A word from the Superior General

Rome, 14 March 2016

Dear Fathers and Brothers,

Here we are full in the heart of Lent which is a way to purify ourselves and renew our Baptism as we celebrate Easter. With this letter another path is open before us: the preparation of the 27th General Chapter which will be held at San Bernardino (Vicariate of Paraguay) from 6 to 24 May 2017.

With the consent of my Council, I decided to summon the 27 General Chapter of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Betharram in the place and on the date mentioned above (RV 182: st 9). We have also decided to name the Council of the Congregation as the “Working Commission” as laid down in statute No 10 of our Rule of Life.

We have decided to celebrate the feast of St Michael Garicoits on the 14 May 2017 with the laity of the three Vicariates which are part of Father Auguste Etchecopar Region. We shall celebrate Mass in the morning, we shall have lunch together and then we shall take the time to listen to what they want to tell us. In this particular Region there are a lot of people who share our mission. Without them Betharram would be unable to bring its mission to a happy conclusion particularly in the realm of education.

In our discussions with the Working Commission we decided to stress the Betharramite mission; what are its principal characteristics? “We don’t have specific good works” said Fr Davignau to those who were consulting him in 1968. Our mission can be summed up in every type of ministry: education, parochial ministry, health, spiritual direction, accompanying groups, popular missions, but cannot be identified with any one of them. Rather than a particular ministry the mission of Betharram is more like a way of working marked by the spirit of obedience; this is what keeps us free, available, capable of leaving everything, no matter how competent we may be, “to leave immediately” for wherever the Superiors may call us.

St Michael, quoted in article 15 of the Rule of Life, has this to say: “ the aim of our Society is not so much to preach, hear confessions or teach, etc., as to form men well disposed to perform these ministries worthily when the bishop or leader of the Society asks them. The object of the Society is then to train and form these ministers so perfectly that at the first signal of the will of their bishop or superior they can be worthily chosen to work for the salvation of souls”.

Pope Francis made me reflect on this when he spoke about the synodal dimension of the Church in his talk on 17 October 2015. As you know the word “synod” means “walking together”, “advancing together”. This idea is one of the most precious heritages of Vatican II. Everybody knows how necessary, exacting, beneficial and beautiful it is to “advance together”.

As consecrated souls even though the mission may scatter us worldwide, our particular way of life consists in “walking together”. That demands that we listen to each other in fraternal communities, in assemblies of the Vicariate, in Regional and General Chapters, and in Councils. Then we must listen to the people to “the point of feeling in them and with them what is God’s will for us to set out”. We must also listen to the priests, to pastoral agents, the Bishops’ Conference, the Holy Father.

“We need to practice the art of listening, which is more than simply hearing. Listening, in communication, is an openness of heart which makes possible that closeness without which genuine spiritual encounter cannot occur. Listening helps us to find the right gesture and word which shows that we are more than simply bystanders. Only through such respectful and compassionate listening can we enter on the paths of true growth and awaken a yearning for the Christian ideal: the desire to respond fully to God’s love and to bring to fruition what he has sown in our lives.” (EG 171).

Our communities will be meaningless if we don’t communicate what is essential in our eyes and if we don’t listen to what our brother wants to tell us. Without communication and without listening there can be no meeting possible between brothers, so much so that communities become hotel lodgings for residents. How could we be agents of the culture of meeting others, if fraternity which is supposed to be typical of religious life doesn’t find a way into our communities by a genuine and deep sense of communication amongst ourselves?

We are all brothers “marching together” towards our meeting with Christ, the Lord, in the Church and in the Congregation. Within it no one can dominate the others. On the contrary in the Congregation as in the Church someone must “lower himself” to be at the service of his brethren throughout the entire journey. The Congregation like the Church is an upturned pyramid the tip of which is beneath the foundations. This is why those who hold positions of authority are called “ministers” because they are the least of all. Let us never forget that! For the disciples of Jesus, yesterday, today and always the only authority is the authority of service, the only power is that of the Cross.

It is fundamental to integrate this ecclesiology so much so that instead of being a source of division between Superiors and religious, like enemies clashing as they pursue opposing plans, we love each other like brothers, we watch over each other, we feel involved in the life and mission of every religious and every community. Finally, it is the only thing that matters in the Congregation. Superiors like any other religious are at the service of each brother, of each community, for the life and mission entrusted by the Church to the Congregation where so ever we have been mandated.

“Walking together”, communication, listening and meeting are not contradictory with the “going forth” demanded by the mission. The spirituality of “going forth” is founded anthropologically but also theologically: “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for me and for the Gospel will save it” (Mk 8, 35). We cannot fulfil ourselves if we don’t make this movement out: personal blooming is the recompense for the gift of self to others as part of service. “To go forth” means a willingness to go further afield, to bid farewell to our securities, to all that we have achieved, to go to places where there is still plenty of work to do, without being preoccupied for self, but looking out for the good still to be done on the outskirts. If we take a look at some of our actual implantations, especially the colleges, we began in the outskirts stripped of educational structures. Today however such works are in the heart of the city.

The General Chapter is a golden opportunity to “walk together” in a precise place and for a short period of time so as “to see, judge and act” on the fidelity of Betharramites worldwide to the spirituality and mission entrusted by the Holy Spirit, to St Michael in the 19th century, and to us today. And after this short interlude, we shall resume our “walk together” in the missionary dispersion of our communities which is the reason for our consecration. It will be a time for listening to each other after a time for listening to the people and the Pastors, so as to find out in what direction to go in response to the Will of God which has assembled us. Every religious has played an active role in electing those delegates who will represent him in this listening and discerning exercise. Here all the votes are of equal value.

The preparation and celebration of the Chapter is a time of grace to intensify our listening to the Word of God and the life of those men who will listen to us; it will intensify also our prayer asking for the courage to do God’s Will and not that of those who are the best speakers, who have greatest influence or exciting ideas. It should also be a special time to practise the works of mercy showing what we really are.

The Commission has prepared material to help us pray, reflect, and share in our community meetings, assemblies, the Regional and General Chapters. We shall thus make sure that the delegates of all the religious will receive the strength, wisdom and light of the Holy Spirit in order to instil a fresh surge in our religious family for the next six years in fidelity to the Gospel of Mercy and to the men and women of our times. For this we are not alone; we can count on Our Lady of Betharram, on St Michael Garicoits, Fr Etchecopar and on all the Betharramites in heaven and on earth; they are interceding for us, so that those who embody the charism today may remain faithful to it and through their dynamism will draw others on the same path.

May we, in the light of this charism, remain united daily in the “Here I Am” of the Heart of Jesus.

We remain fraternally in this gentle, humble and obedient Heart.

Gaspar Fernández Pérez scj
Superior General