A word from the Superior General

I will never forget that experience I had together with some priests and a group of young people in that forgotten part of inner Argentina which is the Province of Catamarca, where we used to go every year for the missions. One evening, Karina, Pablo and I visited an old lady whose physical fragility kept her at home. Saddened to not be able to leave the house, we told her straightaway ‘Don’t fret, Madam. Jesus is so good that since you can’t go to the church, he who loves you so much and who knows everything, has decided to come to you. We have brought you communion.’ Her face lit up, she exclaimed ‘How beautiful it is.’

This missionary episode affected me a lot because it gathered together all the elements of activity of a missionary adult; we went out from the group to go to meet this woman; we entered into dialogue with her in her housebound situation. These same circumstances brought us to announce Jesus to her, the word incarnate who is made close to everyone. They were the source of our meeting with her, of her meeting with Him, through communion, which was the most important thing. We reached the goal of every missionary: to announce Jesus as the person who loves this old lady and becomes close to her. This lady was filled with joy, and so were we, as we had managed to bring her the happiness that Jesus brings.
The lifestyle of a devotee might provoke refusal in certain people or certain groups, but it might also stir up reflection, when someone feeling respected – no matter what their convictions are – commits themselves in turn to respect the other person in their difference and to open themselves up to dialogue. Respect and opening up towards differences are the conditions for having a real encounter with people, including with Christ. The same thing can happen to those who are close to a religious community that lives faithfully in the joy of its commitment to vocation and builds up relationships with others that are steeped in joy.

[The] mission [of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Betharram] continues the action of the Heart of Christ, the Incarnate Word, offering Himself to the Father to accomplish his will of salvation: to  reveal to  the  people of our time the  compassion, mercy and the loving face of God the Father. » (RdV9)

As missionaries, we are also disciples who have met Christ; we have loved him and have decided to live – to be – like him. In living like this, we are sent by Christ, the Father’s chosen and well loved Son. The purpose of all this is the same for us as for him: to show the people of our time his tenderness and mercy, the loving face of God the Father. Sometimes we have so many activities that they take up all our time and make us lose sight of the purpose of our mission: little by little, we try to take the place of Jesus without ever managing to. That can even happen to the most holy ecclesiastical institutions.

For the rest of us, religious of Betharram, members of an institute of consecrated life, the mission is a fundamental element of our life that cannot be separated from the other parts: spirituality, devotion, evangelical brotherhood. If, in order to be genuine missionaries, we cannot do without our spirituality, our devotion, any more than our evangelical brotherhood, we cannot be so either without giving importance to the mission. It’s a more important experience than any activity. And, in order to become missionaries, they must allow the experience of meeting Christ to happen. This experience of encountering the love of God in the person of Jesus, which has made us disciples, persists also in that other experience which makes us brothers in the community just as it does in giving to others, facilitating their encounter with Jesus, so that they too can know the same happiness as us. To see other people happy is what makes us missionaries.

“Religious  of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we have for our programme the very programme of the Heart of Jesus the eternal Priest and Servant of the Father. Our mission is the continuation of the impulse of the Incarnate Word saying to His Father: “Here I am”, for the salvation of humanity. Following   the   Incarnate  Word,   whom  “the   Father consecrated and sent into the world” ( John 10.36) we in turn are consecrated and sent to be in the world, by our whole religious life, a sign proclaiming Jesus Christ. ‘Religious life will be all the more apostolic as the gift of oneself to the Lord Jesus becomes more interior and the common life more fraternal and the commitment  to the specific mission of the institute  becomes more ardent.’”(VC 72,d) (RdV 13).

Our mission is not only the total sum of all these activities that are demanded by our pastoral responsibility. Often, our attention is taken up by activities which are not the most missionary-like. That is why it is important to take stock, in order to give priority to what is more missionary and which is characterised by total commitment to accompany people with gentleness and by welcoming them, to serve them as servants of Jesus Christ and to announce the Gospel to them, the person of Jesus, our Master and consoler. We can organise ourselves very well to carry out the mission and other good activities in our consecrated lives: meditation, confession, the community meeting, helping the poor. For example, when I am in Rome, I love to go on Mondays to serve an evening meal to the poor as a volunteer with the Friends of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. After praying vespers, I go the Santa Maria del Popolo Church where the poor and the volunteers take part in Mass. At the end of Mass, we all go to the refectory where dinner is waiting for us. I help as I can, until 5 minutes before my community’s meal, which I feel is important to take part in. I prefer to help in the first service. But one day, when there was a lack of volunteers, I stayed to the end. It also happened that I came back after eating. I cannot say that my help was indispensable. And no-one was shocked when, after helping out, I went back to eat with my community.

Gaspar Fernández Pérez scj
Superior General