27th General Chapter of the Salesians of Don Bosco

Witnesses to the radical approach of the Gospel – Called to live Don Bosco's apostolic project in fidelity: “Work and temperance”

Rome, 3 March 2013

Witness to the radical approach of the Gospel in consecrated life

João Cardinal Braz de Aviz

Greetings – also in the name of His Excellency Archbishop José Carballo and the Dicastery. Greeting to the Salesian Cardinals and Bishops, the Rector Major, Fr Pascual Chávez, Mother Yvonne Rengouat, Superior General of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, and all Salesian Chapter members.

Introduction

In his letter of convocation of this 27th General Chapter, the Rector Major, Fr Pascual Chávez asked himself: “what kind of consecrated life is necessary and significant for today’s world?” He then went on: “The reply can only be that which is a mystical, prophetic and servant religious life with the radical approach of the gospel both personal and communitarian, a life therefore full of humanity and of spirituality, the source of hope for mankind. Our Congregation too is called to pursue this path”¹. It seems to me to be the way Don Bosco translated his program, “da mihi animas, cetera tolle” into real life (cf. C. 4).

He explained the three adjectives: mystical, prophetic, servant, at another stage in the letter thus: "centring our lives on God, the only Absolute, who is calling and inviting us to follow his Son in giving our lives in love; living the prophecy of communion and fraternity; rediscovering the mission among the young as the place par excellence for encountering the God who continues to speak to us"².

Amongst the many aspects in which we are called to express our radical witness to the Gospel, and which Fr Chávez has summed up in the three ways indicated above, I would like to highlight just one which seems to me to be so important in today's ecclesial and social context, for our consecrated lives to be authentic and truly a credible witness to our choice of God and to the validity of the Gospel for our time: living the prophecy of communion and fraternity. It is from here that we can gain new impulse for recovering the beauty of our choice of life in the service of the Gospel and new incentive to carry out the mission which – for you Salesians specifically – is to be bearers of the love of God for young people, as it says from the outset of your Constitutions (cf C. 2).

Following Christ together

For you Salesians too, as is the case for all consecrated individuals, the fundamental elements of your identity are the choice of God expressed through the practice of the evangelical counsels, fraternal life in community, and the mission, as well summed up in no. 3 of the Constitutions: “Our apostolic mission, our fraternal community and the practice of the evangelical counsels are the inseparable elements of our consecration which we live in a single movement of love towards God and towards our brothers”.

As I have had occasion to say at other times, it seems to me that this shift from the sequela Christi as an individual thing, albeit still necessary, to the sequela Christi as a community is a novel element for consecrated persons, and really needed in today's culture. Someone, paraphrasing St Teresa of Avila's image, has written that today we should be involved in building an 'exterior castle' in addition to an 'interior castle' or personal relationship with God: going to God together with our brothers and sisters. For sure this is true not only for consecrated people but for everyone baptised in the Church, for all Christians. But for those of us who are consecrated, this should be especially true. Indeed the Church entrusts us with a the special role of being an example to other Christians of how to live out this radical choice of God and the Gospel, not alone but in communion: communion with God and communion amongst ourselves

In the document Religious and human promotion by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, religious are described as “experts in communion”. We read in no. 24: “Experts in communion, religious are, therefore, called to be an ecclesial community in the Church and in the world, witnesses and architects of the plan for unity which is the crowning point of human history in God's design. Above all, by the profession of the evangelical counsels, which frees one from what might be an obstacle to the fervour of charity, religious are communally a prophetic sign of intimate union with God, who is loved above all things. Furthermore, through the daily experience of communion of life, prayer and apostolate -- the essential and distinctive elements of their form of consecrated life -- they are a sign of fraternal fellowship”. In fact, in a world frequently very deeply divided and before their brethren in the faith, they give witness to the possibility of a community of goods, of fraternal love, of a program of life and activity which is theirs because they have accepted the call to follow more closely and more freely Christ the Lord who was sent by the Father, so that, first born among many brothers and sisters, he might establish a new fraternal fellowship in the gift of his Spirit”³.

