Life of the Congregation

Fr Jean-Do, Regional Vicar of the Region St Michael Garicoits, has just been appointed Regional Bursar of the same Region. In spite of his busy schedule, he has decided to take the bull by the horns. Oh yes, managing the accounts of a Region is a bit like doing some sport! One must not fear to spend one’s time in keeping watch over the money of the Congregation. And to start off on the right foot, he popped over to the Generalate in Rome. What for? you may ask. Fr Jean-Do himself will explain.

I have just spent two whole days of work with Father Graziano Sala at the General Household, to see how to organise the service of the Regional Bursar’s Office. We have to recognise that tracking our personal accounts and those of the Community is not always an easy task as this asks for application and clarity. However, it is necessary and important to know how the goods are managed, which are at the disposition of each religious brother for his life, his mission. The congregation must know how it is progressing towards responding better to different calls from the world and from the Church.

This work gives me the opportunity to reconsider the vow of poverty which I try to live by. I understand better the different calls sent out here or there, in the Councils or Assemblies or Chapters, for a certain rigour in the way we manage the goods entrusted to us. Returning our accounts isn’t for the purposes of spying but rather it is a liberty which is exercised for the good of each member of the Community, let alone that of the Congregation. A Community radiates through the inner freedom that can transpire in the life of every religious brother, also by the detachment that each brother tries to live through, following the impoverished Christ, giving his life totally. This following of Christ is also translated through this loyalty to return accounts for the good of the Community, which is in truth demanding.

To ‘live poverty’ is a Paschal path where truth, simplicity and humility are attitudes which are asked of me. So, yes, it is paradoxical: knowing how to return accounts, month after month, is certainly an exercise of simple calculations but it is also a spiritual exercise. Why then all this resistance and slowness which is within us, to return our accounts? When we are sure that doing our accounts gives us freedom.

It is with this that I leave Rome after 2 days of work, not forgetting the brotherly and family welcome received at the General Household and at Miracoli. Thank you.

Jean Dominique DELGUE scj