is no vocation
without mission. And every consecrated life participates in the mission that Jesus entrusted to
His church (cf. Mt 28, 18; Mk 16, 13).
31.
In regard to us, evangelization and
mission are our raison d’être. We were reminded
10
11
Vitry 9; cf AP 19- 20.
Benedict XVI, Audience for Superiors General, 26 November 2010.
74
of this by John Paul II on the occasion of our
General Chapter in 1991 when, recalling the
first sending of Francis and his companions by
Pope Innocent III (cf. 1Cel 33), he said to us:
“I make my own this sending on mission, and
I repeat it to you once again.”12 The Order has
reminded us of this at various times and in different ways in recent years: the General Chapter
of 1991 said we are a fraternity in mission13; the
Plenary Council of Guadalajara reaffirmed that
we are a contemplative fraternity in mission14;
the General Chapter of 2009 repeated that we
are a fraternity called to restore the gift of the
Gospel,15or, as the former Minister General Fr.
Hermann Shalück told us, we are a fraternity
called to fill the earth with the Gospel of Christ.16
12
13
14
15
16
Cf. John Paul II, Message to the General Chapter of 1991, n. 5, Rome 1991.
General Chapter 1991, The Order and
Evangelization Today, Rome 1991.
Plenary Council of the Order, Guadalajara 2001.
General Chapter of the Order 2009, Bearers of the
Gift of the Gospel, Rome 2009.
Hermann Schalück, OFM, Fill the Earth with the
Gospel of Christ, Rome 1996.
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III - AN URGENT TASK
Yes, the Order of Lesser Brothers is a missionary and evangelizing fraternity by its vocation (cf. 2R 9. 12; CCGG 1, 1). Called to live
the Gospel, we are also called “to respond to it
creatively … travelling the paths of the world
as Lesser Brothers, evangelizers with our heart
turned to the Lord“ (BGG 10). Vocation and
mission cannot be separated. “Those who have
come into genuine contact with Christ cannot
keep Him for themselves, they must proclaim
Him“ (NMI 40). If we do not feel ourselves seriously called to go for Christ, it simply means
that we have not really entered into Christ. If the
evangelizing mission inter gentes and ad gentes
is “an accurate indicator of our faith in Christ and
His love for us“ (RMi 11), then the evangelizing
mission itself will be an infallible thermometer
of the status of our vocational health. If the burning desire for mission should ever grow cold in
us, our life would easily cease to be significant,
evangelically speaking: itinerancy would be
transformed into stabilitas; unconditional giving of ourselves to the restitution of the Gospel
would become self-referential; and the radicality of the Gospel would become bourgeois and
mediocre. We are called to receive the Gospel
in our hearts, and that means we are called to be
evangelized (cf. CCGG 86); we are also called
to open the heart of the human person to the gift
of God, to the Spirit of the Lord, to the Gospel.
Mission consists precisely in this.
32.
Having accepted the call to “observe
the holy Gospel” (cf. 1R 1, 1), and in profound
communion with the Church and its mission, desiring to make the Gospel, which is “spirit and
life” (cf. Jn 6, 36), present in the whole world, we
must be very much aware that our mission must
be nourished by a strong contemplative experience and be lived in fraternity. This is where the
center of our evangelizing mission is grounded,
and it is on this basis that we can respond to what
our father St. Francis asks of us: to go through
the whole world that we may “bear witness to
His voice in word and deed” and bring everyone
to know “that there is no one who is all-powerful
except Him” (LtrOrd 9); it is by starting out from
these premises that we can fill the earth with the
Gospel of Christ.
In this context it is necessary to remember
always that our mission includes putting the person of Jesus Christ at the center. He is the one
who will open our eyes to new perspectives
and new structures at the service of mission and
evangelization; He is the one who will place
in our heart the fire of the Gospel; and He will
move us to run, in order to proclaim it to others.
Our pastoral plans and programs are necessary:
we must stop improvising in this area. But what
will make us truly effective is the following of
Christ, in fraternity, in continuous conversion to
the Gospel.
76
33.
This vocation obliges us to cross every type of border: anthropological, cultural, religious, and geographical; and based on the logic
of gift (cf. BGG 12), it demands that we be creative (cf. BGG 9); that we speak an understandable language that takes into account the systems
of communication in our world and makes intelligible the message that we want to communicate
(cf. BGG 16); to feel sympathy for our world (cf.
BGG 7), and take account of the socio-cultural
reality of our peoples (cf. BGG 14), in such a
way that we can “ incarnate the message of the
Gospel in the various contexts in which we live“
(cf. BGG 16).
The mission that has been entrusted to us
is being called into question by various factors:
globalization, cultural and religious pluralism,
the challenge of secularity and fragmentation.
Facing these challenges, we must not fear “new
and bold endeavors” (RMi 66), in order to find
and begin to follow, with creativity and imagination (cf. PdE 9-10), as “prophetic inventors of
new signs“ (BGG 25), appropriate and fruitful
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The document Bearers of the Gift of the
Gospel also points out to us framework in which
our evangelization is to be carried out (cf. BGG,
mandate 13). This must be supported by a strong
experience of God, so that it may be the central axis of our way of life; it must be based on
and come from fraternity, in order to be a place
of prophecy and acceptance of “the words of
our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Word of the
Father, and the words of the Holy Spirit, which
are spirit and life“ (2LtrF 3; cf Adm 7, 4); in collaboration with the Franciscan Family and with
the laity, because only in this way will we be a
signum fraternitatis and live the spirituality of
communion; giving pride of place to the inhuman cloisters, difficult areas, areas of risk and
of nearness to the poorest of people, those who
suffer most and are excluded, as the privileged
audience of the Gospel (cf. Lk, 4, 18-19).
paths in order to give, honorably and sincerely,
a Franciscan response to the signs of the times
and places.
34.
In any case, in speaking of mission
and evangelization in a Franciscan sense in this
moment of grace which has been given to us to
live, what must take priority is the quality of life:
mission/evangelization “places at the center of
concern not methods, nor institutions, nor pastoral structures, but the evangelical quality of our
life.“17 This conviction also includes: deepening
the theological dimension of our life, that is, to
consider dialogue as the proper location of mission; the option for the poor and excluded and
for justice; to rethink the locations of our presence; to move forward on the path of collaboration among our entities and even with other institutes, particularly within the Franciscan Family.
My dear brothers, this means a whole program and a whole methodology. But let us continue to ask ourselves, What does all of this demand?
Demands of mission/evangelization
35. Summarizing, I would say that what
mission/evangelization demands, especially the
new evangelization, is above all passion for the
Word. “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!“
as Paul said (1Cor 9, 16). Evangelization/mission is not something optional, it is something
that is demanded of me in the first person. I cannot be a Christian, I cannot be a Lesser Brother
without evangelizing, whether as a priest or as a
lay brother. We must all feel called to participate
actively in the mission of the Church (cf. CCGG
83. 84). Whoever has encountered the Lord and
17
General Chapter 1991, The Order and
Evangelization Today, Rome 1991, n. 6.
78
has had an experience of the Risen One cannot
keep it to himself, but rather feels the urgency
of communicating it, of sharing it with others.
Mission/evangelization thus speaks of an intense
experience that touches one’s identity, involving
the whole person, and includes understanding
oneself only on the basis of this service. All of
this is what leads to passion, to the discovery
that in this ministry my true self is hidden, who
I am, and who I am called to be. And if there
is passion, then mission/evangelization will be
carried out with creativity and imagination, with
complete dedication and generosity, at any stage
of life, even in illness and physical weakness,
though perhaps in a different way, whether based
in an apostolic life, or in cloistered retirement.
Necessary conversions
36.
A mission that is meaningful in a
Franciscan sense requires, in my view, various
conversions.
