New Perspectives on Religious Life in modern times. Prepared: M. McGuire 2007 Resource: J. Libano Latin-American Perspective: The Impact of Socio-cultural and Religious Reality on consecrated life –J.B Libano Religious Life is understood as having three structural elements, a founding experience of God, community life and mission, and not as based on the vows to a great extent. The latter are understood in relation to these three elements. Other types of Religious Life are being born, displacing the emphases and configuring new experience, especially on the community level. the post-modern mentality, which demonstrates an ardent thirst for the sacred along with an invasive secularization, the allure of the Transcendent along with sexual coarseness, a thirst for love and intimacy along with an uncontrolled disorder in the affective life. Consistent cultural change is not possible without radical economic and political transformation. However, the principle role of Religious Life rests in the cultural, with an eye turned to the economic as the major factor. We have no need of Marxism to affirm this; we need only to look at the role of the economic dimension in institutions, even religious ones, to see that the aberrations produced by the economic are in flagrant contradiction to the guiding ethical principals. Forms of Religious Life {Latin America and Europe. The religious stage of Latin America is a dominant syncretism, a fundamental religiosity that is becoming fragmented and individualized, and a growing number of religious agencies involved in service. religion in Europe seems to be subject to a virulent process of secularization, despite also suffering from the “revenge of the sacred” and the presence of the “sacred savage”. An approach at leading to discernment of the real in its ambiguity, its perplexity and its paradox. four indicative verbs: to welcome, to let oneself be transformed, to begin a new praxis and to celebrate. It is being attentive to the new that is already coming forth as a gift from God, to that which will spring forth in the continuing present or in the unforeseen. Aspects of the Contemporary World 1. Fear of freedom and of responsibility 2. Loss of historical and ethical consciousness 3. The neo-liberal and media context 4. Confusion between vocation and career 5. The fallibility of institutions: the loss of the source of security 6. Fluid post-modernity in Religious Life 7. The Return of the External 8. The Problem with vocations 1. Fear of freedom and of responsibility Fundamental freedom, or the theological one, because it is interpreted in the light of revelation, refers to the essence of the self. This freedom encounters its most important, profound and radical moment when the self is put before God and must make the profound choice to accept him or to reject him Since such an act determines us for all eternity, we hold such a freedom with great dread. It is this freedom that is the fundamental question of Religious Life E. Fromm, O medo a liberdade, Rio de Janeiro, Zahar, 1960. The fear of taking this freedom into our own hands makes it difficult to take on Religious Life and its definitiveness with seriousness, because it involves human beings in their totality, for life and for death In a culture of the provisional and the throwaway, freedom, lived in its fullest sense as the giving of oneself to the Transcendent, terrorizes because of its definitive nature a freedom that is not realized in the world of things, but rather lies in confronting other freedoms that express and make concrete for us the freedom of the God who calls. Search for Freedom two fundamental perspectives in understanding freedom: conquest and gift. Psychoanalysis leads the fight for freedom for the unconscious. In this perspective, formation for freedom becomes an incessant struggle against forces that block freedom in and of itself all human freedom struggles with internal and external adversaries, and religious life is not exempt from such a situation. From a theological perspective, freedom is seen as a gift in the double order of creation and grace God creates a free human being and sustains his existence as freedom before Him. It is a freedom wounded by sin, but not wholly destroyed. It is liberated by the victorious grace of Christ. Pauline theology also confirms this. K. Rahner, Teologia da Liberdade, Caxias do Sul, Paulinas, 1970. Freedom seen as grace brings to formation, the call to bring forth an attitude of gratitude and of responsibility. It removes the bitterness of belligerent claims and postures of independence and total autonomy, and it situates formation in the path of fundamental relationship with God and with other freedoms, which are also gifts. Loss of historical and ethical consciousness The past is fading away, the future becomes more obscure, and the present remains without a history. The major factor at play here in this loss of awareness is information technology, transmitting data without context, orientation, without causality or end, totally immediate and continually “on line.” There is no tomorrow nor is