Help us, Francis,…

1.      I wish to begin this conversation with a prayer of John Paul II, in which is expressed, it

seems to me, the feeling of the Church in living the events of human history.  A few weeks after his election, he wanted to go to Assisi to pray at the tomb of Francis, in order to talk with him and entrust to him his suffering for the Gospel and for humanity: 

“You who drew near to Christ in your era, help us to draw near Christ in our era, our difficult and critical times. Help us! These times are awaiting Christ with the greatest anxiety, even though many men of our era do not realize it…

“Help us, Francis, to bring Christ near the Church and the world of today. You who carried the vicissitudes of your contemporaries in your heart, help us, with a heart near the heart of the Redeemer, to embrace the affairs of the people of our era, the difficult social, economic, political problems, the problems of the contemporary culture and civilization, all the sufferings of the human person of today, his doubts, his denials, his straying, his tensions, his complexes, his worries… Help us to translate all of that into simple and fruitful language of the Gospel. Help us to resolve everything in a Gospel key, so that Christ himself can be  ‘Way, Truth and Life’ for human beings of our time.”  (5 November 1978)

This is the prayer that vibrates in our soul and leads us to look at today’s society with “penetrating eyes” and “with a large heart”, attentive and passionate, and urges us with the force of love to adventure into the “vast ocean” that opens before the Church, counting on the help of Christ. ¹

The present hour of history contains a new call of the Father, enclosed in the life and groanings of humanity, in our own questions, in the suffering that accompanies them, in the expectations of the new generations.

And it is here that I am locating formation as an act and as priority commitment of every person, every religious family and of the Church.

Today it is time to “build the builders” (Paul VI). Commitment to formation is meant to assure our contribution---in the way proper to us, that is, according to the charism of our founders…, to the realization of mission of the Church in the world in which we live: “to serve man by revealing to him the love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ .” (RM 2)  And to do it with growing creativity. To take care of formation, therefore, is to take care of the future of our religious families; it is to contribute to the Church’s  never lacking the gift that Christ gave Her in consecrated life and in the variety of its forms, and “to build builders” of the New Millennium.  The humanity of today is our “house”, our people, because it is the house and the people of the Word who became flesh, who called us to share his “way of life” and his mission. It is the house in which we are committed to building unity, solidarity, fraternity among all, breaking all barriers and defeating evil with good”. (Cf Rom 12:21)

The new generations must be formed for these great goals of the Church and of humanity, in the awareness that life grows from the grain of wheat which, in freedom and love, makes a gift of its life unto death, that is until the full consummation of its own life on the terrain of history. “To be a generation of builders”. ²  Vita Consecrata, Novo Millennio Ineunte, Ripartire da Cristo are the Magna Charta of this generation of builders for working within history.

2.      In this context I will offer some reflections regarding “integral formation”. It is a topic

that has  always excited me and beckons me continually. I have always felt uneasy thinking of a formation that is proposed to help persons “stand up” in present difficulties. It seems to me that sometimes—I notice it not rarely---they still want to regenerate or build structures, also pedagogic ones, which basically continue to imprison mind and heart, and to propose models actually no longer significant.  One does not respond to a necessity of life with a change of structures, but with life, as our founders and foundresses did. Formation has the responsibility to make every individual person blossom—“the whole of man and every man” ³ –so that he will be able to face confidently—even in the inevitable uncertainties and fears...and with growing creativity, the present world and the new problems it presents.  A formation that shows how every person flourishes on the roots of a lived Gospel: as man, as woman, as member of one’s own people and of the Church.

            I am entering into the topic with a narrative style, moving through some stages.  I’ll begin with a brief historic-evolution note. Then I will give, in order to arrive at describing integral formation, a rapid look at the foundations of Christian pedagogy, and, in the next stage I will try to study criteria for organizing formation journeys in an organic way.  Drawing mostly from experience, I will follow up with some pedagogical directions, and, by way of conclusion, I will offer some further input for an exchange among us and to enrich each other further with the contribution of everyone.