3.         Does the charism always remain uncontaminated, prophetic and current?

After have illustrated this basic information that: the charism of founders and foundresses is “Word of life”, let us now turn to the basic assertion that I prefer to turn into a question: does the charism always remain uncontaminated, prophetic and current? We could formulate the question with greater concreteness: is the charism linked to the frailness of the answer and response to the signs of the times, or does it have in itself the ongoing prophecy of the Word of God?

The charism of a founder, we said, is the Gospel making history, while it is inculturating. Therefore, it does not possess the pureness of the Word of God as an absolute and definitive event. It is the Word which is adapted to certain situations, which is translated into life dimensions, in attitudes, in services. Precisely for this reason it proves itself efficacious, responds to hopes, becomes directive. We could parallel it to the sacrament which has its “res” (substance) and its visible, material sign, which the “res” utilizes.  And so here, then, is the question: with changing history, cultures, questions, do also the modalities of presence and charismatic response change?

         The apostolic letter Ecclesiae sanctae, immediately post Vatican Council II, already indicated as one of the principal criteria of  “suitable renewal” the distinction between the “spirit of the origins” of each institute (we can read here its Gospel, Christological, charismatic component) and the contingent and transient aspects with which it is lived, to conclude then: “It is necessary to consider obsolete the elements that do not constitute the nature and the ends of the institute, and which, having lost their meaning and force, do no longer help religious life really.” (II, 14, 3)

         It is an invitation to bring out the intentions and ideals of the founder, abstracting them from their historical, social, cultural context, in order to proceed to express them in current cultural forms and in new environments. The founding charism is something alive and proceeds like a living reality. Sometimes it is necessary to transplant it and cultivate it in new soil: in the Ukraine, in India, Brazil, in the Congo; or in new cultural realities of Europe , the United States, Canada, or Australia that call to it and challenge it. The charism, in turn, challenges and calls to these new lands and can scatter sprouts of new life, releasing virtualities already present in the seed, but which need different stimuli in order to express themselves. In this mutual interaction, the initial Gospel inspiration is revitalized and is capable of new shoots of life.

The Council, in other terms had asked itself a question which went along these lines: “What would the founder and foundress do today, were they in my place?” There was a two-fold need expressed in this question: one, a constant attention to the initial charismatic inspiration (what would the founder do?) and, the constant attention to new situations (what would she do were she in my place?). In this constant journey toward the ever new present, religious of today have a sure reference point: the Word of God which guided the founders in reading the signs of their time and in their search for responses. The Word of God continues to be “lamp for our steps, light on our journey”. (cf. Ps. 118, 105)

         But to respond to this ingenuous question: “What would the founder and foundress do today, were they in my place?”, we have to keep another element in mind: the nature of the charism of religious life. Different from other type of charisms, this is fruit of a dialogic action; it expresses a covenant. God freely and gratuitously offers his gift; but on the part of the receiver it requires docile acceptance, agreement and adjustment. The charism of religious life does not possess the efficacy of the “ex opere operato” typical of a sacrament.

         Each founder/foundress is testimony of the docility with which he let himself be led by God and the adherence to his action, to the point of placing himself, mind, heart, energies, natural gifts, entirely at the service of the project that bit by bit was revealed to him. The charismatic journey coincides most of the time with the journey of holiness.

         The question to be asked is then: how discover and keep the evangelic inspirations of the origins always alive?

         For the charism to remain “uncontaminated, prophetic and current” we must put ourselves into the footprints of the founder/foundress, in the same docility to the Spirit, and retrace their faith itinerary. If, as we read in Starting Afresh from Christ, “It was the Holy Spirit who sparked the Word of God with new light for founders and foundresses”, if “Every charism and every Rule springs from it and seeks to be an expression of it”, if “in continuity with founders and foundresses their disciples today are called to take up the Word of God and to cherish it in their hearts so that it may be a lamp for their feet and a light for their path (cf. Ps 118:105), the Holy Spirit will then be able to lead them to the fullness of truth.” (cf. Jn 16:13) (24)

