Community: workshop of evangelical citizenship

Family spirit

18.  From the syntheses of the Province Chapters there emerge acquired data,

to be later expanded, on the need to have communities animated by the family spirit in which clarity of roles and complementarity of tasks contribute toward nourishing it.  The great quantity of data relative to the need to build

humanizing communities express the cry for communion that rises from the greater part of the provinces.  The syntheses bring this out in a particular way when they focus on the quality of relationships and the style of life.

Quality of relationships

19.  In reference to the quality of relationships, the responses from the provinces bring out that the family spirit is rendered visible especially in loving-kindness. It becomes benevolence, closeness, gratuitousness, and respect for the rhythm and growth of every person. In this climate, the inevitable difficulties are overcome through open, sincere dialogue, theexperience-insistently recalled-of the pardon given and received.  The need for positive interpersonal relationships is concretized in the experience and sharing that, on various levels,embraces  the whole dimension of community and personal life..

With the aim of making the community a place of life for all, keeping present the needs of the Sisters at every stage of life, we see the commitment to harmonize, in the light of the charism, the differences of age, talents and culture.  For this reason, we seek to focus on accompaniment, reciprocal empowering and collaboration in its various expressions.

The presence of personal and community difficulties weaken the quality of the relationships.  The tendency for seeking prestige, attachment to one’s own ideas, a weak journey of asceticism and superficial faith do not sufficiently support personal motivations in giving one’s own contribution and weaving authentic relationships.

The need for accompaniment on the part of the FMA frequently comes up against a weakening of the presuppositions  of dialogue and motives of faith.

From a community point of view, the difficulties are concentrated around a reciprocal lack of trust that goes from a lack of sincerity, clarity and dialogue, to hasty judgement and prejudice, to negative criticism and a weak acceptance of diversity.  This is not a very constructive style and at times provokes the weakening of the sense of belonging, the seeking for gratification from outside sources, lack of balance between the needs of the community and personal needs, qualifying our environments as those of common life rather than of communion of life.

Style of life in the logic of the beatitudes

20.  For that which regards the style of life inspired by the evangelical counsels in a  relational key, the family spirit is translated into attitudes that express the logic of the Beatitudes:  simplicity and sobriety, transparency and coherence, availability and fidelity, personal and community discernment, joy and hope, meekness and peace.

The Syntheses reemphasize that these attitudes are frequently overcome by an activism that generates weariness, stress, indifference and individualism, bringing out the primacy of doing over that of being.

The profound experience of the Covenant is made visible particularly in the assumption of the evangelical value of poverty and in the radicality of the choice in favor of the poorest.  The relational dimension of the vow of poverty, in fact, invites communities to undertake journeys of sharing and solidarity, to place the disposal of its goods, talents, time, resources, environments against a dominant culture pervaded by consumerism and by the concentration of the egotistical satisfaction of desiring.

The choice of sharing implies, on our part, the assumption of a lifestyle in which the easy temptation to comfort is overcome by the exercise of self-limitation.  It requires the witness of submission to the common law of work, the appreciation of talents and the competence of each person, the education of young people to seriously and responsibly assume the commitments of life in fidelity to their daily duties.  It requires community discernment on the economic situation and the continual revision of the choices adopted in relation to the mission and promotion of works and missionary projects.

Circular model of animation

21.  In the greater number of the provinces there was brought out the need for a less institutionalized community, one that is more welcoming and flexible according to the model of communion. At the same time , there is also noted a growing sense of belonging to the Institute on all levels. The sense of co-responsibility and subsidiarity favor a greater participation on the part of the FMA and the laity in administering  the works and in particular in the development and responsible assumption of the educational project.  We give more and more space to a circular style of animation that involves all members of the educating community in the various phases of planning and in its implementation.  In the community we have become aware of the need to work with greater continuity and a healthy discernment regarding the choices which, in fidelity to the charism, favor the primacy of the person over work and efficiency.

Commitment to the mission

22. For us, commitment to the mission flows from fidelity to the Covenant with God. It inserts us into the great mission of the Church, born from the Eucharist and is usually expressed in an inculturated educational action, especially among the poorest, and invites us to build apostolic communities open to the challenges of today’s culture and committed to the witness of evangelical citizenship. The educational passion becomes legible in the creative seeking for responses to the questions of those to whom we are sent, in particular,of  the young people.

There is perceived in the communities the Salesian missionary heart  that allows itself to be provoked by the charity of Christ, the Good Shepherd and by the maternal solicitude of Mary and it  commits itself to witness the fidelity tothe charism in the Church in the diverse cultural contexts.

The communities express the educational passion, living with and for the young people and allowing themselves to be challenged by their formation needs.In the commitment of administering community life with flexibility, starting from the needs of the mission, the FMA are aware of having to assume in a co-responsible way the educational project, through a process that facilitates the passage from the «I» to that of «we» and generates the sense of the shared mission.  This is favored by community encounters in which we share in an attitude of responsible laboriousness, walking together toward the young people, accepting the inherent weariness and difficulties.