When we speak of mission/evangelization
we are speaking of something more than apostolic activities. Mission/evangelization goes far
beyond works. Since it articulates various dimensions of our life, mission/evangelization is
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The first leads us to rethink the relationship
between fraternity and our works. We must be
honest: at present, mission is often confused
with the works that we carry out. Fraternity, in
the best of cases, is considered a kind of motor that makes the works function, and there are
many brothers who justify themselves based on
the works they carry out, unfortunately this also
includes many young brothers. But the deepening of our charism as Lesser Brothers, the laicization of the works themselves (think of schools
or colleges) and the lack of vocations oblige us
to rethink matters.
called to be the proclamation of the novelty of
the Kingdom of God. This is the reason for the
need, as I recalled earlier, of a renewed awareness of the importance of our life for the mission. In this context I am fully convinced that
today we must start out from fraternity in order
to arrive at works, and not vice versa. We are not
just cheap labor, even for the Church. We are
witnesses; and therefore our first way of evangelizing, even before works or even the word itself, is the witness of our life (cf. CCGG 86; 89
§1), lived in fraternity and minority (cf. CCGG
87 §1-2; 91; 11). Then comes the word, and always corroborated by our life (cf. CCGG 89 §2;
100-110 ).
Therefore, in order for mission to be meaningful, what is required are meaningful fraternities that present themselves to the world with a
plan of life that truly responds to the form of life
that we have embraced. If these are international fraternities so much the better, because they
will be even more meaningful. In this context I
would remind you, my dear brothers, that there
can be no place for forms of individualism. As
the General Chapter of 2009 tells us, “No project of evangelization is the initiative or personal
property of anyone; it is always the fraternity
that evangelizes“ (BGG 27).
A second conversion, closely related to what
we have just said, is accepting willingly (being converted to) the missionary fruitfulness
of poverty, humility, and minority. This is the
path taken by the Son of Man, the Incarnation,
the self-abasement of God who came in order to
give life. This is the path of evangelization, at
least of Franciscan evangelization. Francis understood that the human heart is not opened to
gratuity, to the tenderness of God, by prestige, by
force, or by the power of human means, but by
the power of love offered gratuitously. For this
reason, mission for Francis is the rejection of all
power. Francis is the man of bare hands. He does
not try to impose but to awaken and serve. This
80
is how the missionary should be, the Franciscan
evangelizer: simply a servant of the cause of the
Gospel at the service of others.
A final conversion I wish to point out is the
need to live on borders. I think that we need
to stop on our journey and define where we are
and how to be where we must be present. In
order to respond to the signs of the places, it is
no longer enough to use the criteria of continuing some work, no matter how important. What
is necessary is a renewed awareness of our own
identity as Lesser Brothers in a concrete context,
and to have the clarity, audacity, freedom, and
wisdom to be able to adjust our forms of presence to these contexts. Only in this way will we
be able to respond to the prophetic dimension of
our charism (cf. VC 84). As Franciscans we are
called to continue our glorious missionary his81
III - AN URGENT TASK
Another necessary conversion is in relation
to the laity. The General Chapter of 2009 considered this in its final document (cf. BGG 2526). The laity cannot be considered simply as
coworkers or as those to whom we entrust the
works that we can no longer carry out ourselves.
The laity must be considered true agents of mission/evangelization. This was recognized by
Chapter of 2009 when it said: “The lay person
is an evangelizer by right, not by gracious concession, even less as a kind of substitute to supply for a lack of personnel“ (BGG 25). I believe
that we still have a long way to go in order to
ensure a true “ecclesiological conversion“ and
thus be able to overcome that clerical mentality that still prevails in many cases, even among
our youngest brothers. We must enter into the
idea of shared mission, in which it will not seem
strange that the brothers are at the service of the
laity. Though this leads us to our being a little
less in the leading role, it will certainly be a gain
for evangelization/mission, among other reasons
because it will lead us to open ourselves to new
languages that make the message we want to
communicate more understandable.
tory by placing ourselves at border-places, with
the scouting party, as was done by our great missionaries in every age.
Keeping in mind the social reality in which
many of our contemporaries live, we feel ourselves
called to live as “lesser ones among the lesser“ (cf.
LGP 30), without ever forgetting that “consecrated
life eloquently shows that the more one lives in
Christ, the better one can serve him in others, going
even to the furthest missionary outposts and facing
the greatest dangers.“ (VC 76).
My dear brothers: in the field of mission, all
of us, and you first of all, must have the courage to evaluate our entire life, our structures and
our evangelizing activities; and to do this with
humility and truth, in order to see whether or
not these give witness in any meaningful way
to the spirit of the Beatitudes, whether they really contribute to the transformation of the world
according to what God wants. This will allow
us to open ourselves to new forms of evangelizing presence (cf. CCGG 87 § 3; 115 §1), “with
particular attention to the border places“ (BGG,
mandate 20), more necessary than ever today if
we wish to respond to the challenges that come
to us from our society and from the Church itself.
New forms of evangelization and
formation in a digital age
37. The missionary dimension is strongly
connected to that of formation which, in turn,
cannot escape the questions, demands, and
challenges of the digital age in which it is being carried out. In this context we cannot avoid
speaking about adequate formation in the reality
of media and our presence in the world of the
Internet, in order to put the online world at the
service of our evangelizing mission. This world
has its share of ambiguities. Communications
82
technology is constantly reaching new heights
with a tremendous potential for good or for evil.
It is the responsibility of each one of us to use it
in a good way, and by means of it to produce important achievements in our own formation and
the formation of others; for using it in a bad way
means falling into the greatest human and moral
degradation that we can imagine. And all of this
simply because of sitting in front of a monitor
and a keyboard.
Mission inter gentes and mission ad gentes
38. The last General Chapter in 2009 con-
sidered two aspects of mission that cannot be
separated: mission inter gentes and mission ad
gentes.
We are pilgrims and strangers in this world
(cf. 2R 6, 2): we have here no fixed dwelling
place. Francis wished to have “good and spiritual brothers to go through the world praising
God“ (LP 83). All of us, but particularly you
the younger brothers, must make every effort
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III - AN URGENT TASK
The Order of Lesser Brothers, committed
to carry the gift of the Gospel to all people and
to all places, cannot fail to take into account the
new forms of the Areopagus (cf. RM 37), in order to be present in these areas and know how to
evangelize them. For this reason it would not be
right to avoid the new means available for the
proclamation of the Word of God. One of these
means is the worldwide web (Internet). Even
while I call each of you to responsibility about
the use of this online world, I invite you to become brothers to this world, to place it at the service of evangelizing mission, carrying out this
mission in cyberspace. Such a mission, besides
attending to the signs of the times, will be able to
respond in new ways to the demand for evangelizing our culture in fraternity (cf. CCGG 87, 1).
to belong to this group of brothers that Francis
desired. To do this, like the Poverello, always
keep your attention on Jesus Christ, “the way,
the truth, and the life“ (Adm 1). Let this world
be your “spacious cloister.“18 In its varied and
sometimes contradictory realities and situations, inserted within a defined space and time,
it constitutes your privileged place for mission/
evangelization. Feel that you are itinerants in the
heart of the world. This will help you to respond
to your vocation as missionaries/evangelizers inter gentes and ad gentes.
39.
Inter gentes, in the midst of the people, because you form part of a fraternity that is
made up of “the Friars of the people.“ To you
particularly, my dear brothers under ten, I repeat
what Pope John Paul II told us: “You who are
the Friars of the people: go to the heart of the
masses, to these multitudes that are dispersed
and weak, like sheep without a shepherd, those
on whom Jesus had compassion ... go out to meet
the men and women of our time! Do not stay
waiting for them to come to you! Go out to meet
them! Love urges us to do this ... and the whole
Church will be grateful to you.19
As Lesser Brothers, our evangelization/mission is called to be carried out on the pathways
of history, with a constant effort to listen respectfully to others “with unfeigned charity” (cf.
