By inter-netting through a research motor, we find that the term "minorità"(lessening), only in the Italian language, appears 283 times. It mostly refers to the Franciscan life-style, but there are texts produced also by other religious realities and it appears more and more frequently, above all after the World Congress on Consecrated Life. The reality, which is expressed by this term, is very much different from the sense of minority, which means always an inferior level, a limit, a losing confrontation concerning number and strength.

Today, given the shortage of vocations, and the increasing requests of commitments made to the religious, we would be, perhaps, more inclined to live them in the attitude of minority. The Gospel instead, through the beatitudes, teaches us to turn our poverty, the crisis, the loss of traditional guarantees, into an unpublished opportunity.

Living the present

All the challenges are in the present, and they can be faced only in the faithfulness to the present. Not to be able to think of anything else, but of the present, is typical of the poor, of the minor.

In particular, for us Italian sisters, the present is a time of transition. It is a silent time, because it is described only in the daily rhythm of life. It is a long and painful time, because there have been separations and deaths. The parable of our Institutes, in Italy, is affected by the social transformation, which it mirrors, somehow: from the enterprising littleness, with much commitment, houses have been built and works have been realised such as to nourish in us the idea of greatness. Today, willing or not, we are deprived of such institutional securities: the guarantee of assistance to the aged; the respect, the support of the number for the youths, the social appreciation.

We are being destabilised, we are almost compelled by reality to an evangelical recognition: we are non longer self-sufficient, we are unable to give the right answers. We need others, we need the youths, the people. We are going back to the condition of the seeds, of the ferment. This is not because we want to annul the experience, but because we want to understand it in today's world.

This is not true only of us religious, but also of the entire civil society, which is wounded by the migrations, by an economy in crisis, by want of work and other.

What does it matter, then, living this time in the optic of "lessening"?

As an answer I remember a true event of a young Vietnamese  sister in my community. On Saturdays, we usually go to serve the poor in St. Egidio at Transtevere. This sister happened to serve two friends whom, by mistake,  she helped with two second different dishes: fish and meat. At the sight of the fish, one of the guests said that he would not eat it. It was just the matter of changing the plate, but soon the friend stopped the sister saying, " Sister, give it to me. I am poor and, therefore, I do not choose, rather I accept anything which I am given". On her coming home, the Vietnamese  said, "Today I have learned how to live the vow of poverty".

Patience as a passion

The attitude of the poor is that of patience, as an alternative to possession. Patience can be learned not in a school, but in life itself. Its is a truly different style if compared to the "everything and soon" of today's society, to the one who cannot wait, to him who imposes himself with arrogance , to him who has a thousand securities. To accept of not understanding immediately, of standing still because it is important to stand still in order to understand the transition.

In the latest meeting of the USMI, the superiors in Italy looked into the phenomenon of the aged together with the vocational crisis. They were able to find in them a reminder of being a  "sign" in a society, which exorcises the old age, an opportunity for "purification".

It has been said that the maximum of dynamism flourishes in staying. He, who knows how to stop, knows how to be thoughtful.

He, who knows how to stop, is capable of reflecting, of being patient, of going to the very root of things, of not letting the experience of existence slide away.  He is capable of keeping the lamp in front, like that of the miners.

The transversal challenge, which today deceives us, is that of violence. Not only the absurd violence of a preventive war, but the violence present in the biotechnology, in the work, in the sports, in the information, in the liberal economy, in the family and in the religions.

Fr. Alex Zanotelli, a Combonian missionary, now in Italy, some time back, after being a guest in a community of religious, wrote a provoking thanksgiving letter. He, who is one of the most famous operators of peace, asks, "Let us know the non-violent means you use which would allow me to live a reconciled experience, let us know how you deactivate the spiral of violence within and among you. This is important for us who live in a world of violence. Grant us the gift of the ways you use to get out of that violent spiral which takes everyone, our families, our communities, out nations into the abyss of apocalyptic violence".

To be attentive, namely to be patient in reading the events, becomes an act which transforms us from spectators into protagonists.

If we are educators or, anyhow, women of God, we are called to a new magisterium, never to walk in history abstract-minded, but to interpret, like Mary, the events, studying and allowing ourselves to be helped also by the laity.

To ask for help from God and from the community is typical of him who is poor. Each event is an announcement and we cannot allow it to pass in vain through our life.

Some time back, I asked a group of new superiors to linger with the community on the events of life, to evaluate them, to go deep into them. I gave those superiors some hints about the market of weapons, of bioethic, of the trade of women, etc. Some objected that the sisters are not well prepared, that we cannot expect them to pay attention to themes which are above their understanding.  True, it is not easy to cover certain areas which require a dose of scientific knowledge, but it is just here that the community should function as facilitator of understanding and reflection. "lessening" does not mean ignorance. It understands the reciprocal empowering, the walking together.

"Lessening" means, however, a change of one's own realm of imagination. Once there were too many protagonist situations in religious life, the huge number of sisters, the meaningful works, the youthful strength, the big structures. This, instead, is the time of pruning, also of precarious economy, for someone also the impossibility of making long term projects. On this depends our desire of being near the poor, without guarantees, of entering with full title the line of the Beatitudes.

There is a true event that charms me and that concretises the state of littleness we should tend towards.

Some years ago, for the Seattle Paralympics, nine athletes, all of them mentally or physically disabled, were ready on the starting line of 100 metres race. At the sound of the pistol, the competition started. While racing, a little boy fell down and started weeping. The remaining eight athletes stopped and went back: A girl with the Down syndrome, sat near him, started kissing him and saying, "Are you alright now?". Then the nine of them embraced one another and moved towards the winning post. All the people in the stadium stood up, applauding for several minutes. People who were present still narrate the story.

