From the General Chapter

While the printed Acts of the General Chapter travel to your communities, we have asked six of our brothers - who were delegates to the General Chapter - to tell us what has most marked them - strengths or new elements - in the reflection of their respective working groups on each of the six major orientations chosen by the Chapter (two orientations per month until the end of the year).
Not an explanation of the text, least of all a report of internal debates - let us not forget that this matter is under the seal of secrecy - but a personal reaction to the fruits of a collegial reflection.

1st Orientation | To go out to drink from the same source

The General Chapter allowed me, among other things, to make the following observations on the subject under consideration:

Betharram is a small family, but it is scattered over 4 continents. It forms a beautiful kaleidoscope of colours, landscapes, cultures, languages, traditions, flavours, temperaments, ways of thinking, interpreting and confronting life... all this being a concrete expression of a Betharram open to the world, a Betharram already “going out.”

Betharram finds a source of enrichment in the good and the values ​​of the various cultures in which it is found and in which, faithful to its charism, it is incarnated. Today we are more sensitive and more willing to value and integrate these local assets.

This beautiful kaleidoscope, joyful and full of life, added to the generational renewal, confronts us with the challenge of the authentic communication of the Charism which, like Evangelisation, risks according to me two dangers:

Confusing the Charism with the cultural and contextual elements which originally enveloped it, and expecting it to be lived today throughout the world as “it was at the very beginning and for centuries and centuries.”

Devaluing the Charism by adapting it to the present place and time, falling into the trap that Pope Francis warns us about: «instead of us incarnating the charism, we simply become worldly.»

Betharram also wants to respond with courage according to its possibilities, its identity and its originality, to the challenges and calls launched by the new geographical and existential peripheries.

This is why the General Chapter saw clearly that:

... to live and transmit with faithfulness the Charism, which is a gift for the whole Church,

... to form a single religious family and not to dissipate ourselves, nor to disperse ourselves in the vast ocean of cultural and territorial diversity, in which Betharram has its place,

... to develop our own Identity and not to remain mute or disconcerted in the face of the tyranny of individualism and the absolutism of individual interpretation, and finally

... to meet the new challenges from our charismatic identity...

... it is urgent and necessary to “go out, to drink from the same Source”, in a permanent movement. The Acts of the Chapter bear witness to this.

It is by drinking from this Source that our Identity is nourished and strengthened, and it is from here that our Mission emerges as a creative response of the Congregation to the diversity of appeals. We will thus avoid a pick & mix identity and mission by simply adapting to the whims of our clients.

Each Betharramite must constantly drink from this source, to know how to live and express the charism with the elements of his own culture and the one in which he finds himself.

We confirm that we go together, religious and laity, to drink from this Source, Gift of God.

We must act so that the charismatic sources (the Writings of St. Michael and Betharramite spirituality, the Rule of Life, history, etc.) are accessible to all Betharramites wherever they may be. I also believe that it is necessary to carry out an updated study of the life and spirituality of Michael Garicoits.

Betharram is determined to go out to meet life. We have been enriched by the new life of many countries in which we find ourselves; this very life full of youth must grow and forge its identity by drinking from the same source of our fathers; on the other hand, it is this young life that awakens the enthusiasm of the older life, frees it from the weight of years and challenges it to drink, not from the source of habit, but always from the original authentic source.

Daniel González scj

2nd Orientation | Going out to share

Niem, 1st October 2017

Dear Brothers,

At the General Chapter of last May, I was part of the group “Going Out to Share”.

When we discussed the theme of sharing, we chose to focus on two specific issues:
aspects of Congregational Government and the economy of communion.
I won’t present to you the proposals which emerged from the work of the group or the motions voted by the Chapter. These can all be found in the Acts of the Chapter.
I would rather offer you some thoughts that emerged from our group sessions and from my experience as a religious who has lived in the Republic of Central Africa for 25 years.

As we celebrate World Mission Day this October, why not begin with a quotation from the apostolic exhortation The Joy of the Gospel, that Pope Francis proposed for this day:
“The mission of the church is animated by a spirituality of constant exodus. It is about getting out of one’s own comfort and having the courage to reach out to all the peripheries that need the light of the Gospel.” (EG 20)

Sharing at all levels is a daily challenge that affects all of us because it costs us a lot to give up our comfort, the routine of everyday life.
«This is mine, and beware anyone who touches it!» ... a knee jerk reaction as relevant to government as to economic matters, and obviously also in all other areas of our religious life. But if we truly desire to be disciples of Jesus Christ and the sons of St. Michael, we must have the courage and above all the spirit to keep nothing for ourselves.
This is precisely what the “Here I am” says. We often behave like people who rely only on our own strength. We believe that we never deceive ourselves, that we always have the right solution ...( for others naturally!) That is why, when faced with a new proposal, an invitation for a new mission, a new responsibility, we try to resist.

Thus, without even noticing it, we become more and more critical, more and more acid, we lose our ability to listen, to welcome, to be kind to our brothers... and we slowly die, even if we can be seen in full activity, busy 24 hours a day. And yet to look at our brothers with benevolence, to rejoice in their “successes” and to weep with their “setbacks” should be part of our spirituality; it should be “natural” to us. I believe that this must be the basis of any community project, on which the chapter has been so insistent and that every community, no matter how big or small, has the duty to develop and live.
We must have the courage and be quick to trust our superiors, especially when we do not always agree with them, when we do not see things very clearly. At our meetings, in our assemblies, we all often repeat the chorus «Here I am Lord to do your will». Perhaps it would be better and it would be more honest to keep the volume down here and just re-read the pages of the Spiritual Doctrine on Obedience. These are undoubtedly pages that we like to read, but defending one’s own comfort is a reflex that unfortunately often prevails, and we stop at the minimum necessary, thinking only about functionality and completely forgetting grace.

In recent years, we have been talking more and more about the “Economy of communion”, and indeed, through participating in the Chapter, I have witnessed a real and growing solidarity developing in the Congregation. I think of the formation of a Fund for Formation, not to mention a practical solidarity between Vicariates and Regions.

Thanks be to God, we are not a religious family with huge economic resources. Yet we often work both little and large miracles of solidarity. I can testify to that as a member of the Regional Council of the Saint-Michael Region.

It is precisely for this reason that we mustn’t waste our scarce economic resources. Hence the need for clear and accurate balance sheets and budgets. And this is not only a task for the bursars at different levels, but it concerns every religious, especially at the end of each month...
All of us at all levels, need training in the ‘accountability’ field, beginning in the time of initial formation. We cannot pretend to be infallible administrators. If training programs in this field are foreseen in the near future, the assistance of external professionals is increasingly necessary and even indispensable.

All of this is very good, but it mustn’t stop there, for we are religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The economy of communion cannot stop at solidarity between General House, Regions, Vicariates, communities. It must challenge each one of us in our daily lifestyle. In our way of living the economy on a daily basis, we must not forget that “Jesus Christ had no place to put his head” (Lk 9:58). We must live in a spirit of personal renunciation, be able to emerge from our comfort, not to live a heroic asceticism but more simply and concretely for the good of my brother, my community, my vicariate, my Congregation, the Church whose servants we are.

It is only through this spirit of poverty and the welcoming of the other – in whatever margins and the context that characterizes it - that we can go out to encounter life, real life, which will open for us the doors of eternal life, where, at the end of our earthly exodus, we will live forever in the peace and joy of God the Father.
In the Lord,

Tiziano Pozzi scj