CCGG 93, 1), in an attitude of sympathy for the
world, keeping a positive outlook toward it, “as
a condition for entering into dialogue men and
women of today, and to evangelize them without however interpreting this as meaning “to accommodate ourselves to the world,” or “suspend
our critical sense in regard to it“ (BGG 15); in
a contemplative attitude, in order to perceive
the “seeds of the Word” and the hidden pres18
19
Jacques de Vitry, Historia orientalis, Chap. 32; SC
63.
John Paul II, Discourse to Franciscans Involved in
Popular Missions, Rome 15. XI. 1982.
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ence of God in its various cultures and religions
(cf. CCGG 93, 2); collaborating “willingly” in
the task of inculturating the Gospel (cf. CCGG
92, 2), as an expression of the mystery of the
Incarnation (John Paul II); and the firm will, on
our part, to incarnate the evangelical message in
the various contexts in which we live. Therefore,
in our relationship to others we must have our
mind, heart, and hands open, with great sensitivity and care, to receive gratefully the values
that spring from this incarnation (cf. VC 80).
We need to de-center ourselves from ourselves,
after the example of Jesus (cf. Phil 2, 6-7), to
be less self-referential, less anxious about our
future and more concerned about the future of
humanity. The evangelizing mission becomes,
in this way, “a movement of going and coming,
that entails giving but also receiving, in an attitude of dialogue“ (BGG 15). The new motto of
a Franciscan missionary and evangelizer must be
that of Paul: become all things to all people, “to
save at least some” (1Cor 9, 22ff). This is a form
of living sine proprio.
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III - AN URGENT TASK
40.
Mission ad gentes is the full expression and, in a certain way, the complement of mission inter gentes. Mission ad gentes is a typical
characteristic of our tradition. Crossing borders
and going through the whole world to proclaim
the Gospel to all of creation (Mk 16, 15; cf. Lk
9, 3) is part of our DNA, always when such going does not arise from mere personal initiative,
but by divine inspiration. This is a true vocation
within the Franciscan vocation. It is not optional,
either for the one who receives it or for the ministers. Whoever has received this inspiration cannot say no: he must simply allow himself to be
moved by the Spirit who blows where He wills,
on whom He wills, and how He wills. Docility to
the Spirit will make passion for the Gospel grow
in the hearts of those called, and move the feet of
those who bring Good News (cf. Mt 28, 16-20)
to evangelize beyond their own borders. For their
part, the Ministers are obliged to discern the suit-
ability of the brothers who ask permission to go
on mission ad gentes, not denying this to those
whom they consider fit to be sent, nor to send
those who are not, since they will be bound to
render an account to the Lord if they have proceeded without discernment in this or other matters (cf. 2R 12, 1-2; 1R 16, 3, 4).
Dear Brothers under ten, moved by the
words of Francis (cf. LtrOrd 9), in the sight of
the Lord our God, I beg you, as much as I can
(cf. 2LtrCust 4), that you cultivate with generosity a missionary awareness as an integral part of
your Franciscan vocation. Your evangelical itinerancy, one of the characteristics of our form of
life, must confer on your evangelization a universality without borders (Herman Schalück).
As Lesser Brothers you cannot close yourselves
to this possible calling.
The last General Chapter approved various
missionary projects: the Holy Land, Morocco,
Africa, Amazonas, Asia, and Europe (cf. BGG
mandates 21-27). Thanks be to God, in the last
few months I have had the joy of sending some
young brothers to these projects, and also to
the Far East. While I wish to be grateful for the
generosity of those who have responded courageously to the missionary call of the Order, today I wish to address all of you, so that if the
Lord asks this of you, you will not say “no” out
of fear or out of convenience, or simply use the
excuse that every country is a mission country,
and that all the Entities need personnel, especially young brothers. In this context also it is
true what Scripture says: “There is more joy in
giving than in receiving“ (Acts 20, 35). Do not
be afraid: be generous in giving back the gift of
the Gospel. Allow yourselves to be moved by the
Spirit, because He is the one “who is the source
of the drive to press on […] for a truly universal
mission“ (RM 25).
Dear Brothers under ten, let us return for a
moment to the image of DNA. Continuing with
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How do you live the union between vocation and mission?
How do you respond to the
demands of mission inter gentes?
Have you ever thought of dedicating some years of your life to mission ad gentes?
Reread mandate 13 of the last
General Chapter, and in light of
the principles explained there evaluate
your evangelizing mission. What changes
do you think need to be implemented in
your work of mission and evangelization?
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III - AN URGENT TASK
this example, we know that when you change the
sequence of DNA you run the risk of illness and
dysfunction. Does this not also happen in our
life as Lesser Brothers? When we renounce a life
of authentic communion with God, we renounce
the full meaning of our life, and then it is easy to
become a victim of any vocational crisis; when
we renounce the radicality of the Gospel by a life
of convenience, individualism defeats the spirit
of fraternity, and going inter gentes and ad gentes is exchanged for missionary experiments or
virtual expeditions in front of the screen of your
own computer, instead of true experiences of going toward an encounter with others, those who
are near and those far away, we lose our own
identity and it becomes easy to find brothers,
fraternities, and even Entities that are sick and
dysfunctional. My dear Brothers under ten, you
have before you a great responsibility: be faithful to the constitutive elements of our DNA as
Franciscans, and do not allow this DNA to be
modified. It is the responsibility of fidelity to the
vocation/mission which you have received, since
only in this way will we guarantee a Franciscan
future that is healthy and authentic.
IV
SCAN THE HORIZON:
WITH EYES FIXED
ON THE FUTURE
Live the present with passion
to embrace the future with hope
(NMI 1)
89
Be sentinels
of the morning,
men of dawn
41.
Be “sentinels of the morning,“ men of
dawn: appreciate each day that begins. There is a
risk from which you are not exempt, dear brothers under ten: the risk of feeling you have already
arrived, renouncing any dynamic of a constructive and formative journey; the risk of living in
a tempting routine, a comfortable passivity, a
lulling tiredness, a resigned boredom. The risk
is not only great, it is also grave, because it leads
to interior emptiness, the loss of enthusiasm and
passion for religious and Franciscan life.
It is not my intention to invite you to the
insatiable quest for what is trendy: to seek and
respond to whatever is in fashion. If you marry fashion you will soon be widowed. Many
times in my meetings with you I have cited
this Eastern saying to warn you against a fateful look, a fashion, one that lacks critical judgment, a way of looking that remains on the level
of simple exterior visibility and which ends by
annulling all creativity and imagination and, as a
consequence, ends that youth of the heart which
is what really counts at the hour of reckoning.
With my invitation to be sentinels of the
morning, men of dawn, what I want to tell you
90
and ask you as your elder brother is that you
live your existence, no matter what your age,
as a constantly new beginning, as our father St.
Francis invites us to do when he said shortly before he died, “Let us begin, brothers” (cf. 1Cel
103); that each day you remember your first
love (cf. Hos 2, 9), the day when you felt that
the gaze of Jesus was resting on you (cf. Lk 18,
18ff); and that you felt something was burning
in your heart (cf. Lk 24, 32); and you could no
longer resist the fascination of the Lord and thus
allowed yourselves to be seduced (cf. Jer 19, 7).
42. What I ask and expect from you, in
inviting you to be sentinels of the morning, men
of dawn, is that you do not lose your desire and
your taste for constantly giving new vitality to
your life choices, new motivation, new enthusiasm, and new passion. These are the motivations
of the one who sells everything because he has
found the hidden treasure (cf. Mt 13, 44); the enthusiasm of the one who has found the lost coin
(cf. Lk 15, 8-10); the passion of the lover who
once again embraces the love of his life which he
thought had been lost (cf. Cant 3, 4).
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IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
What I ask you is that you do not give in to
the temptation of routine and disenchantment,
no matter how difficult the struggle. Be men
who search for the Lord each morning (cf. Ps
62, 2). Each day, with a quick, firm step, with
no obstacle in your way (2LtrCl 12-13), at dawn,
run in search of the Beloved and then he will let
himself be embraced (cf. Cant 3, 1-4). When you
are stricken by sadness and discouragement, like
Mary Magdalene, at daybreak, go out in search
of the Lord. And then you will also hear in the
depths of your heart, “Why are you weeping?