there an accounting: Various terms describe this situation: the end of history and meta-narratives, the end of utopia, the deconstruction of history, and others. F. Fukuyama, O fim da história e o último Homem, Riode Janeiro, Rocco, 1992. Religious Life is also submerged in this wave. Superficiality prevents taking on definitive commitments With the end of history, responsibility disappears as do ethics in their unconditional dimensions. No one commits himself definitively to anything or to anyone. Each decision is a current one and can be revoked for another equally present Search for Answers Develop critical thinking and reflection developing in people a capacity for judging and appreciating their own experience, thinking, action and situation, becoming aware of themselves in given contexts. There are three fundamental aspects to the formation of a critical consciousness: awareness of situation, possible (feasible) consciousness, and awareness of the myths of the moment the double risk, however, of creating relativism and historicity. Relativism destroys any possibility of building something consistent, given that “all projects for social transformation are equally valid or equally invalid historicity that imagines history as a linear development, judging all eras and cultural stages, especially in peripheral countries, from the point of view of the development of the major countries see themselves as the linear model of development and determine the stages to be covered by those who come after, the way of growth of human beings never understand or imagine that a peripheral region could be much more developed in some aspect than a “developed” country. The neo-liberal and media context The strong impact of the media is dismantling universal and fixed points of reference, while multiplying the models and views of life. Propaganda bombards our motivations, creating a logic of stimulus-seeking, going well beyond the simple rules of capitalist supply and demand the supreme values are becoming devalued; the question “what for” lacks an answer and finality. “Nihilism is precisely atheism, not as attitude, but as spirit Neo-liberal ideology, sustained by the media culture, spreads values of healthy, a cult of beauty and the body and the decisive factor of appearance, a reign of the physical and of marketing In creating virtual identities, it leads to confusion between the real and the virtual. More serious still is that emotional communities of egocentric and needy identities are formed, with a clear loss of the social dimension L. W. Storch – J. R. Cozac, Relações virtuais: o lado humano da comunicação eletrônica, Petrópolis: Vozes, 1995. context favors the creation of narcissistic identities, preferably directed to the cultivation of the self and of one’s appearance and towards groups that reinforce this existential dimension. All of this feeds upon the media for sustenance. In psycho-cultural terms, globalization depersonalizes, uproots, and causes people to desist, especially the poor and more simple, who have fewer possibilities for reacting and resisting. It also provokes in many places, reactions leading to racism, xenophobia, nationalism and the formation of castes Globalization can be interpreted through the metaphor of the Tower of Babel. An attentive reading of this text shows that the confusion of tongues is the work of God, and the desire for one language, of one speech, creating unity and uniformity outside, for the empire, and for the dominating force, is the product of human hubris. Globalization is the work of the power and the enforcement of the lords of the world who want to erect a great tower, and from its top, impose one language for the market. God comes and creates the confusion of the poor and of the peripheries, who do not accept such domination. God is the confusion of unifying power. God comes and creates the confusion of the poor and of the peripheries, who do not accept such domination. God is the confusion of unifying power. Putting the two metaphors together, globalization appears as an imposition that the Spirit of God destroys through a confusion of reactions (Babel), and through the different ways of receiving it (Pentecost). Uniformity comes from outside, the interpretive discernment from within, from experience, from freedom, from awareness Practice-enculturation Confusion between vocation and career A career means competence, efficiency, productivity, and social recognition. The religious requires and is involved with preparation for the exercising of it. A profession does not allow for failure. This ends when a person becomes incapable of exercising his profession due to age, illness or retirement. Time rules, and all are subject to external factors. Vocation - Motivation comes from within Vocation exists in a world of gratuitousness. The “more” is revealed in whatever activity the person engages in. In the most adverse situations, such as illness and old age, vocation persists, even if it is only in prayer and in the giving of one’s life. It is characterized by its perennial nature, specific to giving oneself