A word from the Superior General

Fr Gaspar Fernandez Perez, with some religious sisters during the feast of the “Gaucho” at Tacuarembo (Uruguay), new betharramite mission post following the appeal of a bishop.

Sometimes our young people do not understand that we are not defined by large institutions, as if they were the guarantee of the identity of our spirituality and our mission. This is the case in India, for example, where most congregations are responsible for major colleges, hospitals...

Strangely enough, during my last trip to India, I had the opportunity to meet with an Italian congregation of religious sisters whose charismatic inspiration was centered on the mystery of the Incarnation, like ours. All the experts were advising them to define the originality of their mission. The sisters then told me what happened during their last General Chapter, as they sought this originality: they just did not find it as their mission can be achieved in any type of ministry. That really made me happy.

The same uncertainty took hold of us at the Inter-provincial commission of Bel Sito in 1968, charged with the task of preparing the chapter of renewal - which was to happen the following year - commissioned by the Second Vatican Council. The Commission asked Father Duvignau if Betharram had its own works. He replied as follows:

It would seem so, yes ... with this, we can see that these works (missions, retreats, Christian education of young people) are not limited: they were only assigned to the congregation due to favorable circumstances and the actual situation of the Church in France ... later, there was the response to the call of South America (1856); without knowing exactly what we would be asked to do ... this was renewed when Leo XIII asked us to leave and go to Paraguay. Similarly, when the Holy See gave us a mission to China. Our history, therefore, shows that the congregation is open to all the needs of the Church.

Without the slightest doubt, the will of Saint Michael fits perfectly with this. According to Father Etchecopar, the first inspiration of the Founder summed up the whole mission of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, “the eternal priest, the servant of the Heavenly Father”. He liked to say that the favorite works of the congregation were those which others did not want to do, whatever this involved. Every time he had to talk about the, “substantial things of society” he said precisely that from the beginning there were no limits on the tasks. The congregation, he explained, has no other purpose than to train men able and ready to go, at the first order of the bishop or a superior, to exercise all the ministries that were entrusted to him: a task force: idonei, expediti, expositi. (NEF 187 -188, August and September 1968).

Not having its own works means that the congregation has its own purpose even if it were not involved in the present works. This also means that any work can become its own. This can also mean that the works in which the congregation operates today are its own if they allow us to live by the requirements and community lifestyle of our vocation as religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. That is why it is good to practise personal and community discernment (Rule of Life 19).

The most important ministries in the life of St. Michael Garicoits were the popular missions and education. However, at the request of the bishop, the founder asked Fr. Vignau in 1851 to take on parish service at the Church Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, with a community which looked after chaplaincies including those of Carmel of Pau. In 1851 again, he asked a community, where Fr. Larrouy was the superior, to take charge of the sanctuary and the parish of Sarrance. In 1862 it was the turn of a chaplaincy opened near the Servants of Mary in Anglet. It was the same in South America: the mission with the Saint Joseph’s College in 1858, the Church of Saint John the Baptist with the chaplaincy of the Poor Clares of Buenos Aires in 1861, the Church of the Immaculate in Montevideo in 1861 and later the college in 1867.

Fathers Etchécopar and Bourdenne followed the same policy especially in France. In South America, by way of contrast, it was education that developed, bringing difficulties as with any human enterprise, to look for “greatness” as a lifestyle. It was not always based in the Gospel. Father Chirou in 1875, with a community, in 1879, secured the work of the chaplaincy of Carmel in Bethlehem.
With the exception of Sarrance, it is possible to note that St. Michael was not on the side of the ministry, as we read in the correspondence II, letter 244, p. 84-85, the letter of 02.17.1860. Father Magendie who decisively led the educational work in Buenos Aires said: “I did not become a religious man in order to be a parish priest.” Yet in 1912 he was the first parish priest of Pereyra in Barracas.

In 1909, the parish of Droitwich was entrusted to us. Up until 1967 therefore, the congregation was responsible for 14 parishes including La Plata. Since II Vatican Council, this type of ministry prevailed over others in the congregation. It seemed that this was the most appropriate ministry. Today we keep a more critical distance. There were communities capable of cultivating a community and charismatic identity in parish service. In other cases, parish ministry has contributed to neglect of community life and Betharramite identity, developing instead an individualistic lifestyle in pastoral work, which is not exactly the lifestyle of the consecrated.

We have had communities focused on ministerial formation in the diocesan seminaries: as at Beit Jala in 1932, San Juan de Cuyo in 1936 and Rosario in 1939. Currently, there are communites working in health care, something quite new to the congregation: the care home for the elderly, the Maison Neuve in Betharram, the family home of Monteporzio living with AIDS patients, the clinic at Niem with the Saint Michael centre at Bouar in Central Africa. Not to mention the first evangelization work in America (1856), China (1922), Thailand (1952), the Ivory Coast (1959) and Central Africa (1986).

What matters is that in these various ministries, the mission is accomplished. This means that Jesus, the Word incarnate, is known, loved, accepted, followed and announced to the people who live around us. It is the witness of the gift of our lives that must shine, that must attract, giving meaning to the hope that is in us. That is the very thing that must not be missing in the college, the parish, the home for the elderly, nor in the mission ad gentes. Be aware! When this is sometimes missing, this is the important point! Even if we say that this is what we do, people are not wrong, they see something else: the predominance of our personality, the risk of authoritarianism, the money instead of education and evangelization ... On 29 November 2013, the Pope said to the general superiors, without it being reported by the media: “I do not want you to have colleges so that you can earn money!”

Gaspar Fernández Pérez, scj
Superior General