Whom do you seek?” And the Lord himself will
call you by your own name (cf. Jn 20, 15-16).
And your heart once again will be filled with the
peace that no one can take from you, and you
too will run to proclaim your encounter with the
Rabbuni, the Teacher. And, like the disciples,
you also will hear the words, “Do not be afraid“
(Mk 16, 6). And if, for a moment the shadows
overcome you, the day will then break upon you
and the morning star will rise in your hearts (cf.
2Pt 1, 19), and you will return to being light in
the Lord (cf. Eph 5, 8); and you will look confidently on the new day that dawns, even in the
midst of the conflicts life holds in store.
And all will begin afresh in your lives because you will have the strength necessary to
look at reality, your own and that which surrounds you, with new eyes, with the eyes of God.
And you will draw strength from your weaknesses, oxygen that will give new life to all your
potentialities, even those that have been clouded
over by weariness and the heat of the day; and
joy in reviving the fire that was burning under
the ashes accumulated in so many negative situations.
To be sentinels of the morning, men of dawn,
means recovering the capacity for wonder and
amazement at what happens every day, no matter how small, because in small things something
truly great and beautiful is hidden (cf. Mt 13,
1-32). It includes discovering your own vocation as sowers, to discover that you are called to
sow in the furrow of the present seeds of eternity,
leaving to others the joy of harvest (cf. 1Cor 3,
6).
In proposing all of this to you, dear brothers,
I know very well that this means going against
the logic of getting everything instantly and
without sacrifice, against the logic of self-realization and egoism, which are dominant in our
culture. I know very well that the logic that I propose to you is a logic that demands hard training
that is not always easy to bear. I know very well
that the logic that I propose to you is the logic of
going against the tide, the logic of the Gospel,
the logic of useless servants, of the Beatitudes.
This is a hard logic, I know, but it is the only
one that is essential for mendicants of meaning
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and fullness. Today’s world, remember this well,
“needs to see in you men who have believed in
the Word of the Lord, […] even to the point of
dedicating their lives to witnessing to the reality
of that love, which is offered to all [...]. Be truly
poor, meek, eager for holiness, merciful and pure
of heart. Be among those who will bring to the
world the peace of God.“20 Dear brothers under ten, be witnesses of the dayspring, sentinels
of the morning, men of dawn, witnesses of the
Risen One, and you will save your vocation, and
your life will go on in the joy of knowing that
God remains faithful.
Paul VI, Evangelica testificatio, 53-54.
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IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
20
Be cultivators of
roots and seekers
in the night
43.
There are many who say that religious
and Franciscan life are living through a season of
Winter. Winter, at first sight, is a time of death:
the green vegetation disappears, leaves fall; there
are no flowers, and the season of fruit has passed.
Winter tests our hope, which is nourished by patient waiting until Spring returns, and the fields
will be clothed with flowers, which will give way
to fruit. Also in religious and Franciscan life this
Winter is characterized, among other symptoms,
by a lack of vocations, with all that implies: turning the age pyramid upside down, with many old
brothers and few young ones; closing works, diminishing the social importance that many times
came to us because of these works; an increase
of discouragement, routine ... . To these signs
of Winter which we are passing through as religious and as Franciscans, we must add others
that certainly have an effect on us, like brothers
who leave us, which are like hemorrhages that
deprive us of strength which we did not have in
abundance, or the underlying mediocrity of life
in which some brothers live, for whom religious
and Franciscan life might seem to have lost its
raison d’être.
In Winter, there is a temptation to cut down
the trees and to pull up the plants. After all, the
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only thing we see is the trunk. But the death that
seems to characterize Winter is not really that at
all. Beneath its apparent sterility a process of
revitalization is occurring. This is the season in
which the roots are working very hard, gathering
all the life force necessary to transmit new life in
the Spring, so that in the Summer we can gather
the fruit. With their work, which is silent and
hidden, the roots make it possible for life to be
reborn, because “if the grain of wheat falls into
the ground and does not die, it remains alone.
But if it dies, it produces much fruit“ (Jn 12,
24). Winter is the time of deep, hidden roots, of
growth in depth, on the way, even if a long and
painful way, toward new life.
The experience of Winter is that which leads
me to ask you, my dear brothers, that you cultivate roots. Perhaps it would have pleased us
to live in the season of flowers and abundant
fruit. But we have been given the deeply fruitful season of Winter to live. Accept it as such,
with healthy realism, but also with certain hope.
Perhaps for some of you certain temptations are
not unknown: the temptation to throw in the
towel, not to cultivate the life of faith; a lack of
hope; giving up the battle, falling into mediocrity; or even the temptation to leave. But to surrender to all of this would simply mean renouncing the ability to transmit life, and to live in the
present egoistically, something which has little
or nothing to do with what you had promised on
the day of your profession: to live without anything of your own.
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IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
Beyond the appearances,Winter is to be a
kairos, a great opportunity to grow in depth, and
to cleanse yourselves, returning to what is essential. Through this experience of Winter that
we are living, I am convinced that the Lord is
calling us, you and me, to radicality. A radicality that does not consist in spectacular gestures,
but in careful and hidden care for roots that can
finally be reduced to a radical faith in Christ and
the Gospel.
This does not mean simply struggling for
survival or subsistence. It means exercising ourselves in a radical faith and in a hope against all
hope. The first, radical faith, will lead you to live
in God and to live on God. For this, it is necessary to start out your journey from Christ and to
give to the Gospel, as a form of life, the leading
role that belongs to it as “rule” and “life” of the
brothers. The second, hope, is that which gives
a deep meaning to life. Today it runs the risk of
being diluted in the managing of a simple and,
in many cases, anxious daily existence. Without
falling into ingenuous optimism, we cannot forget that hope that springs from and is based on
a promise: “I am with you all days“ (Mt 28, 20).
Radical faith and hope are the fountains from
which we can get fresh and abundant water to
feed the roots and revitalize our life, in such a
way that Winter becomes fruitful, like the grain
of wheat buried in the soil.
44.
But at the same time the image of
Winter brings another image to mind: that of
searching in the night. And here we have the
figure of Nicodemus who takes us by the hand,
the prototype of every true “seeker in the night.“
This is the time to put ourselves in an attitude of
seeking, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,
being aware, nevertheless, that this search
should go together with a comparison of our life
with today’s culture. Without this comparison
we run the risk of falling into the temptation of
doing archaeology, or simply seeking escape.
There are many consecrated people who
think that consecrated life is living through this
postmodern era as its moment of Winter. Others,
using an expression frequently used in St. John
of the Cross and in St. Teresa of Avila, prefer
to speak of the “dark night“ of consecrated life.
Finally there are those who choose the biblical
image of chaos to describe the present moment
of consecrated life. Even though we know that
after the Winter comes Spring, and the image of
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the dark night also speaks of a crisis of growth,
and that of chaos, from the biblical point of
view, points to an opportunity for grace, of liberation, and re-creation, it is true that we are in
a moment when there are few certainties, and
when we try to see in this dark night, or in these
days of Winter and chaos, it is not at all easy.
Yet even with all of this, even in the midst of
the difficulties, there are still many signs that we
can contemplate around us that offer us reasons
for hope, though they do not spare us the effort
of making a serious evaluation of the crisis and
of the great challenges that this moment presents to consecrated life.
45.
While consecrated life and Franciscan
life seem to be deprived of the consolations that
they had in the past and, as a result, some begin
to doubt of the meaning and value of our form
of life and its future, choosing to leave, those
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IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
What has been said above about consecrated
life in general is also valid for Franciscan life:
there are signs that Winter has arrived, signs of
the dark night we are going through, signs of
the chaos in which we find ourselves; and also
signs of life, of growth, and of the re-creation
of our life. In some areas the former signs are
stronger, in other areas the latter seem stronger.