A new paradigm – the spirituality of communion

Today we are at a new moment of human history and the history of the Church, marked by phenomena like secularism, globalisation, taking refuge in the private sphere, and other phenomena as well which tend to lead humankind to new choices for meaning in life. The new millennium we are now living in means that the Church too must be aware of this change and practise Gospel values in this new moment so as to open up horizons of life and hope for the entire human race.

The most significant proposal for us Christians it seems to me, may be the one from 2001 from Blessed Pope John Paul who, introducing the Church in the new millennium indicated fostering a spirituality of communion as a new paradigm for the life of the Church and an educational principle everywhere where the human being and Christian is shaped, where ministers of the altar, consecrated individuals, pastoral workers are formed, where families and communities are being built up⁴.

We can neither understand nor practise relationships amongst consecrated individuals and with all other vocations in the Church as communion, mission and service, without being aware of and decisive in taking up this vital principle of the spirituality of communion. It is the essential theological and ecclesiological feature of our time, telling us what the Holy Spirit is asking of the Church today in order to provide new thrust to the evangelising mission. “To make the Church the home and the school of communion: that is the great challenge facing us in the millennium which is now beginning, if we wish to be faithful to God's plan and respond to the world's deepest yearnings”.

The spirituality of communion proposed by John Paul II can certainly not be reduced to mere intimacy. After recalling how its source is in the very life of the Triune God, he lists some very practical consequences which are directly related to the life of our consecrated communities:”The spirituality of communion indicates above all the heart's contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us, and whose light we must also be able to see shining on the face of the brothers and sisters around us. A spirituality of communion also means an ability to think of our brothers and sisters in faith within the profound unity of the Mystical Body, and therefore as “those who are a part of me”. This makes us able to share their joys and sufferings, to sense their desires and attend to their needs, to offer them deep and genuine friendship. A spirituality of communion implies also the ability to see what is positive in others, to welcome it and prize it as a gift from God: not only as a gift for the brother or sister who has received it directly, but also as a “gift for me”. A spirituality of communion means, finally, to know how to “make room” for our brothers and sisters, bearing "each other's burdens" (Gal 6:2) and resisting the selfish temptations which constantly beset us and provoke competition, careerism, distrust and jealousy. Let us have no illusions: unless we follow this spiritual path, external structures of communion will serve very little purpose. They would become mechanisms without a soul, “masks” of communion rather than its means of expression and growth”⁵.

If the whole Church is meant to take up this indication from John Paul II, consecrated individuals do so as “specialists”, since this is the very essence of their choice of life: union with God and union amongst themselves in fraternal life. This is why the Church entrusts consecrated communities with the special task of "helping the spirituality of communion to grow first amongst themselves and then in the ecclesial community and beyond"⁶. We can well understand too that living together in community, as consecrated persons do, even when things are well set up and with the best of projects, is reduced to being a sociological fact unless it is deeply informed by this soul of communion. Putting this in Fr Chávez own words: “A community without communion, with all that this implies with regard to acceptance, appreciation and esteem, mutual assistance and love, is reduced to a group in which people may have a place but where in fact they are left isolated”⁷. And this can happen even where “the family spirit” (according to the expression so dear to Don Bosco) that belongs to our charism should be so evident.

“On earth as it is in heaven” – the model is the Trinity

Amongst the many images we can describe the Church by (and Lumen Gentium briefly lists some of these: sheepfold, flock, God's field, building, family, church, spouse, body; all drawn from the Scriptures), the Council preferred the people of God (LG gave an entire chapter to it, the 2nd). This people has Christ as its head, the new precept of love as its law, based on his love, and is " a lasting and sure seed of unity, hope and salvation for the whole human race" (LG no. 9). The Trinity is the source and model of communion amongst those who make up this unique people, to the point where it describes the Church as “a people made one with the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (LG no. 4), according to the famous expression of St Cyprian. It follows that the task of the Church in history is to help human beings to practise the communion with God and amongst themselves which Jesus had already definitively wrought by his death and resurrection, but which must now gradually inform the life of believers and then of the entire human race so that it may put into place the “on earth as it is in heaven” which we ask for each day when we pray the Our Father, that “all may be one” (Jn 17,:20).

