A word from the Superior General

Pastoral conversion is one of the key concepts of the papacy of Pope Francis; it is also the fundamental experience for a renewal of the Church in the hearts and communities (EG 20-49). Since it is all about key experience, the Church herself, must experience once more “the delightful and comforting joy of evangelisation” (EN 80; EG 9); the joy of the Gospel filling the life of the community of disciples is a missionary joy; this joy is a sign that the Gospel is being announced and bears fruit. But it always assumes the form of an exodus and a gift, of a path and a seed looking to the future (EG 21).

Talking about conversion we think only of the personal and private level and we hide the interior change under many efforts, demands and sacrifices which mostly are not geared towards a transformation of the individual in his heart and in his conduct no more than the renewal of religious and ecclesial communities. During this coming Lent our conversion must be different; it must be guided by the Word of God as Pope Francis transmits it to us through his actions, words, decisions and acts; it must also be expressed by a serious change in our conduct and our community relations. May the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium guide us in our reflection.

Pastoral conversion means a radical change in how we understand and live our Christian faith. It means the passage from a situation of tranquillity and self satisfaction focused on the believer or on the community to a situation of openness and movement of the individual meeting all the others; then communities meeting those who have distanced themselves from the Church to bring them the joy of the Gospel message, the love which God has for us, just as Jesus of Nazareth showed it, he the Son of God made man.

It means passing from a Christian life influenced by this world to an Evangelical Christian life full of truth which fills us with joy, urging us to ever greater progress, wanting to share with others the same happiness as St Michael was saying already in 1838: “The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life, it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ” (EG 2)

Pope Francis is here pointing out some real dangers, specific to a worldly way of thinking and because they are clever lead to a certain familiarity. During this Lent our conversion must consist of opening our eyes to see the signs of the times by listening to the People (EG 154 – 155). It also means being careful in examining our own conduct and motivations, interiorising the Word of God. Celebrate the sacraments; accept to be challenged in the dialogue with our spiritual director, by our brothers in community and our Superiors. It is only then that we will succeed in overcoming such worldly attitudes and attach greater importance to the place of the person of Jesus Christ in our lives as in the lives of our communities. With Christ at the centre our lives will be evangelical: humility, gentleness, mercy, dialogue, communion, fraternity, happiness and departure for the mission.

The key to this pastoral conversion lies in the meeting with Jesus, as Pope Benedict XVI said in Deus caritas est and repeated in the document of Aparecida and by Pope Francis in EG 7. Jesus is a living person, exciting because everyone knows the love of God and can enjoy it. By putting him at the heart of our lives, in a loving relationship as disciples we cannot lead a quiet life as long as we don’t consecrate our lives to that which he had consecrated his life: that all mankind today may know and live of the love which God has for them. (EG 264 – 267).

No one is really a disciple if he isn’t also missionary. We shall not be real missionaries if we are not his disciples, his companions, his closest friends (Mk 3,13 – 15; EG 262 – 267). The life style of the missionary-disciple like that of Jesus, his master, will be evangelical love, expressed in the image of a grain of wheat which falls to earth and bears much fruit about which Jesus said: “He who wants to save his life will lose it; he who loses his life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel, will save it” (Mark 8,35) The apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium says how this love is the corner stone from which all the rest proceeds:

Evangelii Gaudium expresses well that this love is the corner stone from which all proceeds. We become fully human when we become more than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves in order to attain the fullest truth of our being. Here we find the source and inspiration of all our efforts at evangelisation.”(8) “Consequently, an evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral! Let us recover and deepen our enthusiasm, the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing, even when it is in tears that we must sow. And may the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the good news not from evangelizers who are dejected, discourages, impatient or anxious but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervour, who have first received the joy of Christ”. (10).

All Betharramite religious and laity must be part of this process so as to be part of the renewal of the Church; this renewal will will be the result of the renewal of our communities, our missions, our services, our good works and the structures of our Congregation so as not to be an obstacle to evangelization. Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our comfort zone in order to reach all the “peripheries” in need of the light of the Gospel (20).

This then is the aim of our mounting to Jerusalem with Jesus where we shall celebrate the mystery of his death and resurrection next Easter. Each Betharramite, whether religious or laity, washing his garments in the blood of the Lamb, renews the power of his baptism and consecration with the whole Church. He can therefore experience with greater joy and enthusiasm the evangelical fraternity and the mission to evangelize. Each Betharramite community, animated by this renewal of the religious can then be a worthy witness of the Risen Christ.

Gaspar Fernández Pérez, scj