Summary

• A word from the Superior general
• Fr Auguste Etchecopar writes...
• An indian story to be meditated anywhere
• Holy Land !
• 5mn with Fr Gerardo Ramos
• In memoriam: P. Raymond Descomps
• In memoriam: Fr. Giovanni Trameri
• 1959-2009: Betharram in Ivory Coast

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A word from the Superior general

Being what we really are:  Betharramite Religious

The Regionalisation of the Congregation has become a reality.  We have created three regions, have appointed  three regional Superiors and 12 Superiors of the Vicariats. here’s no stopping life!
This new organisation of the Congregation is certainly a time of grace for each religious, for each community and for the whole family. This Kairos requires a genuine attitude of conversion from each one of us; it is a question of living at every moment and in every situation in fidelity to our meeting with Christ which  has transformed our lives and helped us in this organisation so that, in all things we may love and served God and his universal will which is the salvation of mankind.
Today, St Michael Garicoits is asking us in the words which he addressed to Father Jean Espagnolle (Letter 194):  this is all I am asking of you, always and at all times to have the God whom you serve ever before your eye, and his will which we express by our way of life, and fulfil it; let us at least try to carry out that adorable will, each one according to the grace received and to our situation.
The very existence of the Congregation is situated round the fidelity of each religious to his vocation, and to communion in each community – “that they may all be one” so dear to St Michael Garicoits; to the joyful witness of our obedience, our poverty and our chastity, in our commitment to the mission undertaken with the enthusiasm of our meeting with Christ – our deepest vocation – and not with the activism and seeking of compensations which resembles us by times.
As St Michael stresses in the same letter: For each and everyone of us the best cure for such ailments, as well as our duty, is fighting them in our own heart and in the heart of others, showing what we are by our fidelity to the whole breadth of our vocation and rank, respecting with equal fidelity the limits of our grace, our vocation and our rank.

Making the most of the grace of this Kairos of regionalisation, the General Council here offers the Congregation this plan of animation for the year 2009:
1. From the 21st to the 31st January in Rome, Council of the Congregation; the first four days, a speaker from the St Luke’s Institute, Padua, will help us do a sharing of faith..  The following days will be spent in making the new organisation in Regions and Vicariats functional.
2. From the 15th to the 30th April in Bethlehem, meeting of all the Regional Councils (Regional Superiors and Vicariats).  The first week will provide an opportunity of sharing of faith. During the second week with the Superiors of the Vicariats, we shall study the projects drawn up by the Council of Congregation.
3. In September and October 2009, in each Region, meeting of community Superiors, as was decided at the Council of Congregation in Bangalore. The superiors are fundamental to the reorganisation and revitalisation of our Religious family.They are most important in accompanying the religious in the fidelity to their vocation and in the construction of communities which are prayerful, fraternal, hospitable and missionary.  We would also like that during these meetings of superiors the sharing of faith should be used.
4. Before the end of 2009, a meeting will be held in each Vicariat, according to Article 259 in the Rule of Life. Our plan is that every Religious in the Congregation will have been able to revive his vocation thanks to the method of sharing of faith.
I make use of these two sayings of St Michael, when he encourages us (in the same letter) to enter wholeheartedly into this dynamic of personal conversion, of brotherly communion and of the reorganisation of the Congregation:  “Do this and you will live and you will be the cause of life for others.  You can understand, experience and do that; and you must do it more than any one else. May you come to understand this duty fully!

Gaspar Fernandez,SCJ

Fr.  Auguste Etchecopar writes... to his sister Julie, 8th January 1874

Happy New Year in the Lord Jesus!  He has enlightened by his light, sanctified and regenerated us by his blood. He is always our guiding light, our one and only way,  our unique life, the only object worthy of our charity and our love.
And now it is the feast of the Epiphany. Through our sins we were like a den of thieves; through our double vocation of Christian and religious, he has made us into torches, into suns to shine in the world; he has placed us among his angels; he has transformed our hearts into his temple, his dwelling place, his paradise!  He thinks only of our soul and the glory of his Father. May he be for ever thanked, adored, and loved by every living creature. Amen.

An Indian story to be meditated anywhere

Last November, the Secretary-Treasurer General paid a visit to the Betharram communities in India.  On his return he brought us this delightful little story from the Formation house Maria Kripa..

1929-2009 BETHARRAM IN IVORY COAST It is nearly 50 years ago since our Congregation took its first steps in Ivory Coast.  We are going to follow the story of this undertaking during this jubilee year.  We shall owe it to Father Laurent Bacho, General Councillor and formator in Abdijan.   1. THE FOUNDATION Following the encyclical letter Fidei Donum of Pius XII in 1957, Betharram decided to come to the aid of the young Churches in Black Africa; there are many calls, where to go?  In the Spring of 1959, Father Jean Mateo, provincial superior of France went on a fact finding tour of Senegal and Ivory Coast. In July, the Congregation decided to go to Ivory Coast, to the diocese of Katiola, in the north of the country, to Ferkessedougou.  Mgr Emile Durrheimer, of the Lyon African Missions (SMA), has total responsibility for the north, more than1/3rd of the country.  He succeeded in convincing Father Mateo that the buildings would all be ready come the month of October!  It was a matter of opening a Teacher’s Training College for the formation of Catholic teachers in 40 primary schools; the normal cycle of studies is spread over 4 years, at the end of which is a Teacher’s Certificate. Who to send?  Father Peter Prevost who had done good work at the Catholic School in Saint-Palais was sent as Superior and Director;  Father John Suberbielle, who had spent 6 years at Beit Jala was to be his assistant.  The Benjamin of the group was to be Father Pierre Monnot, ordained only a few months earlier. In September it’s the departure for the mission and the foundation; work has just begun on the buildings! Father Raymond Laulom, chaplain to the state schools in Bouake, joins the Community at Ferke for the school year. On the 3rd November it’s the inauguration of the first class for the 45 youngsters of class 6; in reality they are great big 18 year old lads!  Our 3 founding Fathers spent the first few months in the parish, warmly welcomed by the Parish Priest, Father Won Wile, a Swiss SMA who was full of attention for them.  Father Paulus, another SMA priest responsible for the equipment in the diocese, bustled about on the site.   young Fathers gladly rendered services in the parish:  Father Prevost with Family Catholic Action, Father Suberbielle with the Legion of Mary and Father Monnot with les Coeurs Vaillants. On the 8th December they were amazed to see how the Christians celebrated the feast of the Immaculate conception; In any case it’s the anniversary of the consecration of the parish Church “Our Lady of Lourdes”.  For the first time, the Blessed Sacrament procession left from the Training College “St Michael”; the Christians are justly proud of the construction of the first Catholic secondary school in the North.  Mgr Durrheimer, presiding over the celebration, was happy to see that the Fathers living quarters was almost complete. Laurent Bacho,SCJ