Just as a migrant leaving his country to go to some distant land brings with him the habits, language, way of living of his country of origin, so Jesus – the divine migrant – coming to earth brings us his way of living in his place of origin, the Trinity. He not only made us aware of that but taught us to live amongst ourselves in the same way. This is how I like to interpret that part of the “Our Father” which says: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven": help us to live here on earth as you live in heaven, practising the same relationship and dynamic that goes on in the Trinity.

Consecrated life, being a living part of the Church, plays a special part in the unique ecclesial communion and expresses this in a significant and characteristic way, thus offering itself as a privileged place for experiencing and witnessing to the life of the Trinity. “Every kind of community in the Church in fact draws from the depths of the very being of the Trinitarian community, through the communication that the Trinity makes of itself and of the mystery of its very unity …. The Trinitarian dimension, then, envelops consecrated life in all its dimensions of consecration, communion, mission”⁸. Also in the variety of inspirations and forms in which it has been historically expressed, consecrated life has always been aware that it needs to look not only to the example of communion indicated by the Acts of the Apostles amongst the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem, where they were all “one heart and one soul” (Acts 4: 32), but even more radically to its original model, the prototype of communion of the three divine persons in the Trinity.

This normative reference to Trinitarian communion has certainly not always been explicit for Founders and Foundresses. But in the Rules and writings of many of them it is possible to rediscover this basic inspiration. One who says it quite precisely is St Vincent de Paul who writes to the Daughters of Charity whom he founded: "In the same way that God is one in himself, and the three Persons exist within him without the Father being greater than the Son nor the Son than the Spirit, so must the Daughters of Charity be; they are to be an image of the Holy Trinity; although many, let them be one heart and one soul. … This way you will make this Society a reproduction of the Most Holy Trinity. And this way your Society will represent the unity of the Most Holy Trinity"⁹.

It is wonderful that your Constitutions too, contain explicit reference to this lofty and normative model of our life which is the unity of the three Persons in the Trinity. As it explains the value of living and working together it says: “This is why we come together in community, where our love for each other leads us to share all we have in a family spirit, and so create communion between person and person. The community is a reflection of the Mystery of the Trinity; there we find a response to the deep aspirations of the heart, and we become for the young signs of love and unity” (C. 49). This then is how community life lived according to the model of love in the Trinity becomes the source of joy and self-fulfilment for everyone, and makes us capable of carrying out our apostolic mission to the young”.

We need to explain that the life of communion stamped by the Trinity which is part of the identity and mission of the Church in the first place, and then of consecrated life, is first of all a gift; otherwise it would be a superhuman pretence and an impossible ideal to achieve. In the Post-Synodal Apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici no. 31 the gift of ecclesial communion is “the reflection in time of the eternal and ineffable communion of the love of God”; and being a gift it is compared to a talent that “must be put to work in a life of ever-increasing communion”. And in turn “communion generates communion”¹⁰ and spreads out like concentric circles through the Church, to Christians of other confessions, to the faithful of other religions and to the whole human race. It is this that makes Christian witness and the Church's witness credible: “Thus the life of ecclesial communion becomes a sign for the world and an attractive power leading people to believe in Christ: “As you Father are in me and I in you, may they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17: 21)"¹¹.

Applied to the religious community, Vita consecrata expresses it thus: it is “a human community in which the Trinity dwells, in order to extend in history the gifts of communion proper to the three divine Person”¹² (no. 41). It is because they are made partakers, as indeed are all the baptised, in the Trinitarian life, and are in fact introduced to it, that consecrated individuals can then become credible and prophetic witnesses of it in the Church and in the world, including among young people.

The third precept of love – “love one another”

The commitment to practise fraternal relations in community modelled upon Trinitarian communion is made possible because the same love that binds the three in the Trinity has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 5:5). By implementing the new commandment given us by Christ: “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 13,:34-35; 15:12-13.17), we practise the mutual love which is a sign of the communion which exists amongst the divine persons of the Trinity. Before being the result of our good will, this love in fact, to the extent that Christ practised it (the Cross is its true measure) is a consequence of the divine love itself at work in us. It was God who first loved us and through the redemption healed our capacity to love him and our neighbour.