to God. In Theological Perspective God in the vocation belongs first to the charism rather than to the institution. It finds its ultimate source in the call of secular life as well as the religious. The religious enters into a commotion of courses and degrees in order to acquire always more credibility in society and thus obtain success and remuneration. -somewhat as if in a career!!!! Vocation and career! not two separate entities, but two different dimensions of human activity with specific distinctions. The identity of the religious relies on an appropriate relationship between the two and is threatened when a career overwhelms one’s vocation. Vocation is primordial It gives meaning and motivation to one’s work and not vice-versa. Religious life sees professional competence coming from and as a function of vocation and not as an autonomous reality. Society today values career in such a way that it becomes the criterion for assessing the vocation. Crises continually flow from this. Crisis and Tension! The formative path seems to be the inverse: to look at a career in terms of vocation according to the Ignatian criterion of tantum quantum. The more the career the more help it is to vocation and to mission solution lies in the theological understanding of vocation as being a call from God, giving meaning to a profession. The latter enters into Religious life as the concrete expression of a greater vocation, a gift from God. There is no purely secular career in religious life. The fallibility of institutions: the loss of the source of security the Church itself recognizes its fragility- not from attacks by enemies. In Vat 11, the church is seen before the sanctity of Christ, called itself holy, but also sinful, needing purification and unceasingly seeking penance and renewal “Although she is holy because of her incorporation into Christ, the Church does not tire of doing penance: before God and man she always acknowledges as her own her sinful sons and daughters.” Loss of Security about Church! This an act of greatness of spirit, on the other hand, it produced some insecurity. If it erred gravely in the past, could the Church err the same way in the present? Crisis of trust exists about all institutions. Challenge! Formation to achieve “sentire in et cum Ecclesia” is difficult. This, “not only expresses a favorable feeling towards the Church, but also thinking with and an interior communion with the Church, with one’s head and heart. We are touching here upon the essence of the problem of grace made flesh. If in the time of Jesus, his flesh was scandal for many who could not go beyond it and recognize in him the Messiah, the One Sent by God, today the Church is the source of the same scandal. Modern Challenge! Believing in the saving sacramentality of the Church in a cultural moment when its fragility, its sinful condition, is exposed to the maximum implies a deep dimension of faith. Mistrust, suspicion and especially parallel behaviors are becoming very common in the Church itself, not to speak of Religious Life. It is time to look at the relationship between the Church and the Kingdom of God from the perspective of the parables of the Kingdom. The metaphors of the yeast, of grain and of the hidden pearl allow one to capture the dimension of the inner mystery of the Church, in spite of all the difficulties that come from the outside. Only a mystical experience of love makes such a reading possible, leading one to avoid the two extremes of iconoclastic rebelliousness and of obsequious subservience. Fluid Modernity and Religious Life. Centering on the individual as the axis of the source of values in contemporary society necessarily leads to relative values and traditions, and an accentuation of schools of experience without absolute criteria, stressing the flexible, the spontaneous and carpe diem. A painful fragmentation is pervading culture and individuals. Intellectual, spiritual, cultural, professional, leisure and pleasure activities and idleness are experienced alone and in disassociation. Fluidity of Modern Trends! Psychoanalysis itself favors a fragmentation of identity, upon looking at the conscious (ego) and unconscious (id, superego) psychic structures of the individual. People confuse their self-images, now seeking anonymity, now fleeing from stable relationships, now taking great pride in appearance, and now hiding themselves in virtual relationships. Living in a culture marked by hedonism, by immediate consumerism, by the preferential option for pleasure, sport and amusement, for the high-speed information media on the one hand, and on the other, marked by an enormous psychic vulnerability, there is great difficulty in working out frustration, anguish, expectation and difficulty in assuming a posture regarding macro-politics. Small short term transformations and small projects are preferred. The “Third Man” concept! With regard to Religious Life, a distancing of the new generation of religious with regard to the social body of the Congregation is occurring. . The “third man” is entering Religious Life. He knows the rules and