I have received news, from a number of Interprovincial ...
Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians
Founded by St. John Bosco
And St. Mary Domenica Mazzarello
N. 870
In the Genealogy of the Covenant
I have received news, from a number of Interprovincial Conferences and from various Provinces, about the preparation for the Triennial Verification and the involvement of the
Communities so that this event may be lived and shared on every level. All of us, dear Sisters, are called to carry out the deliberations of the Chapter that proposes: a process of renewal of life, taking into account the research into religious life taking place in the Church today (Acts CGXXI, n. 40).
The deliberation points out the means. The first step is the personal and community deepening of the Constitutions. In this letter, I wish to pause with you on our Rule of Life not to dwell on specific aspects, but to consider the global picture traced out for us - the commitment of dynamic fidelity which we are called to live.
The Congress on the Consecrated Life (November 23-27, 2004) suggested a return to the sources and indicated the future journey of all those who dedicate themselves to God through a special consecration: a passion for Jesus and a passion for humanity that has characterized every Founder. For us FMA this means to enter with greater and deeper awareness into the genealogy of the Covenant which God established with St. John Bosco and Mother Mazzarello, and which continues today through the fidelity of the Institute and of every single member (cf C 9).
God the Father, source of our fidelity, calls us to follow Jesus according to the Salesian charism. To be faithful to this charism means to embody it, to make it grow, and to recognize that it is a way of sanctity which the Spirit, breath of newness, renders ever more relevant in the today’s history.
The vocational fruitfulness of so many of our past and present Sisters, who have opened themselves to the action of the Spirit, witness to this and indicate to us the goal and the way to reach it.
Faithful to God
“The Father calls us to live our Baptism with greater fullness and consecrates us with the gift of the Spirit. United in community, we have publicly vowed to follow Christ chaste, poor, and obedient, totally available for His mission of salvation. In this way we proclaim our determination to live for the glory of God by our work for the evangelization of young people, walking with them on the way to holiness (C 5).
Our responsibility, therefore, is a response to the call of the Father. Our Covenant of love to which we have committed ourselves, not only reveals that the initiative comes from God, but that our fidelity is rooted and proceeds from Him. We are both fragile and weak; nevertheless, the Lord sought and chose us. Our love is, at times, like the early morning fog that disappears at the first ray of the sun (cf Os 6, 4). God binds himself with His creatures, limited, frightened, often without hope, trust, or love. Despite our inconsistencies, He remains faithful, to the point that his definition is: faithful God who vows to aid our fragility, binds our weakness with his strength and gives hope to our fidelity.
This Hope has taken bodily form in Jesus, the Son of God, who became one of us. In Him the loving face of the Father has become visible; he was seen, contemplated and touched. God’s dream of communion for humanity became a reality. Jesus is the radical “Yes” to the Father that makes our fidelity possible. Consecrated life, as a radical following in the way chosen by Jesus, is actualized in the Holy Spirit. For this reason, the journey of fidelity to the Covenant demands a precise commitment to spiritual life (cf VC 93). This journey is an uphill path not exempted from slackness, failings, disappointments, regrets and, at times, a turning back.
We must not get discouraged; the important thing is not to lose sight of the goal. The Ideals, says an author, are like the stars which can never be reached, but serve as guides to direct the ships of seafarers. We must keep our eye on the goal, certain that God creates and recreates us through his forgiveness, heals us, accompanies us, saves and supports us in our fidelity.
“How could I ever abandon you”, says God? My heart is moved within me (cf Os 11, 7-9). God has compassion on our poverty, and He is so enamored of his creation, that He himself chose, in Jesus, to become one of us.
As Baptized persons, we are faithful to God if we follow the lifestyle of Jesus; if we understand the fruitfulness of the Pascal Mystery with which He associates us; and if we allow Him to light our way and warm our hearts.
With our Religious Profession we have vowed to follow Christ more closely and to look to Him as our supreme rule. To what point, dear sisters, have his life and words urged us to be witnesses of the mystery of God and of His closeness to us?