As is well explained in the document Fraternal life in community: "Before being a human construction, religious community is a gift of the Spirit. It is the love of God, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, from which religious community takes its origin and is built as a true family gathered together in the Lord's name. It is therefore impossible to understand religious community unless we start from its being a gift from on high, from its being a mystery, from its being rooted in the very heart of the blessed and sanctifying Trinity"¹³.

Naturally the duty of personal response (relationship with God) and building up fraternity on a daily basis arises from the gift of Trinitarian communion. This twofold dimension of personal communion with God and communion amongst the members “is the fundamental element constituting the unity of the religious family”¹⁴. If from God's side the gift of communion is full from the outset, from our side it is earned and regained daily along a path that demands everyone's involvement and which can also be an effort, with some falling back. Bringing about fraternal community life is something that requires self-denial, accepting our confreres' limitations, so a courageous and persevering ascetical journey.

Some may see this address as somewhat tough. We can only understand and accept it by beginning from the logic of the Cross, the total gift of self out of love, to God and one's confreres: “Love one another as I have loved you”. Let me read another passage from Fraternal life in community: "It must be admitted that this kind of reasoning presents difficulty today both to young people and to adults. Often, young people come from a culture which overrates subjectivity and the search for self-fulfilment, while adults either are anchored to structures of the past or experience a certain disenchantment …. Right from the beginning, it is necessary to prepare to be not only consumers of community, but above all its builders; to be responsible for each other's growth; to be open and available to receive the gift of the other; to be able to help and to be helped; to replace and to be replaced. A fraternal and shared common life has a natural attraction for young people but, later, perseverance in the real conditions of life can become a heavy burden"¹⁵.

This is how I understand the famous phrase of the young Jesuit St John Berchmans (1599-1621): “Vita communis mea maxima poenitentia”. Perhaps it has often been interpreted negatively, highlighting the difficulty of living together in community. But it says much more, really. For those called by God to follow Christ together with their brothers or their sisters in a religious community, there is no need to look for any other penances or ascetical ways of being holy. The daily requirements of loving a brother, a sister, with all the nuances that evangelical charity demands, is where we exercise our virtue, it is the characteristic place for becoming holy together. This certainly implies one aspect of ascetics, renouncing the old man, but it is also our great opportunity to encounter and love God practically in the brother or sister around us. So the asceticism that fraternal life demands is not an end in itself, but flourishes in a new experience of God's love: it is “the 'mystique' of living together” which Pope Francis hints at, that makes our life “a holy pilgrimage”¹⁶.

From the ideal to real life

This Trinitarian communion we partake of is a lofty gift then, but also a great responsibility to make fruitful the gift received and to effectively demonstrate that divine life in each of the members leads to overcoming differences and obstacles which are implied by any kind of human shared existence. We do not want to delude ourselves: without losing sight of the human-divine model which we seek to be inspired by, we know that we have to deal daily with human limitations and the root of sin and selfishness still there in us. We are very different from each other, with temperaments, tastes and stories that distinguish us from each other, and this makes fraternal life difficult.

We also know that the first community in Jerusalem, ideally described in the so-called 'summary' in Acts (cf. Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-35; 5:12-16) and which religious life has always looked to as its paradigm (cf. PC 15), was not without its difficulties and problems. Jesus himself, knowing human frailty, before he died, asked the Father as a special gift from on high for the unity of the apostles and of all believers: “Holy Father, keep those you have given me true toy our name so that they may be one like us .... I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May they all be one ... may they be completely one” (Jn 17:11. 20-21. 23).

It is interesting to note, running through the letters to the Apostles addressed to the early communities, what and how many were the practical pointers they offered on the new commandment of Jesus to love one another. Together, these practical pointers became a real “handbook” for fraternal life in community:

- “love each other as much as brothers should, and have a profound respect for each other” (Rm 12:10);

- “There must be no competition amongst you, no conceit” ( Phil 2:3);

- “Treat everyone with equal kindness” (Rm 12:16);

- “Treat each other in the same friendly way as Christ treated youi” (Rm 15:7);

- “advise one another” (Rm 15:14);

- “wait for one another” (1 Cor 11:33);

- “serve one another rather in works of love” (Gal 5:13);

- “give encouragement to one another” (1 Thes 5:11);

- “Bear with one another charitably” (Eph 4:2);

- “Be friends with one another and kind, forgiving each other” (Eph 4:32);

- “nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people's interests instead” (Phil 2:4)

- “Give way to one another in obedience to Christ” (Eph 5:21);

- “Pray for one another” (Ja 5:16);

- “wrap yourselves in humility to be servants of one another” (1 Pt 5:5);

- “let your love for each other be real and from the heart” (1 Pt 1:22);

- “Do all that has to be done without complaining or arguing” (Phil 2:14).