We need then to let ourselves be led by the Spirit where the founders let themselves be led and where their journey had its beginning: the Gospel. If charisms and institutes can be compared to flowers opened by the Gospel, surely they will preserve or rediscover their freshness, and then they will be fully themselves to the extent that they can go to the root from which they are born, immersing themselves again into the entire Gospel and the entirety of the mystery of Christ. As I have written elsewhere,¹⁷ looking at the garden of the Church one often has the impression that many flowers have withered.  To revive one’s own flower, those called to live that specific charism, most of the time appear intent to blow on the petals--to stay with the image--or to prop them up so that the corolla stands up and stays upturned. It is an ephemeral and useless operation. For the flower to be revived one has to intervene at the root, not the corolla. You need to water the plant. Outside the metaphor: we try in every way to save the identity of our spirituality and the distinctiveness of our institute, studying our particularity, stressing it, trying to protect it from pretended external interference… It’s a valid work but insufficient. We need the courage to go more in-depth. We need to rediscover the fullness of Gospel life that feeds that specific spirituality. Water and a fertile humus are common to all flowers, whatever their variety.

Every spirituality and every institute linked to it must return to being word of the one Word. By living the Gospel fully we will have light to grasp the particular Gospel dimension from which the spirituality sprang forth.

It is a route one can’t take alone. Giving origin to an individual religious family, the Spirit wished to raise up not a saint or a charismatic person, but a body of saints, an entire charismatic group made up of men and women led by a new life plan, realizable only to the extent in which it is lived and advanced together. The charism of an institute possesses, by nature, an intrinsic communitarian dimension. Consequently, going to the originating roots of one’s charism is never an individual act. The charism can only be understood and reconstructed in all its richness of values and contents in unity among the members of the institute, who, together, are the depositories and carriers of the charism. It will be the Risen One present in the united community in his love, who, as at Pentecost, will communicate his Spirit, making the community a qualified interpreter of the charism.

But something more is needed. To grasp fully the “word” of which each spirituality is bearer, and therefore of the divine which is in it, we cannot limit ourselves to study our particular distinctiveness. It is necessary, rather, to live ecclesial communion, sweeping over all the divine realities of the Church. Only in a relationship of unity with all charisms does one understand the common root that binds and nourishes all.  Thus, we reach a gradual experiential acquisition of the “marvelous variety” of the Church’s richness. Then we can grasp the genuine peculiarity of each one and understand one’s own spirituality and religious family not as something absolute, but as part of a vaster reality, inserted into a living organism.

Because the mystery of Christ is inexhaustible, and inexhaustible is the richness of his word, every spirituality needs the gift of the other, the light of the other, in order to understand itself deeply. In the same way as with every mystery of Christ, to be understood in all its depth, it needs to be read in the whole of his mysteries. And as a Gospel passage, for a fruitful exegesis, it needs to be situated into its context and into the economy of the entire Gospel. Without the unified vision of the mystery of Christ, without the unified reading of his word, the particulars, taken separately (self-standing), can be distorted. So, without full communion among all charisms and the spiritualities connected to them, it is difficult to have the true sense of each of them. “If the Gospel must be preached in its integrity, and if Christ must not be presented divided or lacerated, the urgency of recomposing into unity the Gospel which is incarnated and scattered in time and space is a pressing call to communion and unity among religious at all levels. If in fact each charism is an identity card of one’s own religious family, it is also capacity for communion with all other charisms. The Spirit of unity calls all to be in reciprocal communion, together, so that Christ can be announced and communicated and that the world will believe.”¹⁸

I will end with a text of Clara Lubich whom I have already quoted, when once before, I was among you to speak of the relationships between old and new charisms: “We only have to make Love circulate among the different orders.  They must know , understand, love each other, as the Persons of the Trinity love each other. Among them there is the Holy Spirit as relationship who binds them so that each is expression of God, of Holy Spirit”. It is the Spirit who unifies them “bringing them to their first beginning which was holy”.

So, in so far as they are the Word lived, charisms remain. They remain well beyond history. Their earthly existence is contingent, closed in a determined range of centuries. But God’s design which was released in them remains for eternity as word in the Word. (“verbo nel Verbo.”)