A word from the Superior General

Dear Betharramites,

In continuing to reflect on the General Chapter, I hope to finish here, the editorial of last month which echoed these words “Look, I am sending you out ...” (cf Mt 10.16).
Christ, who has called us, has dignified the life of our missionary family. Full of gratitude, we want to devote ourselves to an intercultural project owned by all, sustained by the availability of all, and that gives priority to the most needy and vulnerable, in order to serve and bring healing with the power of the Gospel.
Today we often feel a lack of strength, fatigue and sometimes even disappointment... we are like wounded healers whom Jesus continues to lovingly challenge, so that we give an unconditional response and will “refuse to remain silent about what we have seen and heard “ (Cf. 1 John 1 ff).
I would like to briefly recall two themes that seem to underlie the call to “go out” that the General Chapter has proposed:
1. For us, to obey is to let ourselves be guided by the God of Love. He himself makes himself known through his Son Jesus, who is growing in the womb of Mary. This familiar scene (of the Visitation) illustrates the joy felt by John in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth. The Spirit of the Son of God leads her to “go out to meet” her cousin, without delay, as a humble servant.

Mary becomes missionary, and breaks with all normal conventions for a pregnant woman. She takes a risk and goes out! Guided by faith, she forgets herself. Like this she becomes an image of the mission of the Church, which isn’t limited by structured and organised activity, or ‘very safe’ work, which leaves no room for surprise.
Besides, several Gospel passages tell us that the call of the Kingdom is born when we know how to take advantage of the unexpected breakthrough of the Lord’s voice. Listen to him to ask us to go to work in his Vineyard, even when he calls us at the “Eleventh hour”, when all hopes seem to have fallen...
Let’s look at our reality: a life without surprises, merely structured? An interweaving of schedules, meals, breaks and meetings (& meetings mania)? This puts us on a path that is apparently more “safe”, but far too comfortable, and ends up taking away passion from the Gospel and draining hope for the future. Someone once suggested that: evangelising is always a task that has a whiff of insolence and subversion about it... It doesn’t thrive on “this is how we’ve always done things”. It requires audacity.
From the beginning of his public life Jesus the Nazarene proposed to go beyond human calculations. He did not depart from the will of the Father who sent him. His was a passionate and challenging life, and always loaded with an “unexpected” component.
For their part, the missionary disciples doubted ...:
• Peter and the disciples are amazed that Jesus is so clear and explicit about his passion and death, and they want to dissuade him. The paradoxical message of the gospel - to lose one’s life to win it – passes over his head, as he lets himself be carried away by human logic (like when he hesitated to cast the nets again after having worked all night to no avail). Only faith in the Word of Jesus and allowing himself to be fraternally corrected will change him.
• The disciples see how the Canaanite woman, the Roman Centurion, the lepers, the blind Bartimaeus, “steal a miracle” from Jesus. They succeed in doing so because these poor folk surprise the Master with their cry; they implore him, then do what he tells them and allow themselves to be healed. They face risks; they challenge convention, and demand missionary responses and actions from the Good Shepherd. Jesus is not like a salaried official. And by his actions he shows the disciples that he doesn’t need officials, but rather workers who believe in the Good News of the Kingdom, and who respond to the poor without making them wait.
• The disciples, in the Gospel of John, are surprised because Jesus is speaking at midday with a woman, and a Samaritan... They don’t question him even though they know this isn’t politically correct, and they also believed he had better things to do .... But Jesus, faithful to his mission as an apostle of the Father, trusts that He is the new event that evangelises, the Messiah, it is worth spending time to dialogue with her!... At the end of their dialogue Jesus reveals himself: “It is Me, the one who is speaking to you“. So there they are: a deserted well, an empty pitcher and a woman who runs and becomes an apostle for having accepted in faith a thirsty Jew, Jesus, who surprises her.
We too can be challenged by a cultural difference that makes us nervous ... but we do not give up being happy as Betharram, or bringing happiness to others. We will win through if we accept Christ, whose human face has a thousand colours, and a thousand forms, always equal in dignity before the merciful eyes of the Father.

2. The call to incarnate in our concrete life the Face of Christ in each Region and in different cultures.
When we present the Word of God to his People, we do so from a personal experience of faith. This is the guarantee that we’re not just giving a beautiful discourse, (but empty of any authentic lived spirituality). Our personal relationship with God is reflected in the way we speak about Him. It gives authenticity to our message: “to speak of a God whom we know and treat familiarly, as if we were seeing Him” ​​(see EN 76). An entire image of God is transmitted when we preach. This Jesus, humble and obedient that we have internalized in so many years of formation becomes visible, becomes a life proposition. His face is seen and felt in mystery.
Now, when someone does a pastoral activity without appreciating it, without loving it, then it becomes an empty ritual that we go through the motions of doing. Thus, the activity loses all its dynamism and spiritual depth. Announcing the Gospel is a particular form of love and gratitude.
I am glad when I hear people say: “I love the Betharramites’ style of preaching”. “You have something different ...” “When I heard you, I felt challenged in my own life ...” We must not allow that gift to be extinguished, a gift that is like “an instrument firmly grasped by the hand of the worker” (DS 325), which cooperates with the Holy Spirit in expounding to the faithful the profound meaning of the Gospel.
We must, imitating Mary, be attentive to the innumerable events of life and to the human situations that the community is experiencing, and that offer us the opportunity to witness, in a discreet and effective way, what the Lord himself would like to say in these situations (see EN 43). Always faithful to revelation, as authentic servants of the Word.
In this way, healed and surprised by the God of Love, and ready to proclaim it, we will be like those Betharramites who not only “have something different when they preach”, but what characterises them is that they “run and fly in the footsteps of Our Lord Jesus Christ”

Eduardo Gustavo Agín scj
Superior General