Fidelity to the religious life and charism of the founder

17.  How do they enter into integral formation?  For the fact that the charism, or the founder’s “the experience of the Spirit”, expresses our identity in the Church as persons.  The inner clarity of one’s vocation is a source of human and spiritual equilibrium, precisely because “the call of Christ embraces the whole person, soul and body, whether man or woman in that person’s unique and unrepeatable personal ‘I’”. ²⁷  This means that formation, as we read in Vita Consecrata, “should have a profound effect on individuals, so that their every attitude and action, at important moments as well as in the ordinary events of life, will show that they belong completely and joyfully to God”; it is an itinerary of  ²⁸ “conformity to the Lord Jesus in his total self-giving”.

18.   There is a “proprium” (distinctive quality) of religious life that characterizes the itinerary of discipleship in

the profession of evangelical counsels. We realize our personal call “together” with brothers or sisters with whom we form the family of the founder or foundress.  A whole group, that is, is called as such and is constituted “family”, the way it happened for the apostles. (cf Mk 3:13) Together they live “the experience of the Spirit” of the founder and continue to express it in the Church according to God’s design and his provident work in history.  I believe that the verbs with which Mutuae Relationes describes the relationship between a founder and his followers can equally be used to describe the formation itinerary at the initiation or ongoing formation levels.

            Let us reread a passage from MR:

“The ‘charism of founders’ (ET 11) appears as an experience of the Spirit transmitted to their followers to be lived by them, to be preserved, deepened and constantly developed in harmony with the Body of Christ continually in a process of growth.” (MR 11)

The first “verb” regards the founder; the other four regard us, as individual persons, as community and as Institute.

-         To transmit:  it is the verb that regards the founder in the awareness of the gift received and of ecclesial responsibilities.  Among the means, her writings, the Rule, her very choices, especially her life which becomes for the members of her family a “living word”, a “letter of Christ”, written by the Spirit (cf. 2 Cor 3:3)

-         To live:  presumes “accepting” the experience of the Spirit, by grace of the “call”, and translating it into life in one’s personal and community daily living.  One does not understand if one does not live it.  “In order to see, what is important is to love.”  (A. Louf)

-         To preserve: in its integrity, just as the founder received it.  The way the founder did during his life (the strictness and “jealousy” of founders regarding God’s plan).

-         To deepen:  life, study, research, discernment, adaptation to new ecclesial and social situations,…--with the expansion of the religious family and the Lord’s call to other members from new countries---with the contribution of the new generations--…with an ever deeper life in the Spirit and community life-…

-         To develop: the charism is compared to a “seed”; it contains a life which, from within,  tends to grow, mature, be developed and develop its potentialities in the network of internal and external relationships.  Here there is a “newness”, which permits us to

understand the meaning of “creative fidelity” ²⁹, the attitudes and dynamism of our life, our

responsibilities: “courageously to propose anew the enterprising  initiative, creativity and holiness of their founders”. ³⁰

There is a word, connected to the verb “develop”, loaded with dynamism which needs

to be highlighted: “in syntony (in tune)”.  Development is possible if we feel that we are members of the Body of Christ and work as such.  We understand why we cannot evade commitment to the dialogs³¹ in which the Church is engaged today; in addition, we cannot fail to make the connections between evangelization and culture, promote the inculturation of religious life and attend to the inculturation of our charism: “face  in a creative way the challenge of inculturation, while at the same time preserving their identity”. ³²

19.  Formation must have this breath and involve us with ideals that are solid and true

evangelically.

These are perspectives to keep always in mind.  They help us to understand the needs

and the calls that emerge in our religious families as we share the life of the people. They help us, especially, never to separate the charism from its source and they prevent us from “appropriating it for ourselves” in order to give it form according to a safe/assuring  plan of our own.

            The four fidelities, taken as a whole, outline a sufficiently complete picture for integral formation, which finds its balance and unity in the life of Christ.  In addition, they constitute four areas that a formation director must study/deepen in light of the founder’s charism in order to show the traits of  a human, social, spiritual and apostolic formation consonant with the charism and which distinguish one religious family from another.

            The formation community is called, on its part, to express that richness and dynamism, helped by the program, which is an instrument of collaboration with the action of the Spirit and a help for the accompaniment of the individual persons, especially today’s youth…who need to get beyond the “everything immediately” and the debilitating fragmentation--, attentive and respectful of their growth rhythms.