But in both cases we cannot spare ourselves
the effort of making a critical evaluation of the
responses we are giving in these moments in
which we live. We cannot dedicate ourselves
simply to making apocalyptic predictions about
our future, nor to plan simple exercises to survive in anxious and unsustainable situations, as
would be the case with simply restructuring.
None of this will lead us to revitalize our form
of life, nor allow us to look to the future with
hope. While those of the first group refuse to
live and instead focus on the growing number
of those who have been defeated, those of the
second group are busy looking elsewhere and
deny the seriousness of this moment.
of us who believe and who want to have a future for our life are called to read this time of
Winter that we are passing through, as the season of hidden radicality, of growth in depth, of
moving even with pain toward new life, as an
extraordinary opportunity for growth and purification. But as happens in every Winter, this is
growth in depth toward the roots. For this reason “Winter“ needs a special spirituality: a spirituality of robust faith, active hope, constancy
and patience in every test that strengthens our
heart (cf. James 5, 8).
This time of Winter is therefore an invitation that the Lord gives to us toward radicality,
that does not consist in spectacular gestures, but
in caring for and strengthening roots. Winter is
not the time to simply try to survive, but to exercise ourselves in a spirituality of robust faith, of
hope against hope, of passionate charity without
limits. And for us as Lesser Brothers, Winter
is a good time to walk according to the Gospel,
to allow ourselves to be touched and changed
by the Gospel, to base our lives and the lives of
our fraternities on the Gospel, and in this way,
to reproduce with creative fidelity the courage
and creativity of Francis, as a response to the
signs of the times that emerge in today’s world
(cf. VC 80).
Only in this way will we be able to revitalize the charism and allow it to perpetuate itself
in the future as a grace always renewed. To revitalize our charism means applying the spirit
of St. Francis to present-day situations. This
demands a twofold work: to know and love the
Franciscan charism, and to know and love the
present moment, without anxiety for the future,
and without nostalgia for the past.
With the strength of the Gospel the
Franciscan charism will always remain young
and we will always be simply what we are supposed to be, a fraternity built on the Gospel,
98
Christians who take the Gospel seriously. And
based on these premises we can keep ourselves
open to hope.
IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
99
Allow yourself to be
moved by love
46.
My dear brothers under ten, may this
be what moves you in every moment and in
every circumstance: love for God and love for
man; passion for God and passion for humanity. May love be the reason for your actions and
your life choices, and passion for God and others
that which makes youthful everything that you
do. Using an expression of Johann Baptist Metz,
convert the mystical passion for God into political passion for human beings. In this way your
life will be truly meaningful and prophetic, for
it will proclaim an alternative way of life to that
offered by our world.
Life in obedience, without anything of our
own, and in chastity, which we promised on the
day of our profession, if lived by persons who
have a balanced and fulfilled life, without seeking surrogates of any kind, speaks for itself in a
distinctive way, a new and prophetic way of living one’s own existence. It is different because it
is not the kind that is commonly seen in our society. It is new because it is moved by a passion
for God and others, particularly those in greatest
need. It is prophetic because those who lead this
life are a reminder of the values of the Kingdom
that no human society can guarantee.
Overcoming, and rightly, a merely ascetical
and legalistic view of the vows, today we place
the accent on their prophetic dimension: ele100
ments of the religious life that announce and denounce, presenting a way of life that is an alternative to what the world offers, since those who
profess it are the “living memory of the way of
existing and acting of Jesus” (VC 22). In a society like ours in which there is open worship of
the idols of power, possession, and pleasure, the
vows denounce a world and relationships based
specifically on these pseudo-values and, because
they express love without limits, the love of
God, they can never be lived as obstacles, but as
bridges that communicate life and make possible
interpersonal relationships that are authentic and
deep, because they are based on gratuity.
Thus the vow of obedience is presented in
Vita Consecrata in close relationship to freedom,
as “a path of progressive conquest of true freedom“ (VC 91), in that it is an invitation to all,
first of all to those who profess the vow, to direct
their freedom to all that is good, beautiful, and
true. The vow of obedience has a prophetic dimension in that it is an exercise of freedom that
does not correspond to the concept of freedom
held by today’s society, where we think especially in terms of emancipation and independence,
of absolute freedom in acting and thinking.
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To live without anything of our own is the
highest expression of authentic freedom. The
freedom of a poor man like Francis who only
has God and that is enough, because God is
riches to sufficiency (cf. PrG, 5). To live without anything of our own is the Gospel attitude
that openly questions the dictatorship of owning,
of possessing, and of only thinking of oneself,
which seems to be dominant today. Evangelical
poverty, on the other hand, makes us act in solidarity with those who are poor because of a condition of life and a situation imposed by society, and leads us to feel close to them. In Vita
Consecrata the relationship between passion for
God and passion for the poor is quite evident (cf.
VC 75). Whoever chooses evangelical poverty
leaves everything for God, and because of this
is all for others. In a world like ours where we
live in function of a materialism that wants to
possess, without attending to the needs and sufferings of the weak, a life without anything of
our own, freely taken on and lived with joy, is a
true prophecy.
Finally chastity has as its objective creating
space in our hearts for the passion of God for
us and for our passion for God. And as God enters into our heart, all of humanity will also enter, particularly those who live the consequences
of a celibate choice without having made that
choice freely: a situation of deep solitude and
of existential emptiness.21 On the other hand, by
means of the vow of chastity, those of us who
make that vow are called to show that a life of
continence is not a frustrating life and that interpersonal relationships can be intense without
including a sexual relationship. This last point is
very important in a world like ours in which sexuality becomes a commodity that is bought and
sold in the form of pornography or is masked
with eroticism, depriving it in this way of any
human dignity. Furthermore the vow of chastity
includes a freedom that makes the person more
autonomous and available. This availability of
time and heart of those of us who have made this
vow to live without a “you” except the “You”
of God, allows a commitment of solidarity with
those who suffer and those who are oppressed.
Our life can only be understood from the
point of view of love. The vows have a meaning
inasmuch as they are signs of our total dedication to the Lord. Fraternal life is possible only
if in each brother we discover a gift of the Lord.
Mission will only be understood correctly if it is
love that urges us to carry it out.
21
Celibacy for the Kingdom includes solitude, and includes emptiness, yet the life of a person who is
chaste and celibate is called to show that chastity and
celibacy do not necessarily lead to an existential emptiness and frustration, but that such a life choice, if
filled with God, is an unquenchable source of joy and
self-giving.
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Dear brothers under ten: moved by love,
make space in your hearts for God and live your
vows as an act of consecration to Him, and of
giving yourself to your brothers. A world wounded and very often abandoned to itself needs men
like you who love it, who love everyone with
a heart full of divine madness. Those excluded
from this world need men like you, who live their
humanity, who love them as they are, who commit themselves to bring hope and help, in such
a way that the world of tomorrow can be better
than the world of today, in the name of Him who
came so that they might have life in abundance.
Today’s world has need of prophets, and you are
called to be those prophets. Love without limits
for God and for your neighbor will open your
lives to the novelty and the prophecy that this
world needs.
IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
103
Be strong and
brave:
take responsibility
47.
Perhaps you know the character Peter
Pan, fruit of the imagination of the Scottish dramatist J. M. Barrie. Peter Pan is a character who
refuses to grow up and to take responsibility for
life. This was the starting point for research by
Dan Connolly called the Peter Pan Syndrome,
meaning that the child or teenager that all of
us carry within at a certain moment awakens.
In that moment the temptation to be Peter Pan
that is hidden in each of us is great, because it
touches a private situation of responsibility and
commitment. But it is very dangerous to give in
to this feeling because basically it places us in
a situation of being tepid and mediocre that has
nothing to do with the form of life that we have
embraced.
