Rita Salerno (courtesy)

Italian version

 
The international Congress on consecrated life will open in Rome at the end of November: "Passion for Christ, Passion for humanity". We want to reflect together on some contents of the "Instrumentum Laboris", a document which is already meaningful in itself. The organisers, union of men and women superiors general, speak of this mega-congress (more than 800 participants) as a "milestone" in the history of consecrated life. Is this a realistic expectation?

To touch consecrated life is to touch a "milestone" of the life of the Church.

The Congress, which will be celebrated in November this year, will be a world event, a listening to different expressions of the consecrated life present in the Church and in the world; I am sure that it will be a strong ecclesial push.

In this mega-meeting, I catch an unprecedented and praise-worthy tentative to bring to focus the "newness" which the Holy Spirit is causing to be born and is arousing in and through the religious life.  I find important the fact that there is a reciprocal upswing, that men and women religious together may re-discover the roots of an on going prophecy. All this expresses the dynamism itself of consecrated life, which can be more or less considered at institutional level, but which, anyhow, remains one more opportunity offered to us. Coming together, notwithstanding the complexity of the event, is an ecclesial experience with an undoubtedly creative force.

The central objective of the Congress is that of understanding what the Spirit of God is causing to be born in the consecrated life today. It is a beautiful bet, since we know the complexity, the cultural differences within the religious institutes, the difficulties and the challenges which today's consecrated religious  are called to answer.

In reality the objective seems very high, especially if we think of the elevated number of participants and of the very short time at our disposal for the work of the Congress.  Our listening  deeply to one another, looking at the future, will already be a good result.

But simply listening to one another will not suffice; more important is catching what will emerge out of the congress itself, and discerning, together with the Church, the pushes which will derive from it. The objective looks ambitious, but I am convinced that something "more and beyond" what we do, "more and beyond" what we say or foresee will be born from it.

The preparatory document speaks of many challenges of the modern world that could be transformed into great opportunities of revival for the consecrated life.

They are challenges which are provoking also the USMI and which we have faced in some of our national assemblies, fully convinced of the opportunities enclosed within these pushes. Phenomena like globalisation, economy, mobility, ethnic and religious pluralism allow us to touch with our hands that the West is no longer the barycentre of the world. Religious life itself must be aware of these changes, without taking anything for granted.

The phenomenon of the groups or persons mobility, for instance, sends me back to the experience of the religious, to their choice and availability for the "mobility" throughout their existence. It is the matter of a specific quid of our religious life, which can become an answer and a support to this situation.

Why, then, not to recuperate such an aspect and not to live it in evangelical terms, in the sense of being and of feeling closer to the people in continual migration?

However, to me, the greatest challenge to religious life is that of answering man's need of transcendence, a challenge which, willingly or unwillingly, will lead us beyond our works and which, as I wish, will shake us from our sclerosis and our feeling to be good.

The "instrumentum laboris" lists, without half terms, a long series of obstacles and impediments, which actually prevent the religious life from being what it is supposed to be. This is surely one of the document's most realistic page. The awareness matured in many meetings on consecrated life, during these past year, converge in it. What do you think about it?

I have felt enough disquieting the comment on the so called "obstacles and impediments" in the synthesis of the "Instrumentum laboris" published in  "Testimoni". On reading the list from the original text, instead, it may seem strange, but I have been somehow disappointed because I expected a clearer evidence of those obstacles at church and society level. 

Actually what is said there is that, in our way of making projects and programmes for our consecrated life,  we are somehow conditioned, above all, by today's cultural models and, in certain ways, we are blocked by a narrow ecclesiastical system which mistrusts the evangelical freedom that often animates the consecrated life (see the  Preparatory Document No.53).

As far as I know, I think that one of the "obstacles" of the women religious life is the weakening and loss of a true ecclesial sense, namely the sense of a real belonging to the universal and local Church; some ecclesial areas, instead, show a real difficulty, as well as a certain reticence,  to open themselves to the dynamism of charity and of prophecy on which many religious institutes are already journeying.

After all, obstacles and impediments send us inevitably back to our personal and communitarian limitations; they ultimately relay us to the sin of man. However, we can't help wishing, on behalf of all, a better awareness of the obstacles to be removed and the steps to be taken.

As a responsible member of the USMI, I hope that the dialogue open with our Pastors, in this transitory moment of Religious Life, may keep on becoming more and more intense and may contribute to give again a more evangelical and luminous face to the consecrated life in the Church.

I think that the two reference icons of the Congress, that of the Samaritan woman and that of the good Samaritan, are truly well thought of. As we know, they are central in the life of all Christians and of all vocations; but what specific thing could they suggest to the consecrated?

I, too, have found them very appropriate because of their complementarity as well as because of their being a reading key of our ecclesial and social reality. They urge us to fetch from the true "well" of the Word of God, of the Eucharist, of charity for the poor.