From easiness to simplicity

Near the challenge of violence, which, as we have said, requires an active patience, there is another idol that fascinates mostly the young generations: the easiness. Marco Lodoli, a writer, who luckily continues to be a teacher, has recently launched an alarm wholly shareable, " We have been living long under the influx of a charming divinity, a little bird, which sings suavely, but which has such  a subtle and wild beak as to be able to eat the brain. The Easiness is a goddess that devours our thoughts and, consequently, our entire life".

For those who work with the youths, starting from the children of the nursery class, without excluding the members themselves of the religious community and the adults, it become necessary to oppose this idol with the style of simplicity, which identifies itself with the "lessening"  and, as the author himself says, it is a "solved complexity, it is the honey produced by the beehive, it is the delicious wine which carries behind the fatigue of the vineyard". These are all images, which recall attention, work, daily faithfulness. Marco Lodoli continues to recommend, "Simplicity is the final goal of every effort of ours: we should always commit ourselves to see that our thoughts and our gestures be simple, therefore harmonious and right".

Simplicity must connote our life: from the personal and communitarian projects up to prayer; from the organisation to the relations.

Patience as passion and simplicity, as transparent sight, fruit of thoughtfulness and commitment, are the two mental categories, which can be translated into attitudes and gestures of life.

Which type of community?

One of the most meaningful and specific resources of religious life is the community. It is the area where we are called to live our daily life, where the present becomes the fabric of our relations and a resource for the eventual challenges. But the community is to be looked at in the face, our idea of the community is to be updated in the optic of "lessening".

The epochal change has touched also this reality. Certainly the characteristic inscribed in the denomination of community remains solid, as Massimo Cacciari also says, "We no longer conceive a  community based uniquely on giving in order to have, based on the remuneration, in which the munus (from community = cum munus. ndr) disappears and only the remunerable remains".

But there are also new things which we are supposed to consider, if we want to be realistic.  A group of lay people helps us to open our eyes by writing, "The community which we desire for our lungs is no longer the community of our forefathers. A gap, which cannot be filled separates us from our past. Once the community meant the belonging to a homogeneous world, to a system of values and reminders, which were translated into a language useful to be recognised and protected. Now, nothing is taken for granted, there is no longer any automatism to hold us together. Today the community is intrinsically plural and requires personal choices on behalf of all its participants. Open yourself, o my heart, and be kind: we need to repeat it every morning, as soon as we put our feet out of bed, otherwise there will be no community".

This lay vision is not far from what we are proposing in order to live the spirituality of communion, to live the Gospel "lessening", which makes us to accept the other as he is, as a gift. Today the differences are enormous, because we find ourselves before a very strong generation gap. Everything is more accelerated, and everything is more multicultural, above all, if we think of the parish, of the quarter we live in. But our community also reveals differences within itself.

Maria Rossi, a religious psychologist, writes, "In our communities there is no homogeneity. The sisters who make it come from different social walks, they do not have the same degree of instruction, they have different roles and dedicate themselves to different professions; they different age, strength, opinions, mentality. Amid the diversities, which form our richness, prejudices are born and grow, creating ill - feelings, difficulty of understanding and the blocking of vital energies. With regard to study, those who have studied understand nothing of practical life, the others find it impossible to understand one another on certain topics. As far as age is concerned, the aged sister  thinks that a young sister may not be able to understand the essential things of life, and the young sister may think that the elderly ones cannot understand  her attitudes and even less the attitudes of the youths".

The first step to overcome the prejudices is to admit that we do have them. The second step is that of doubting about our mental schemes, which are sometimes rigid and linked exclusively to our way of being. The community is an ecological system: it lives and produces fruit through the harmony of different contributions and the exchange of resources. It's not enough to speak of positive relations, it is necessary to project and to build together this communitarian ecosystem, even through a good and transparent communication. Only he who knows can participate. Only he who knows can love.    

 The community is the place where we can live a moment of love. The community is our abbreviation, our parable.

The "Instrumentum laboris" of the recent world assembly on consecrated life has lingered on the consideration of the community and has seen it as a "sign" when " the differences of gender, of age, of culture and sensitivity are respected" 

The community itself succeeds in catching the pluralism of society in a better way, and in defending and enlightening it with evangelical wisdom".

The perfume of joy

At this point I wish to go back to the initial expression: living the present.

There are two elements in this vital synthesis. There is the attention to be paid to time, which is, today, one of the most revolutionary categories, where everything is done and seen in direct. Time runs away too fast.

If, instead, we pay attention to it, there will not be black holes, empty spaces, stressed moments or other, in our days.

Another important element is that of living it with love. When we fall in love, everything gets transfigured, charming; it becomes the perfume of life, even in the most difficult situations. In the Congress on consecrated life, they have kept on repeating that we need passion in all we do and are. With this regard, here is one of the final expressions of the paper by Dolores Aleixandre, "The way you have embraced is not an ethical model, nor a founder narration, but a passion, an adventure, a risk, an itinerary to be made with open eyes and ears and in which the only mariner's compass,  which guides to destination, is that of mercy and tenderness".

Joy is born from here, a joy, which is a signal of the Kingdom, the perfume which attracts the youths to the following of Jesus the Lord. Enzo Bianchi quotes a father of the fourth century, who says that the youths are like the dogs, which go hunting. If the dogs smell the hare, they go on hunting till the end. If they do not feel the smell of the hare, they get tired and stop. If the youths catch from us the perfume and the joy of the Reign, they will continue to the end.