The working document for the Congress on Consecrated Life showed that in times when the experience of God diminishes, the call to reveal the intrinsic religious values of the various aspects of our existence become stronger and that the proclamation of Jesus with our life, gestures and actions is the foundation of the evangelical vocation given to us (cf SL 92; 94).
Consequently, we ask ourselves: what necessary changes must we make so that our life may be more gospel-oriented in fidelity to Him who has called us?
Fidelity is love renewed each day; transparency of a life that is open to the newness of God. It is He who gives dynamism to the potential of the person and disposes him/her to enter into His design of salvation.
GC XXI has emphasized the breadth of the horizon wherein the personal and community plan is situated. It is worked out in the Provincial Plan which draws its directives from the Chapter (cf Acts N. 52). This means that dynamic fidelity to God, woven into everyday life and in the small gestures of every FMA, is united to the fidelity of each Sister in the Community, in the Province, in the Institute and to the foundational charism.
Fidelity to our Charism
The new evangelical thrust will become a reality only if we are ready to enter into a process of fidelity that demands a return to the source from where our history began. This means that we must allow ourselves to be touched anew by the transforming grace of our charism and to look at Don Bosco, Maria Domenica and the Sisters who embodied the spirit.
The charismatic project is mediated by the Constitutions. Initially they were drafted by Don Bosco, but it was, above all, the life of our Founder that inspired the fidelity of his sons and daughters. This awareness has been present in our Institute from the beginning. The first FMA
were convinced that they were faithful to Don Bosco if they were faithful to the Constitutions. Don Bosco himself confirmed it in the spiritual testament left to the Salesians: “If you have loved me in the past, continue to love me in the future by exact observance of the Constitutions (MB XVII 258).
With a simple, yet profound faith, Mary Domenica stated: “The Constitutions were given us by Don Bosco, and Don Bosco knows what Mary Help of Christians wants from us” (Cron. V. 50).
Today we do not have the first handwritten copies or revisions made directly by our Founder. The successive copies represent an indirect awareness on the charism of our Institute. They are the fruit of a long journey of discernment, research, and comparison with its moments of suffering. They represent a point of arrival and, at the same time, a point of departure of a journey of study which, in the course of time, has enriched its meaning. The Constitutions will always be the pact of our Covenant with God – as specified by Don Rua in the Circular letter of
December 1, 1909: “They are a sure guide to holiness, a privileged way to encounter Christ and to tell him of our fidelity (cf anche C 173).
The Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consacrata expresses the need of a renewed study of the Founders’ project. “A greater regard for the Rule will not fail to offer consecrated persons a reliable criterion in their search for the appropriate forms of a witness which is capable of responding to the needs of the times without departing from an institute’s initial inspiration” (VC 37).
Our Constitutions, in effect, guide us to view our existence as a living memorial of Jesus. With our religious profession we commit ourselves to follow Him according to the evangelical way traced by our Constitutions (cf C10), so that the intent of making Mornese present in our communities, is in practice translated into availability to live the word of Jesus, to assume his lifestyle and his passion for the salvation of every person.
The Project of life that specifies our identity in the Church is defined by an experience of apostolic charity, through which we become signs and expressions of the foreseeing love of the Father (cf C 1 & 2). The Covenant is the unifying nucleus of this experience, which touches the
most intimate spheres of our personality. It is expressed in the free acceptance of the gift of the Father and in a just and free response on our part to his offer.
Entering the furrows of the Covenant (Rooted in the Covenant), as the Plan of Formation points out, is to begin a journey in which the Lord sows every day the seed of his word, reveals to us the beauty and the fruitfulness of following him, confirms us in our specific mission of evangelizing through education, according to the Salesian charism. The Preventive System, spirituality and method of action, is the soul of our educative mission that has “its source in the heart of Christ himself and finds its model in Mary’s motherly care” (C 7).
To what degree do we cultivate the awareness of being inserted into this Covenant of love, which is both a gift and a responsibility? Does our way of living communicate the attractiveness of following Jesus in the way witnessed by our Founders? Are we recognized, together with the laity, as passionate educators of young people who challenge us today?
