5. In conclusion, how to go about inculturation?

Since interculturation is accomplished in encounter, effective programmes and methods applicable to all situations cannot be worked out behind a desk. It will come about through a flexible spirituality allowing a process of discernment lived in situations of tension of all sorts. There must be the will to maintain a creative fidelity to the charism and the desire to see this charism lived in many ways in other cultures. There must be the willingness to live union of spirit and heart among members of an institute in a disconcerting and threatening cultural diversity. There must be the recognition that openness to all cultures is always faced with resistance to the proclamation of a chaste, poor and obedient Lord. By submission to these realities, consecrated life promotes inculturation through an attitude marked by acceptance, and maintained in prayerful discernment and with the frustrating patience that evangelization always supposes and requires.

It is a source of consolation to observe how, through hospitality and solidarity, by participative sharing in common life and a continuing dialogue with God, consecrated life carries the gift of the living Christ to the men and women of all cultures in the building of the holy city where the wealth of the nations is gathered so that God will be all in all. Interculturation is an eschatological promise, not unrealisitic but yet not of this world. We plant, we water, but only the Lord gives fulness of life.