Knowing you as I do, I believe I can say that
there is a very high percentage of you who really
wish to live the plan of radical commitment you
embraced at your profession. If we do not wish
to be eternal Peter Pan characters, nor fall into
spiritual and religious lethargy that would take
away all meaning from our life and mission, I
believe it is important to enter into a situation
characterized by the following elements:
Above all we must keep very active our attitude as mendicants of meaning to which we
104
have alluded throughout this letter, to seek with
sincerity the deepest reason for our life choices,
to purify these and reformulate them, as is suitable to our choice to be Lesser Brothers. This
means a search concerning life itself, carried
out very clearly and concretely, in order not to
fall into a word game or self justification that is
purely gratuitous. In fact this concerns giving to
our vocational motivations deep roots and solid
foundations.
We also need the courage both for the
“more” and for the “less.” The former demands
that we accept renunciation and sacrifice, the
sense of fidelity and parresia, of which St. Paul
speaks to us, as an expression of the trust that
knows how to dare. This is the attitude of Peter
(cf. Lk 5, 5). The latter however implies knowing
how to recognize our own weakness and vulnerability. This is the attitude of the publican (cf.
Lk 18, 13), or that of Peter after his denial (cf.
Mk 14, 72). Certainly courage for the “more”
implies entering by the narrow gate, of which
Jesus speaks (cf. Mt 7, 13), while courage for the
“less” means being poor, anawim, living in the
dynamic of useless servants (cf. Lk 17, 10).
Another important aspect for living the program of evangelical radicality that is proper to
our Franciscan life is centering ourselves in the
One and to open ourselves to others; to find
spaces for interiority, for silence in order to enter
within ourselves and to receive the Other and the
others. This means working on hospitality and
fraternal welcome in a familial style in such a
way that the Other and the others may stay with
us (cf. Lk 24, 29).
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IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
It is also very important to say yes, respectfully and fully, to our own body, to except our
own bodiliness and our own sexuality, as realities that are good and beautiful that need training
and care, in keeping with our condition as consecrated people, called to live out without surrogates the vow of chastity. This does not mean
a cult of the body, to which we have already referred and which smacks of narcissism, but of
love for a body that becomes a gift.
Always keeping in mind the call to live a
plan of evangelical radicality, we must underline
the need to enter into a new mentality, which is
none other than the logic of the Gospel (cf. Mt
16, 21-27) and which includes: moving from a
logic of self-realization to a logic of losing one’s
self for the sake of the Gospel; moving from the
logic of results to the logic of gratuitous service;
moving from a logic of calculation to the logic
of total giving of self without reservation. All of
this speaks of a death to oneself in order to produce fruit (cf. Jn 15, 1-8).
Yet something more is necessary: to allow
ourselves to be shaped, that is, to allow ourselves
to be made by the eternal potter (cf. Jer 18, 1-6),
as Jesus himself asks His disciples (cf. Mk 1, 17),
to allow ourselves to be emptied in order to welcome Him who fills all.
Finally we can note that it is necessary to acquire a good capacity for “evaluation” of events
and persons in the light of the Gospel, in place of
judging others which almost always is in order to
condemn them. The wise person tries to discern
the difference between the grain and the weeds,
the good and the bad, the fish and the serpent,
without ever placing himself over others.
My dear brothers: this is the itinerary of those
who wish to follow Jesus radically, as Francis
did. This is a demanding vocational project, as
demanding as the Gospel, as demanding as the
Franciscan plan of life. It is a slow and progressive itinerary that does not allow stopping. This
is a process that includes a threefold conversion:
intellectual, in order to be realistic about our
own situation; moral, in order to have a scale of
values to which we may conform our daily life;
and religious, in order to live according to the
logic of gift toward the Other and others.
106
Be men of listening
in order to be men
of the word
48.
It is evident that we live in full immersion in a culture of mass media that informs,
massifies and makes things uniform, but many
times also manipulates. Really our world is
a large village, a village in which “there is no
time,” to stop, reflect, listen. Our capacity for
communicating and listening, especially to ourselves and then to others, is quite reduced. My
dear younger brothers, as you know very well,
ours is a time of SMS messages, and not so much
of dialogue and listening, of real personal communication.
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And it is precisely listening that we need
and which others need so as not to fall under the
weight of a solitude that is oppressive and that
keeps people from living the present with passion and with their eyes fixed on the future. We
need listening in order to know how to act and
to make decisions wisely. We need a new heart,
that is rested, welcoming, a heart for listening
(cf. Jer 31, 31-34; Ez 36, 26-28) in order to meet
to find “the good path“, as Jeremiah says, that
brings “peace to our hearts, peace to our lives
(cf. Jer 6, 16)”. To have a heart that is able to listen is, in effect, the criterion for growing as persons and as Lesser Brothers, and not to give in to
the temptation to a self-sufficiency that ends up
in frustration. Faced with the great responsibility
that came upon him, Solomon asked the Lord,
“I do not know how to behave ... grant to your
servant a docile heart (1R 3, 7. 9). The Greek
text of the Septuagint says, “Grant your servant
a heart for listening.” The proverbial wisdom of
Solomon resides precisely in his ability to listen. Like Solomon, the “wise man“, like Samuel,
presented by the Bible as the man who listens
(1Sam 3, 1ff), we need a docile heart, a heart that
is expert in the art of listening if we really want
to dialogue.
Personally I believe that the reduced capacity for listening and dialogue is due, among other
factors, to the fact that we lack the capacity for
silence. Actually, in order to dialogue it is necessary above all to de-center oneself from oneself,
to give importance to the Other and to others,
and to hear what the Other and others would
say to me. In turn, this de-centering requires the
practice of silence within ourselves and around
ourselves.
I Listened to Silence [Genesee Diary] is the
title of a book by H. Nouwen, psychologist and
writer on themes of spirituality, one which he
wrote after a sabbatical experience in a Trappist
monastery. I Listened to Silence is an urgent invitation that young people and less young people
must listen if we do not wish to be victims of
a “pastoral plan of the kangaroo“, common to
those who constantly jump from one activity
to another or from one experiment to another.
In this regard I am not speaking of experiences
but of experiments, because experience demands
time to prepare it, live it, and evaluate it appropriately.
We are surrounded and immersed in noise.
Noises of every kind have become the sound
barriers of the spirit in this society, preventing us
from listening to ourselves, to God, and to others. And the worst is that we are afraid of silence,
because it puts us face to face with ourselves, it
shows what we must be and how much is miss108
ing in us in order to be that. And in this sense it
is dangerous: it reminds us of what we still have
not resolved within us. It shows us the other face
of ourselves, that which we cannot escape, that
which we cannot camouflage with “cosmetics“.
Silence leaves us alone with ourselves. And this
terrifies us, so we flee from silence.
Because of what I have just said, and because I consider silence as the greatest teacher of
life, I am convinced that we must find spaces of
real silence if we wish to be accompanied and,
at the same time, if we wish to reach a “holistic“
growth, that is, the growth of the full person. My
dear brothers, it is urgent for us to educate ourselves to discover the value of silence.22
Naturally, this means a silence that is inhabited, a silence that speaks. Only this kind of silence can help us to better read our own feelings
and emotions, what there is in us of persona and
what there is of shadow. I believe in these moments full of noise outside and inside ourselves
it is necessary, like “the rain in May“, to come to
enjoy “listening to silence,” if we do not wish to
be strangers to ourselves and strangers to what is
around us. Only silence really allows us to know
ourselves deeply and interpret reality beyond
what we see on the surface.
22
23
Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, 66.
Benedict XVI, Audience, 7 March 2012.
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IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
To listen, to keep silence in order then to
speak. Silence is the antechamber where we will
meet God who makes himself Word. “Interior
and exterior silence is necessary so that the word
of God can be grasped”.23 To finish the day without moments of inhabited silence is to end it
with the consolation of God who, being word,
became the Word. A day without silence is a day
with the present of my authentic self. And it is
silence which is the empty space in which God
and I meet each other in the very center of the
soul. Silence not only gives us to God who is
Rest, but also teaches us what we have to say,
which is always very important in this world that
is full of empty words.