Faithful to generations throughout time
During the GMG prayer vigil, Pope Benedict VI did not hesitate to speak to young people about sanctity. The richness of the Gospel is revealed in the lives of the blesseds and saints like a big illustrated book. They have been true reformers throughout the events of history (Aug. 20, 2005).
I think that the same can be said of many of our Sisters in our religious family. The greatest revolution is, in fact, brought about by a life that opens up to love, that believes and hopes in the certainty that the world is loved by God and is sustained by his wisdom and goodness.
If we want to understand in depth our Constitutions, we must look at them. They are a living book in which we can read the life of Don Bosco and Mary Domenica.
The first Salesians wanted to stay with Don Bosco, not only for the human attraction that radiated from his person, but because in him they perceived a special project of love for God and for youth. They felt impelled to share that project with him and were even ready to go to far away lands as long as they could be part of this project.
Mary Domenica was moved to tears every time she heard that the Sisters were faithful to the Rule. She desired the practice of fidelity that would be expressed through communion with the Sisters and by clothing oneself with the sentiments of Jesus, the source of charity for ones neighbor (cf L. 26,4).
Today we are experiencing a certain allergy regarding the law. In many cases an update is necessary, but when the law is identifiable with the law of love witnessed by Jesus, it becomes a spark of life, a participation in a vast design of communion and a seed for the future. In the homily for the opening of the Conclave, the then Cardinal Ratzinger, pointed out, among other things, the danger of a radical individualism and of a relativism that have as point of reference only oneself (4/18/05).
We are not exempted from this way of thinking and of evaluating things. The expression: “I do as I think or I feel like,” which at times we hear from young people, may influence also our behavior. That which we may consider to be a celebration of individual freedom may, sooner or later, become a strong deterrent for our true personal growth.
Entering the life Project of our Founders, instead, makes us participants in a large project that extends throughout time and calls us to carry on the mission with creativity and daring, spurred on by our educative passion for the young people of today. “You will complete the work that I have begun, I am doing the draft, you will put the ‘colors’,” declared Don Bosco in a dialogue with Fr. Barberis in 1875. Being faithful to Don Bosco, therefore, means for us to connect with the long line of sisters who have ‘put the colors’ on the initial draft conceived by Don Bosco. Each one of them is a living reflection of our Founders, each one adds an interesting shade giving greater light to the design. I am not referring only to sisters of days gone by of whom we can read the brief biographical profile in Facciamo Memoria, I am referring also to sisters who live next to us. Often there is so much love and dedication in the hidden life of sisters who are not in the limelight; these, perhaps, have a greater impact than we can possibly imagine. The life of fidelity of the FMA’s is the greatest treasure of the Institute, the true confirmation of the text of the Constitutions, their authentic innovation. They are the sung music, rather than the written music. Colors and music are signs of life, joy, and hope. In today’s world where there are many expectations, but not much hope, we must witness with our fidelity that God is faithful to his promises, is present in history and gives us reason for the hope that is within us (cf 1 Pt 3,15).
For many people today, but particularly for young people confused by appearances and bored by the ‘immediate’, it is difficult to recognize the signs of God; but when these signs unmistakably guarantee the authenticity in concrete people, hope blossoms.
Our times are not more difficult than others as long as we have the courage, in our dark night, of not looking at our feet to find the path, but point to a star. The sure star for us is the evangelical Project offered and lived by our Saintly Founders and by the many FMA who, with the colors of their life, have built another story, because they were able to capture that which was essential in the Project and lived it in a creative way.
Deepening and living the Constitutions, as recommended by the deliberation of GCXXI, means then to offer the colors of our life and to unite ourselves to the symphony of many FMA who, because they lived the Rule faithfully, were vocationally fruitful. It is not a matter of modernizing the lamps that burn before the tabernacle, we must not forget to put in the oil that feeds them. This is the oil of our dynamic fidelity. As, in fact, Scripture grows in the one who reads it, so does the charism which, having been entrusted to us like a seed, is meant to grow into a fruitful tree.
May the remembrance of our deceased sisters during the month of November, help us to imagine them as living branches of this tree waiting for its growth – a color, a note of beauty – also from our own personal faithfulness.
Rome, October 24, 2005
Your affectionate Mother
Antonia Colombo
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