Now, if it is true that these two icons are meaningful for all the components of the people of God, I think that for the consecrated religious they become an invitation to express with more determination the radical practice of the Gospel in their life. In the  icon of the good Samaritan, I like to catch a solicitation, a further urge of meaningful gestures, to re-discover the face of Christ in the poor. In the "Redentoris Mater" chapel, Vatican, Fr. M. I. Rupnik has given the figure of the Samaritan in an emblematic way, namely with the very face of Christ.

Contemplating this icon, religious life finds the motive and the courage to be in the vanguard of the discovery and to quench its thirst in the "frontiers" of the contemporary world, so much diffusely signed by suffering and poverty.

In the icon of the woman Samaritan, I read the invitation of going back to the centrality and to the foundation of our religious life,  the "unum necessarium" which the Gospel calls us to.

Besides the obstacles and impediments, the preparatory document speaks also of signs of hope with which we are supposed to look into the future of the consecrated life. Are they only signs or something more?

I would say that these signs exist really. However, we are to face constantly the temptation of the works and of the immediate answer to the primary emerging needs of our people.

As USMI, we are going to make once again our own the foundation of the consecrated life, of the consecration genuine charism, through itineraries and through the spiritual laboratory the preparatory document speaks of.

Another step to be made with an increased conviction is that of speaking with new inedited terms about re-foundation, trying to express it again through a serious spiritual discernment. There can't be any re-foundation without the re-discovery of the foundation of religious life. We are supposed to have the courage and the taste of speaking of this, that is: speaking of the criteria of spiritual life,  the mystery-reality of Redemption, the Kingdom of God, the mission entrusted by the Father to our Lord Jesus and to his disciples.

These arguments should be more frequent in our talks, as a horizon of our apostolic choices, of our re-organisations and re-structuring; they should orient and move the whole of our person,  by shifting more and more the barycentre from us towards Him, from our works towards a more adherent and incarnated testimony.

The most difficult problem is the one we read at the end of the "Instrumentum Laboris": to pass on to action, attempting to delineate a new paradigm of consecrated life. But I ask myself: how is it that on one side the "load" of the activities by the religious in the church and society continues to be even today enormous quantitatively, yet on the other side we feel the exigency of "passing on to action"?

We cannot avoid to understand the many changes taking place in the women consecrated life, but we cannot also be silent about the increasing hidden danger for many works to become fossilised. The needs are dizzily changing and we often remain still with answers  which were good years ago. We do not have the courage, and perhaps enough resources, to discuss matters.

This climate of prevailing immobility is causing fragmentation and breaking. We are witnessing the growth of "gemmations", as some Bishops say, that is of small groups of religious which detach themselves from the tree of their own Institute, to try a new life-style. But experience leads me to say that these tentatives often do not succeed to express a new paradigm of consecrated life.

I think that the most successful expression has been given by the consecrated nuclei which, while remaining incarnated in the reality, in the territory, attempt to express once again their consecration starting from the Word of God, from fraternal life,  from liturgical and communitarian prayer, rather than from the re-organisation of the works or the revision of some aspects of community life.

What matters is reaching the heart of religious life,  re-discovering the communitarian experience, prayer, sharing, fraternal correction as reciprocal promotion, learning to "spare time" for the fraternity, for spiritual meetings.

In the new USMI internet site (compliments for the new look!), I have seen the first answers to a survey to know whether hope is lived in the communities. Out of 36 answers, there are 17 yes, 3 no, 14 a little and 5 very much. Previously, it had been launched another survey on the quality of community life. I don't have here the precise data, but I remember that the religious fully satisfied with community life where only few! Is the time ripe to accuse our communities?

If it is true that in the Italian reality of the women religious life there are real narrow situations of  extinguished obedience, of scarce communication, but it is also true that almost everywhere a freer and more serene climate is emerging. We still need, however, to recuperate a more realistic and less ideal vision of community life, remembering and commemorating the Paschal mystery without disjoining the event of "Resurrection from that of the "Passion".

The dimension of communitarian life, as it has been evidenced in the latest documents on consecrated life, is not to be taken for granted. It is to be taken as a way of the cross and a way to light   which are not parallel, but which cross each other realistically.

We "form the community" not so much to live a better life or because of a more efficient apostolic realisation, but above all to experience as much as possible the life of the first communities made up by the disciples around Jesus.

I like, here, to recall an expression of Fr. T. Spidlik, who, speaking of the life of the Church, observed how many historic fights and conflicts have been born simply by the fact of wanting to live together at any cost because of an idea. At the same time, he gave the example of a mother who keeps the family united not because of an idea, but because of her maternal love.

A mother becomes somehow the figure of the Holy Spirit in his relational and love dimension.

Is there a truer model for an authentic Christian and religious life? This is a new field on which we ought to let something new bloom up.

The problem of inculturation is a recurring theme not only in the "Instrumentum laboris", but even more in the daily life of many religious institutes. To speak of inculturation means also to speak of many challenges, deriving from various anthropological, cultural, organising models to which not only the single religious, but also the general governments of our institutes are often unprepared to give an answer. How does the President of USMI see this problem of inculturation?