doesn’t object, but follows them as he wills. There is a real schism There is a language for the external public, for superiors, colleagues and social expectations, and another real, internal, experiential language for the conscious realm. Not all of this is conscious. formators have doubts about the expressed motivation of those in formation, in terms of giving themselves to the poor like Jesus Formation Dilemma! They doubt their desires to be humanitarian, and their search for God. They do not trust the deep silenced conscious and unconscious motivation revolving around self-promotion, selfrecognition, and the veiling of affective-sexual problems. Spiritual Traits in Modern Youth-People! Religiosity and spirituality are a whole other quantity in post-modernity. Its most significant expression is called New Age. characterized by an enormous syncretism and by freedom, plurality, subjectivism and religious forms becoming autonomous, with minimal or no links to institutions or formal religions. New Age – elements! Having a post-traditional view of God, of Jesus, of salvation, of religion/institutional Church, with a new religious awareness, tending towards Gnostic monism, esoteric mysticism, humanistic psychologizing, sacred holism, deep ecologic preoccupations, diffuse cosmic energy and so many other “isms.” Implications! There is a passage from “hard” faith to “soft” spirituality and religiosity. In a word, personal views of God are being fragmented, and these go as far as returning to the gods and a fluid understanding of the divine as energy, as adjective rather than noun, and even up to the death of God. the post-modern religious climate is invading all the spheres and styles of life by means of a diffuse de-institutionalized, anarchic, drifting, consoling spirituality that performs, that is closer to new age on the one hand, and on the other hand, closer to fundamentalism, offering speeches and practices that reach the sacred, guarantee salvation, and testify to miracles and divine blessings Both types offer consolation and identity to the faithful. Some Authentic Aspects! There are authentic initiatives in this climate, like the Spiritual Exercises in daily life, providing a contribution for deepening spiritual experience. Such practices have been led by religious and lay persons, directed toward faithful Christians, including the lower socio-economic classes. Reading of Scripture has taken on two very different forms in this movement. In some cases, there is a seeking of a solution to personal problems that is almost magical by means of an uncertain subjective reading of Scripture. In others, it nourishes the life of religious and popular communities through Bible-reading groups Search for Answers! rediscovers the founding experience of God, the true mystagogy, introducing religious to the Sacred Mystery. an absolutely incontrovertible element for a Religious Life that wants to go beyond emotional fervor and charismatic outpourings. Positive Steps! A prayerful reading of Scripture leads to true faith, according to the classic theological adage: lex orandi est lex credendi. Besides articulating faith and Scripture, prayer and faith, contemplation should resonate intimately with action and vice-versa: in actione contemplativus. Post-Modernity suffers from: thirst for love and an affective disorder. We Need: the dialectic of love and setting up pedagogy for it. Instead of seeking self-realization through the other, we find in the other the realization of oneself. This is the profound paschal Christian dialectic, that we only find life and our true selves when we lose it, by going out of ourselves and giving ourselves to others Pedagogical Principle in this: An interplay between motivation and support structures. Trusting intentions and desires of persons a great deal is not fruitful, since these are already imbued with this culture and do not endure. Situated as they are in time and space, such motivations lack objective reality providing constancy Guide: what is not in the schedule does not exist! dose of existential realism required by human living. How: to promote in the eyes of young people that discipline and schedules are a school of life, a condition of all normal human beings, which bring us realistically closer to the life of other persons Motivation, interior energy and utopian energy drive the motor, and the concrete, historical, and practical interventions make the path to this obvious Ways Forward: guide such a seeking of the external through a deep spiritual experience of God, cultivating it through prayer, through the practice of faith, hope and charity. Requiring a minimal attention to silence, without encountering one’s one inner self. Pedagogy of solitude exists: a withdrawing in order to be sent, a renewal of the spirit in the face of the Mystery of God. Before the Living God! ultimate need of human nature, realization of the self through contact with mystery. Only in this does one find meaning for life with its suffering and failures. the experience of mystery The only really absolute mysteries are the selfcommunication