Wishing to be pilgrims who search untiringly for the will of God about their lives, we
need to be vir obaudiens, men with a hand up to
their ear in order to block the sound waves (this
is the etymological meaning of obedience) in order that these may not distract us and take away
those signs or that word and cancel out those
footprints, almost imperceptible ones, by means
of which we may glimpse the presence of a God
who has chosen the silence of the night for the
manifestation of his Word.
St. Augustine would say this is quieting the
words so that we can listen to the Word, or better
still: Verbo crescent, verba deficiunt, “when the
Word of God grows, human words diminish“24.
This is valid also for our prayer, so often full of
words that prevent us from meeting God who often keeps silence (cf. Jb 42, 5).
At the same time, it is listening to the Word
so that our words will not come back to us sterile. Our words are not the ones that will be able
to change hearts. Only the words that are born
from silence and from listening to the one who
is the Word are those that will move those who
listen to them to change their heart of stone into
a heart of flesh (cf. Ez 36, 26), and to follow the
one who, being the Word, hides himself very often in the mantle of silence.
24
Saint Augustine, Sermo 288, 5. PL 38, 1307; Sermo
120, PL 38, 677.
110
Keep watch over
yourself and
persevere
49.
If this moment should come, I ask you not to
give in, that you take advantage of this situation
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IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
My dear brothers: because I have listened to you many times, and because it is a sensation that in one way or another we can all feel,
I know that there are moments of life in which,
considering that our daily life is far from the oasis of peace, of serenity, and of maturity that we
have dreamed of within religious life, one can
begin to feel lost and to live a diffuse sense of
frustration and dissatisfaction. Faced with such
a situation, instead of taking a deep breath and
having the courage to fly toward more open
spaces that our life certainly offers, one loses
the desire to continue because the goal seems to
be unreachable and, even if it were not, the effort to reach it would be disproportionate for our
weak and fragile humanity. Then we can refuse
to seek, refuse the conquest, the struggle. We can
discover that our heart has grown old, our step
is slow, and we no longer have the desire start
over. And the questions multiply: Does my life
still have a meeting within the Order? Didn’t I
make a mistake in choosing this form of life?
Why should I keep struggling if the results at the
personal and fraternity level are so meager? And
we can be tempted to leave it all, to look back, to
call a halt to our journey.
to remember the journey you have taken. It is
precisely in remembering the journey undertaken that you can see more clearly the direction toward which we have to orient ourselves, to find
once again necessary orientation in moments of
doubt, and not fall into what the Lord rebukes in
regard to the Church of Ephesus: “What I have
against you is that you have abandoned your first
love“(Ap 2, 4). It is precisely in these moments
of discouragement and confusion that there can
resound in our heart those strong words that are
also rich in tenderness: “Courage, my people, to
work! Because I am with you“ (Hag 2, 4).
The prophet Isaiah reminds us that the ways
of the Lord are not our ways (cf. Is 55, 8). Is it
not the case that all these situations, certainly uncomfortable, not sought and not desired, are they
not paths that the Lord places in front of us in order to “test“ our unconditional faith in Him? On
the other hand, did He not tell us Himself, “Enter
by the narrow gate” (Mt 7, 13)? The path that
Jesus points out to us, as we saw when speaking
of the Beatitudes and vows, is not easy. Often it
is a path that is full of thorns and rocky, one that
hurts our feet and makes our walking slow, because “How narrow is the gate and how strait the
path that leads to life! And few will find it“ (Mt
7, 14). And yet the prophet Hosea had the courage to cry out more than seven centuries ago: “I
will change the Valley of Achor into a door of
hope“ (Hos 2, 17).
“Keep watch over yourself and persevere:“
this is the invitation that we find in 1 Tim 4, 16.
The perseverance that he is speaking about is not
being stubborn, the fruit of a rigid personality,
blocked within its own categories, but the fidelity that knows how to evaluate well the choice of
life one made, the first love to which one gave his
life. This first love is worth looking for once and
a thousand times. No matter how difficult, there
always exists the possibility of re-converting
that which is not transparent and not convincing
in the motivations at the beginning of our choice.
112
There is always the possibility of rediscovering
renewed motivations, more consistent and incisive, that begin to form a part of the treasure of
our heart. There is one who is waiting for us,
even in our dark nights, when the path is impassable, and perhaps we have fallen on the edge of
the road. He is ready to take us by the hand and
to help us, to lift us up, and to place us back on
the road. There is someone who can give us once
again the kiss of life. This is Jesus of Nazareth,
the Risen One. Only he can make our sad and
disillusioned heart jump for joy, like that of the
disciples of Emmaus (cf. Lk 24, 13ff.).
How do you feel in the face of
these invitations?
Are you prepared to accept them
as the plan your life?
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How do you judge these invitations: as near utopias, or
as possible pathways of the
present and the future for you?
Blessing and
final request
Dear brothers under ten: I want to conclude
this dialogue with you by inviting you to constantly increase your passion for the Lord. In
this we have at stake our present and our future,
because it is this passion that will lead you to
confirm at every moment the proposal to serve
the Lord and to remain faithful to what you have
promised until death (cf. 5CtaCl 14). I know that
you love Jesus. Therefore I also overflow with
joy and leap for joy in the Lord (cf. Hab 3, 18).
Never allow anyone or anything ever to make
this love grow cold.
For this reason I repeat to you what the Holy
Father Benedict XVI said to young people at
the last World Youth Day celebrated in Madrid
last year: “the words of Jesus … must reach our
hearts, take root and bloom there all our lives.
[…] Listen to the words of the Lord, that they
may be for you ‘spirit and life’ (Jn 6:63). […]
Listen regularly every day as if he were the one
friend who does not deceive ….25 Show a valid
alternative life. Build your life on the rock that
is Christ. Building it on your own self means to
build on sand, “it leads to something as evanescent as an existence without horizons, a freedom
without God“.
This Fourth Chapter of Mats will begin under the maternal gaze of Mary, under the title of
25
Benedict XVI, WYD, Madrid, 18 August, 2011.
114
Our Lady of Zapopan, in the city of Guadalajara
(Mexico), and it will end under her same maternal gaze, under the title of Our Lady of
Guadalupe (Mexico). May “the virgin made
Church” (SalBVM 1) be your model of unconditional acceptance of the Word (cf. Lk 1, 38) and
like her may you be able to remain faithful at
every moment (cf. Jn 2, 1; 19, 25; Hch 1, 14).
Like the disciple whom Jesus loved, receive her
into your life (Jn 19, 27), and listen with a renewed spirit of obedience to her testament, “Do
what he tells you.” It will then be as if your water
is transformed into wine (cf. Jn 2, 5. 9-10), the
wine of unconditional love for Him who today
makes Himself a mendicant of your “yes,” and
with renewed trust says to you, “Come follow
me and I will make you fishers of men” (Mk 1,
17). May the motherly intercession of Mary, “in
whom was and is all the fullness of grace and
every good“ (SalBVM 3), gain for you from the
Lord the grace of a prompt and generous response like that of the first disciples (cf. Mk 1,
18-20).
Dear brothers under ten, I greet you in the
One who redeemed us and washed us in His most
precious blood (Rev 1, 5; LtrOrd 5); I, Brother
José, your lesser servant, beg and ask you most
sincerely, for the love that is God, and wishing to
kiss your feet, that you feel yourselves obliged
to receive, to put into action, and observe with
humility and charity these and the other words
of Our Lord Jesus Christ; and, if you persevere
in them to the end, may you be blessed by the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit (cf.
2CtaF 87-88).
Fr. José Rodríguez Carballo, ofm
Minister General, OFM
Prot. 102874
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IV - SCAN THE HORIZON
Rome, the 8th day of May of 2012,
Feast of St. Mary Mediatrix.
LORD JESUS:
STAY WITH US!
Lord Jesus:
Be present on our way!
It grows late, night falls,
shadows lengthen;
We feel the weight of solitude,
and fear takes over.