I found a beautiful echo of these practical indications in a text of your founder Don Bosco as well: “Firstly let us exercise charity amongst us Salesians, putting up with others' defects, suffering together. Let us encourage each other to to good, to put all the rules into practice, to love and esteem one another as brothers. Let us pray, so we can all be one heart and soul to love and serve the Lord”¹⁷.

At the same time, mutual love amongst confreres in community ensures unity amongst the members without ignoring each one's differences and gifts. Just as in the Trinity we have perfect unity because of the divine love circulating amongst them, but at the same time the Three are not confused and operate in distinct ways from one another, so in the community, mutual love strengthens communion and fraternity, guaranteeing each his freedom according to God's plans for him. This dynamic of unity and distinction too, modelled on the relationships between the three Persons, is the result of mutual respect and shared commitment to achieving fellowship. So that the community can foster both the human and spiritual fulfilment of all its members and the achievement of common apostolic purposes, “we must continue to seek a just balance, not always easy to achieve, between the common good and respect for the human person, between the demands and needs of individuals and those of the community, between personal charisms and the community's apostolate .... Religious community is the place where the daily and patient passage from “me” to “us” takes place, from my commitment to a commitment entrusted to the community, from seeking “my things” to seeking “the things of Christ”. In this way, religious community becomes the place where we learn daily to take on that new mind which allows us to live in fraternal communion through the richness of diverse gifts and which, at the same time, fosters a convergence of these gifts towards fraternity and towards co-responsibility in the apostolic plan”¹⁸.

The presence of the Risen Lord

The most important result of this community life style stamped with Trinitarian communion and guided by the logic of the Cross, is the stable and palpable presence of the Risen Christ, given his promise: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am with them" (Mt 18:20; cf. PC 15 a). Coming together “in his name” means in his love, in fulfilling his will, summed up in the commandment that he himself called “his” and “new”. So, he makes himself present, so mystically but real, and you can experience, almost touch his presence, especially thanks to the gifts of Easter that the Risen Christ among us will let us experience: peace, the joy of being together, light, “family spirit” (to use an expression dear to Don Bosco), apostolic zeal.

“In the life of the community”, Vita consecrata notes once more “it should in some way be evident that, more than an instrument for carrying out a specific mission, fraternal communion is a God-enlightened space in which to experience the hidden presence of the Risen Lord”¹⁹, according to the promise in Mt 18:20. Your Constitutions too make reference to this Gospel verse: “The profession of the Counsels helps us to live a life of fellowship with out brothers in the religious community as in a family which enjoys the presence of the Lord” (C. 61). The Father and the Spirit are also present in Christ: the community united by the bond of mutual love enjoys the presence of the Triune God and becomes its sign and witness.

The 'family spirit' your Founder and the Constitutions speak of is the atmosphere of joy and freedom where all members of the community feel at ease, enjoy one another's presence, feel accepted and understood, where their gifts are appreciated and excuse is made for their inevitable weaknesses. So then “how good, how delightful it is for all to live together” (cf Ps. 132), and the most visible fruit is joy, as Pope Francis also reminded us speaking last October to the Poor Clares at Assisi: "See to friendship amongst you, family life, love. May the Monastery never be Purgatory, but a family. Problems there and and will be, but as we do in family, through love, look for the loving solution; don't destroy one thing to resolve another; do not compete with one another. Look after community life, because when community life is like this, like a family, it is the Holy Spirit who is in your midst. Always with great heart, let things go, no bragging, put up with everything, smiling from the heart. Joy is its sign”²⁰.

May the Risen Christ in the community united in his love, fascinate many young people today and call them to join the Salesian religious family to continue to be witnesses for young people today of God's love for them.