of God in the depths of existence, called grace, and in history, called Jesus Christ, and this already includes the mystery of the Trinity in the economy of salvation and of the immanent Trinity. And this one mystery can be brought close to man if he understands himself as oriented towards the mystery which we call God. (K. Rahner). infinite and absolute God who is in relationship with us, drawing us out of narcissism as well as the external superficiality God has reality incline towards Him. Man is the capacity of accepting or repelling God: this is his mystery. human being is structurally correlative to the mystery, is mystery because in his nature he is an intimation of the Mystery erosion of traditional Religious Life increasing distance between the tenor of the life of religious and that of simple, poor persons; the loss of the life-blood of contemplation in favor of routine spiritual practices or in favor of external charismatic fervors of disincarnated spiritualism uncontrolled purely secular activism; the weakening of the idea of God; the dualism of prayer life and apostolic activity; the gigantic weight of works that foil missionary creativity; the aging of members without an accompanying influx of new generations answer comes from the Spirit that gives rise to a wonderful budding in the old wood of traditional Religious Life Using the same metaphors of Babel and of Pentecost that helped us understand globalization. Only one speech prevailed in classical Religious Life, a single canonical language that imposed itself in its monotonous uniformity, and it was thus that God comes to sow confusion among the tower builders. We are before a proliferation of new religious forms. This does not mean that all the effects of confusion, caused by God are desired by Him. But they have to do with his initiative, if we understand the Babel passage. Unity is built from the inside and not from the outside, as happens with canonical and legislative leveling. new forms reveal the freedom of the Spirit. Cardinal Ratzinger considers as marvelous, “the energy and enthusiasm with which the new ecclesial movements live faith and feel the need to share with others the joy of this faith received as a gift. New Movements in the Church! These movements are characterized by their birth through a charismatic leader, being shaped into real communities, trying to live the Gospel in its moral integrity and exigencies, and recognizing in the Church the reason for living without which they would not exist. new expressions of Religious Life coming forth from such movements. They enter into the apostolic mission of the Church in a spirit of social service, based on a personal encounter with the Lord, nourished by a faith rooted in the Church The Christological, pneumatological, ecclesial and existential dimensions of a personal following of Christ and an experience of the Spirit in the Church are all here. The pedagogy of dislocation, of disruption, relates to an ancient dimension and a contemporary one. The Gospels and Saint Paul stress that following Jesus means a disruption, due to embracing the Christian faith. Sin, blindness and the old man come before taking on the newness of grace and of light and the new man. This is part of the old and most genuine Christian traditions conversion movements- to recover sense of sin and guilt! They have returned to harping on sin, especially in the area of sexuality, bringing about a new type of guilt and feelings of anguish. To be free from such a situation, they propose the path of conversion, especially by joining and participating in these movements. Joined to this experience of dislocation is a pedagogy of early childhood education that produces strong feelings of belonging and identity in the members. They feel they are in a family, while living in a fragmented society characterized by painful anonymity. Religious Life fills an existential vacuum, giving the sensation of having something precious and worth celebrating. This reminds us of the metaphors Jesus used to describe the reality of the Kingdom of God: the yeast, the grain, the pearl, the banquet and the wedding. a collaboration needed on three levels is necessary, the levels of the experience of God, of community life and of apostolic mission We are moving toward an every more pluralistic Church, and Religious Life will have a role to play in this pluralism. Both forms can and should mutually nourish each other A recourse for Religious Life is to create a sacramental model Dilemma: a) the ecclesiological tradition of Trent and Vatican I, which strongly accentuated the external elements of belonging to the Church. b) the tradition of the Reformation that stressed the opposite pole the Council found in the category “sacramentum” a bridge between the two traditions The external dimension of the Catholic tradition is maintained. There is no sacrament without visible sign. But the invisible side of interior grace communicated and received is also present, accentuated more in the evangelical pouring out. The fundamental question with regard to this model is to ask