We need you: it is night and
the journey is long.
We need you: Stay to dine,
the table is ready!
Lord Jesus:
Explain to us the Scriptures!
We need you so we don’t keep talking of the past.
We need you to keep hope alive,
That the journey may not end and
night may not prevail.
We need you: without you sadness
blinds us to the future.
Lord Jesus:
Walk with us!
Let your Breath revive the fire
that seems quenched in our hearts.
Let your voice be our companion
in the stormy nights of life.
Let you friendly hand raise us when we fall.
At every moment revive the gift of our vocation.
116
Lord Jesus:
Share our table!
Let your Word burn constantly in our hearts,
Open us to truth in times of doubt,
Enlighten us in moments of darkness,
Encourage and sustain us in moments of fear and
weariness.
Lord Jesus:
Open our tired eyes!
Keep our eyes fixed on you,
May we recognize you, risen,
in the breaking of bread,
brother and companion in the brothers
you give us,
needy in those who suffer and
lie on the side of the road.
Lord Jesus:
Stay with us!
Only then can we run back to the Jerusalem
we left behind,
And there, in communion with the
brothers, proclaim:
“Christ is risen. Yes, He is truly risen!”
Mary, Lady of Zapopan,
Lady of Guadalupe:
When in our lives the wine of love runs out,
As at Cana, show your Son our need.
Then water will be changed to wine,
And wine will abound:
wine of love, wine of joy.
Fiat, fiat. Amen, amen.
117
ABBREVIATIONS
Sacred Scripture
Acts
Acts of the Apostles.
Col
Colossians.
1Cor
1 Corinthians.
Dt
Deuteronomy.
Eph
Ephesians.
Ez
Ezekiel.
GalGalatians.
GnGenesis.
Hab
Habacuc.
HbHebrews.
Hg
Haggai.
Hos
Hosea.
IsIsaiah.
James
James.
Jb
Job.
Jer
Jeremiah.
Jn
Gospel of John.
Lk
Gospel of Luke.
Mk
Gospel of Mark.
Mt
Gospel of Matthew.
1Pt
1 Peter.
2Pt
2 Peter.
Phil Philippians.
Ps
Psalms.
Rev
Revelation.
RomRomans.
1Sam
1 Samuel.
1Thes
1 Thessalonians.
1Tim
1 Timothy.
2Tim
2 Timothy.
Writings of Saint Francis of Assisi
Adm Admonitions.
Cant
Canticle of the Creatures.
118
LtrAnt Letter to Anthony.
LtrL Letter to Leo.
LtrMin Letter to a Minister.
LtrOrd
Letter to the Entire Order.
1LtrF
1st Letter to the Faithful.
2LtrF
2nd Letter to the Faithful.
PrCr Prayer before the Crucifix of San Damiano.
PrG
Praises of God.
1R 1st Rule.
2R
2nd Rule.
SalBVM Salutation of the Bl. Virgin Mary.
Test
Testament.
Other abbreviations.
AP
1Cel 2Cel
L3C
3LtrCl 4LtrCl
LegCl
LM
LP
MP
SC
TestCl
CC.GG
BGG
LSR LGP
Anonymous of Perugia.
1st Life of Thomas of Celano.
2nd Life of Thomas of Celano.
Legend of the Three Companions.
3rd Letter of St Clare to Agnes of
Prague.
4th Letter of St Clare to Agnes of
Prague.
Legend of Clare.
Legenda maior of St Bonaventure.
Legenda of Perugia.
Mirror of Perfection.
Sacrum Commercium.
Testament of Clare.
General Constitutions of the Order
of Friars Minor, Rome, 2010.
Bearers of the Gift of the Gospel,
Document of the General Chapter,
2009.
The Lord Speaks to Us on the Road,
Document of the Extraordinary
General Chapter, 2006.
The Lord Give You Peace,
Document of General Chapter,
2003.
119
EN ET DV LG
GS
NMI
PC
SC
Pdv
RMi
VC Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiante,
Apostolic Exhortation on Evangelization in the Contemporary
World (8 December, 1975).
Paul VI, Evangelica Testitificatio,
Apostolic Exhortation on the
Renewal of Religious Life according to the teachings of the Council
(29 June, 1971).
Vatican Council II, Dogmatic
Constitution Dei Verbum on divine
revelation (18 November, 1965).
Lumen
Gentium,
Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church of
Vatican Council II (21 November,
1964).
Gaudium et spes, Pastoral
Constitución on the Church in the
Modern World of Vatican Council
II (7 December, 1965).
John Paul II, Novo Millennio
Ineunte, Apostolic Letter on the
conclusion of the Great Jubilee
Year of 2000 (6 January, 2001).
Perfectae Caritatis, Decree of
Vatican Council II on the renewal of religious life (28 October,
1965).
Vatican Council II, Constitution
Sacrosanctum Concilium on the
divine liturgy (4 December, 1963).
John Paul II, Pastores dabo vobis,
Post-synodal
Apostolic
Exhortation on the formation of
priests today, (25 March, 1992).
John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio,
Encyclical Letter on the permanent value of the missionary mandate (7 December, 1990).
John Paul II, Vita consecrata, Postsynodal Apostolic Exhortation on
the consecrated life and its mission
in the Church and the world (25
March, 1996).
120
VD
VS
Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini,
Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation
on the Word of God in the life and
mission of the Church (30 de septiembre de 2010).
John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor,
Encyclical Letter on some basic
questions of the Moral Teaching
of the Church, (6 August, 1993).
CIVCSVACongregation for Institutes of
Consecrated Life and Societies of
Apostolic Life.
WYD
World Youth Day.
121
Contents
I - POINT OF DEPARTURE:
SOME DOMINANT TRAITS OF
OUR SOCIETY AND CULTURE
THAT CAN CALL OUR
IDENTITY INTO QUESTION................. 7
A liquid or fluid society.............................. 9
Precarious commitments and
a weak sense of belonging................... 9
The crisis of interpersonal
relationships....................................... 11
A culture of the individual.................... 13
Everything and immediately................. 14
Indifference, disenchantment,
eclipse of an ethic of commitment..... 15
Our identity at stake................................ 16
A choice for a lifetime........................... 16
A choice for Someone who
transcends us...................................... 17
Living within the logic of gift............... 18
Choice of a countercultural life............... 19
II - AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE:
REVITALIZING OUR LIFE
AND MISSION IN ORDER TO
EVANGELIZE POSTMODERNITY.... 23
A life that is radically evangelical........... 25
The Beatitudes and our life as
Lesser Brothers.................................... 30
“Blessed …”.......................................... 33
To be meaningful,
to communicate meaning.................... 39
To live in obedience, without anything
of our own, and in chastity.................... 40
Passion for Christ,
passion for humanity............................. 45
122
III- AN URGENT TASK:
REVISIT OUR IDENTITY
AS LESSER BROTHERS.................... 49
With our heart turned to the Lord......... 53
Live a healthy spirituality..................... 55
Living your life to the rhythm of the
Word of God ....................................... 59
The spirit of holy prayer........................ 61
Fraternal life in minority.................... 67
Building fraternal life........................... 68
Some means for building fraternity.... 70
Bearers of the gift of the Gospel......... 74
Demands of mission/
evangelization................................... 78
Necessary conversions.......................... 79
New forms of evangelization and
formation in a digital age................... 82
IV - SCANNING THE HORIZON:
WITH EYES FIXED
ON THE FUTURE.............................. 89
Be sentinels of the morning,
men of dawn....................................... 90
Be cultivators of roots and
seekers in the night............................ 94
Allow yourself to be moved
by love............................................... 100
Be strong and brave:
take responsibility........................... 104
Be men of listening in order
to be men of the word..................... 107
Keep watch over yourself
and persevere....................................111
Blessing and final request................. 114
LORD JESUS:.............................................. 116
ABBREVIATIONS....................................... 118
INDEX ....................................................... 122
123
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