In our assemblies, we prefer to speak of the attention to be paid to the new multicultural reality of our Congregations, more than of the true and proper inculturation.

The problem of inculturation emerges strongly in the field of initial formation. The Religious Congregations, particularly those more numerous, have experienced that it is not possible an initial formation which does not take into consideration the different belongings and cultures during the preparation to the profession of vows, as well as in the assumption of the charism.  A religious institute present in Europe, in Africa, in Latin America and in Ocean, though with the same soul, cannot have the same modalities in the expression of the charism.

In every process of inculturation, the parts under cause are called to enter the discussion of one's own history. At this point, we, religious from the West, are supposed to be the first losers, in an evangelical sense, without giving up our identity. The situation of those institutes in Italy with very few Italian religious and numerous nuclei of religious from other countries must surely arise problems. I wonder what the development of the charism and the cultural horizon of the formative proposal may be In such a case; we are to hope for a dutiful inversion of numeric or geographic tendency.

The preparatory document insists rightly on the importance of a good spirituality. But how to let it be born? How can we turn the charism of foundation of a religious institute into a "laboratory of spirituality?" 

In many parts a tentative is being made of helping the leadership of the religious Congregation to pass from a prevalently organizing management on to a style of government which is more attentive to the life of the Spirit and to the spiritual discernment of the works.

Several formation courses started by USMI want to be an answer to this need,

The learning of spiritual discernment is difficult, but obligatory. In fact, we cannot go on sharing and exchanging only our worries on the things to be done; we shall go on minding also this, but, at the same time,  we feel the need of taking an attentive care of the life of the Spirit in us, the Spirit who acts in our communities through our service. It is not a question of doing more, but of dialoguing more to be contagious of faith and of charity.

The publishers of the preparatory document, at a certain moment, fear that certain forms of consecrated life may be transformed in real "museum signs", with an out-dated language, in a consecrated daily life which is no longer meaningful for today's man. Is there any exaggeration in this?

No, there is no exaggeration. When we speak of language, beyond the verbal transmission of some values, I think of the modality of our presence and of how, actually, people perceive us today. As long as we are worried about giving prevalently an answer to the material needs of people, most probably we shall be unable of expressing a new life-style.

It is true that on the emergency frontier, in spite of difficulties and of ever older sisters, religious life is still present. But this is not enough. The deep motivation of our service, the reasons of our charism should clearly be visible;  otherwise people will continue to come to us only because of the service we offer them and not for what we profess, namely the proclamation of Him whom we desire to follow.

A fundamental interrogative keeps on coming to my mind. How much would our presence as consecrated be perceived useful and meaningful in the always less Christian contexts, without the support of our own works? I think that today we are to concentrate not so much on a new management of our works, but rather on a new presence as consecrated in the Church.

There are many communities generously ready to answer, for instance, to the needs of the "Trade", of the immigration and on other frontiers of marginalisation; the same force and incisiveness do not emerge for the need of announcement. Here our fantasy is still weak and least luminous: we are facing a whole future to be discovered.

The icon of the good Samaritan reminds also the consecrated of a concrete and real economic involvement before the many material poverties of today's world. I ask the President of the USMI one question which the preparatory document makes to all the religious: "How can consecrated life help to pass from a living in function of the superfluous  to a living in function of the necessary?"

From what I know, the women religious life is seriously questioning itself, perhaps because of necessity,  on the economic policy of the institutes and, in particular, on the use of some structures and economic resources, attentive to avoid the superfluous and to live with the necessary things; however we need to understand better what  the so called "economy of solidarity" means also for us.

We feel the need of expressing our solidarity through the sharing of our economic resources. To this end, many Congregations are facing a great challenge: the passage from the management of works  to a simple presence of pastoral animation or of small fraternities.

The "instrumentum laboris" has been thought of exclusively as an outline for the preparation of the November international congress. It is easy to think that the efficacy of this event will be proportionate above all to the level of sensibilisation during the preparatory phase. Taking for granted a greater "diligence" on behalf of the women religious than that of men religious in preparation of this kind of events, how is the USMI as such moving to this regard?

This event is involving us seriously.

At national level we have inserted it in our annual objectives and have shared expectations and perspectives with the presidents of the regional USMI, to whom we have handed over the "instrumentum laboris",  so that during this period they may make of it an object of reading and information at local level.

Before being involved at this level, this year the USMI has committed itself to the preparation and participation in the National Eucharistic Congress of Bari.

The Eucharistic Congress is an essentially liturgical celebration.

The Congress on Consecrated Life, due to the multiple perspectives, the modalities and the inter-nationality of the participants, can become a resonance box of the Spirit, a "milestone" in the history of religious life. The fact itself that the participants are from different parts of the world, that they want to seek where the Spirit is leading us, to listen to the "Passion for Christ and … for humanity", constitutes,  to me, an event essentially ecclesial, a great act of love for the Church and the world on behalf of the consecrated men and women.