about the meaning, significance and inner reality of the rules, regulation, signs, symbols and the practices of Religious Life If they do not promote any personal experience, spiritual or inner, they have no reason for being if the inner does not become external in some form or practice, one can fear Religious Life becoming pure arbitrary subjectivity. This sacramental structure becomes a criterion for discernment Religious Life withdraws from pure interiority, affirming the incarnation of grace, as well as rejecting pharisaism, legalism, and the externalization of religious rites without a corresponding inner experience The sacramental model, however, tries to articulate internal convictions, the conversion of the heart, and the conscious commitment to address social and external needs, as consecrated life within a social body modernity and post-modernity that values the inner person and his autonomy. Capitulation here runs the risk of degenerating into subjectivism and arbitrariness. Being committed to strengthening the external signs of Religious Life, much to the liking of an insecure generation, formed through the media culture of appearance, can have an immediate success, fascinating and ecstatic. the sacramental model seems to be the path to construction Mere Externalism: does not respond, however, to the deepest part of Religious Life and is a dangerous disfigurement of that life. What is at stake in SACRAMENTAL MODEL is the Christian mystique of a passionate following of the person of Jesus and his style of life as an option for life, and a founding experience of Religious Life Kingdom of God Reality! The Kingdom of God figures centrally in the life of Jesus and of God of the Kingdom. In this we find the unique and singular role of the poor, the excluded, and the sinner as the prime receivers of the Kingdom and the preferred loved ones of God. In following Jesus, the religious meets once again the figure of the poor in all its clarity and exigency Jesus Christ is the door to the experience of God, in which there is no separation between God and the world of one’s brothers and sisters. The evangelical model of living Religious Life necessarily involves this openness to the poor, thus becoming significant for the religious and for those outside this form of life. any re-founding, renewal or reinvigoration of Religious Life must go through relationship with the poor. The option for the poor is the greatest sign of the credibility of Religious Life New Situation of Religious Life. A number of factors, from the dearth of new members to the rapid aging of persons, along with the weight of apostolic work and a new theology of laity, have moved Religious Life to a new and promising relationship with lay persons. new social movements What will be the participation of Religious Life with regard to ecological movements, pacifist, anti-armament activities, to questions of ethnicity, gender, the defense of human rights, the struggle for land for indigenous peoples and the landless and homeless, the state-less, in other words, with regard to an innumerable number of movements? in a growing post-modernity Nothing seems to mobilize people. All energy is expended in the “carpe diem”, seeking the enjoyment of the present moment. In all of this, people are enclosed in a sad narcissism and materialism. They cannot bear the mystery of the self, the loneliness in the affective life, failure or any suffering. The body receives the care and attention once devoted to the spirit The young are extremely sensitive to the double cult of an induced happiness and the wellmuscled body. Religious Life wants to find followers among them, if it wants to continue. The first message to give them is one of hope. Spes contra spem, hoping against all hope. The cheerfulness of the religious, his enthusiasm for his life, and his joyful going forth into mission spread hope among young people who are prematurely aging. Life is losing meaning The relationships that youth establishes wither, and where there was the newness of love, there seems to be only the enjoyment of the body of the other. They learn a great deal about sex and forget love. Religious can show a new form of Loving! A mature balance in relationships will continue to be an ongoing challenge, especially in the young generations with their open affective natures and in the flower of their youth Hope and love are two important realities for Human Existence. All the works of the Church are about the Faith, Hope and Love, to be instilled in the hearts of men. (Rahner). The Church seeks the heart of men, the believing, hoping and loving heart that yields to the mystery of God. The agape dimension of Religious Life is its greatest sign of credibility “Only love is worthy of faith “ The rejuvenation of Religious Life will depend on the signs of love it can radiate inwardly and outwardly The spirit of service and of poverty is closely linked to gratuitousness. Both of these—service and poverty— offers a new way of recovering the professional and vocational relationship. The spirit of service is a quality that any