From the General Chapter (1)

At the end of the general chapter held in St. Bernardino, the Chapter delegates sent a message to the Betharramite laity. We publish the unabridged text in the hope that, through the official channel of the congregation, it will reach every associate lay person.

It was quite natural to confirm the dynamics – launched a few decades ago – aimed at widening the boundaries of the Betharramite family. It was important to reaffirm the beneficial bonds that keep us united. Now, it is necessary to foster these bonds to make our Betharramite family grow and to help us better accomplish our mission.

Betharramite Lay & religious together: eager to embrace life

In these years of walking together and sharing the charism of our holy founder, we are discovering and feeling the call of God, to build His Kingdom in an increasingly complex world.

Being faithful to our charism of the «Here I am», we make ourselves available to respond to the call of Pope Francis, who asks for a Church that goes out to the encounter. The XXVII General Chapter has adopted a motto that echoes this call of the Holy Father. « Running to embrace life’s call.» In this itinerary we have travelled since the last General Chapter, we have deepened the Charism, renounced to individualistic styles of work, assumed more community and cooperative styles to give integral answers to emerging new problems; this dynamic will not become possible if we continue to believe that we are the owners of the charism & not its bearers.

On May 14, the Feast of our Founder, the religious of the Chapter and laity of Latin America met in Asuncion to «share the same happiness.»

We rediscovered together the things that unite us.

We feel a thirst for a Betharramite spirituality in the laity, in the various countries with their richness and peculiarities, this thirst and diversity is an opportunity to live the charism that our founder bequeathed to us, so that we may be Good Samaritans in our time and our culture.

We belong to diverse cultural realities, and are convinced that the charism of the Incarnation is not exclusive to a group or a culture, it is not exhausted by one spiritual life, or one type of pastoral activity or commitment. On the contrary, it illuminates all dimensions of life. We value communion in diversity, and understand that here we still need to overcome certain resistances and rivalries in some religious communities and lay groups.

We value the work and capable service the laity offer to the Church, to mission and to families. A shared mission between lay and religious of Betharram will make our ‘going out’ more fruitful in the encounter of life.

We are aware that outside our communities there is much life in the different margins. We cannot be indifferent to these cries, we are also aware that without laypeople our responses would be limited and insufficient. Closeness to suffering will not be possible without a deep conversion and spiritual formation, respecting the vocations of each one.

The General Chapter recognises that the task of evangelisation, mission, education of children, young people and a fruitful family pastoral is the task of laypeople and religious; we believe that this joint task will foster a vocation ministry for the Church, the Congregation and for all families. At the same time, we value the closeness of the laity as they walk with us in the mission. From the General Chapter we reiterate our love and respect. We entrust ourselves to your prayers and assure you that you may always count on ours.

The SCJ Capitulants