professional work or activity of a religious should display. It is the vocation that provides the elements of grace and spiritual beauty to the career I believe because I pray (Rahner) we are religious because we pray. The experience of prayer nourishes Religious Life, without it, the spring goes dry. The Problem with vocations The new movements have created an interesting strategy in terms of “concentric circles.” dividing the young people according to different levels of participation, formation and needs, and to work on these. There is a smaller circle that assumes a full-time religious life in a consecrated form, establishing close juridical links with the religious Institute. we have a larger circle of those participating in the movement. They are attracted to it, without having institutional links. Here there are various degrees of greater or lesser closeness. There are those who maintain contact by letter or through contributions, who receive the newsletter, and those who are at a greater distance, maintaining, nevertheless, real participation. In practice, many change circles, going towards the smaller circles and greater commitment. pedagogical construct offers innumerable possibilities based on the circumstances The important element is the intuition of the work that is differentiated progressively with regard to the members of the new generation. other circles of persons with more or less commitment can be revolving around the smaller more committed nucleus of members. risk – accepting all of the few fish in the sea! John provides an expressive parable for vocations: “Hearing this, the two disciples followed Jesus. Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, ‘what do you want?’ They answered, ‘Rabbi,’—which means Teacher— ‘where do you live?’ ‘Come and see’ he replied; so they went and saw here he lived, and stayed with him the rest of the day. It was about the tenth hour.” (John 1:37-39) The question is do we have enough courage to ask Jesus’ question and give the same answer as he. What do we have to show? Do we have zeal in missionary activity, faith flowing from a contemplative life, a sense of the church, prayerful discernment and simple and fraternal community life? Statistical Vocation Demography Vocations come for the poorer social classes to a middle-class life of abundance, from the rural to the urban world, from work to study, from public schools to better schools, from lack of social status to a place in society, and with an affective transference from the father/mother structure to that of the institution/formator Post-modernity Gains! ability to experience pleasure while being sensitive to the playful, to the festive; it values the body and one’s own subjectivity without being easily dominated; it develops a sense of self-evaluation along with a care of the self and intimacy with the self as a defense against a dangerous, violent and fragmented society; it can see its own limits with strong self-affirmation as an answer to insecurity with regard to self-realization; it displays rebellion in the face of backward institutions and impatience with despotic authority; It shows feelings of belonging with regard to its motivation and broad, democratic experiences; it cultivates bonds of friendship between groups with desire for a fraternal community life and shared prayer, personal life and mission open to friendships with persons outside the community; it prolongs the timing of important decisions so as not to put an uncertain vocation at risk; it is more tolerant, has fewer preconceptions and prejudices with regard to race and deviant behavior; it has greater sensitivity towards new forms of life; it finds relevance in the daily, the small, the individual in the participation of microinstitutions leading to institutional flexibility in Religious Life seeks transparency in the institution and in authority for its decisions, especially in the area of economics, social and working relationships; it invests in community management, and shows increasing ecological, pacifist and liberating awareness with regard to gender. summary of the post-modern vocation “A God who is so generous that he gives one, two, three vocations through which we can be realized. For a God who is so close to us and for a culture as relative as ours, the perpetuity of the vocation is less important than happiness in it. Vocation goes from being eternal—I was chosen from my mother’s womb!—to being relative and temporary—I was called to freedom. Can it be that a vocation is less than it was in former times? Has God changed his opinion? He has not, but we.. THE DYNAMICS 1. In terms of theoretical intellectual exercise, how can the culture of the joyful present of the young generation grasp the existential exigencies of a Religious Life lived through definitive commitments? 2. In terms of experience, how do I see the twofold movement, the tension between the search for religious externals and a narcissistic individualistic focus? 3. In terms of action, what concrete, visible practices do we have to form young people according to the sacramental model?