|
Letters of Fr. General |
All Saints 2008 |
|
The Parish and the Word of God |
|
|
To Vocationist Religious, Associates and Affiliates Beloved, May God the Holy Spirit unite us ever more with the Son to the Father, ‘Brethren, it is not a boast for me to preach the gospel; it is a duty . Woe betide me if I do not preach the Gospel(1Cor.9:16). Introduction Almost everywhere, people love to talk and to talk ill of priests. The ruthless object of criticisms of people, besides unbecoming behaviour of priests, is our preaching! In major cities nowadays, where there is the possibility to choose the church that one attends, in fact, one of the most frequently adopted criteria for attending or not attending a specific church, is the good or not so good quality of preaching. The Sunday preaching or homily (and, also, the daily one for us Vocationists) is not only a sacred duty of the priest, but also an inviolable right of the faithful. The faithful need the food of the Word, and if we deprive them of this food, rightly they lament. Many of our faithful, would want that our homilies were like sausages, or rather were like a chain, all of the same thickness, of the same weight, of the same length, of the same colour, of the same substance! We, ministers of the Word, know that this has not happened, does not happen, will not happen and may not ever happen. At the beginning of my priesthood, I was obsessed with the preoccupation to preach and to preach well; I wanted to do the most scrupulous and profound exegesis of any biblical passage proclaimed in the readings of the day; I wanted to keep the faithful informed of the various theories, theorems, interpretations etc. I heartily thank my good friends Dick Clark, Leon Mattioli and Pearl Carlone who, with truly christian love and charity, constructively criticised my homilies and made me understand that they were not interested in knowing the thought of this or that theologian; They were interested in knowing what was the will of God concerning them and, thus, didn’t want the difficult and abstract words, the theological theories and hypothesis, but the Word of God as applied to them, keeping into account the age, the academic and socio-economic state of the people to whom I preached. I found it very useful, for a long time, to visit some family friends every Sunday and to ask them what they remembered of my preaching, the fruit they had received thereof. How many surprises, how many mortifications and humiliations! I am sorry now not to have continued such a healthy and beneficial practice. We are coming to the end of the year dedicated to the Vocationist culture in the parish and we cannot have the culture of the Vocationist Parish if we don’t see, consider and return to the one true source of the Word of God. The Word of God prayed, proclaimed, read, mediated and heard; the Word of God rendered also practically accessible to the people, keeping always open on a good lectern an easily readable big Bible, near the entrance of the Church, or any other well visible and most suitable place. While we, Vocationists, who should do this by vocation, overlook this pious practice, many other parishes, commendably do it and so invite the faithful to the reading, meditation and appreciation of the Word of God. Centrality and actuality of the Word of God. His Holiness, Benedict XV1, has opened the work of the Synod On the Word of God, putting emphasis on the centrality and actuality of the Word of God, as the unique reality that truly counts! ‘Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is stable as the heaven and more than the heaven, it is the reality’ And to us who are tempted to move ourselves towards the realism of our days, the Pope has reminded us that ‘Realist is he who recognises in the Word of God, in this reality apparently so weak, the foundation of all. Realist is who builds his life on this foundation that remains forever’(Osservatore Romano, October 6-7, 2008). In the Cathedral of Notre Dame, during his visit to France, the Pope synthesized many teachings for us, affirming that ‘There is no love for the Church without love for the Word’; and so exhorted us priests: ‘Dear brother priests, you should not be afraid to devote a considerable part of your time to the reading of, the meditation on the Scripture and to the praying of Divine Office! Almost without your knowledge, the Word read and meditated in the Church grows in you and transforms you’. And still: ‘ The Word of God is given to us to be the soul of our apostolate, the soul of our priestly life’(Benedict XV1, 12-9-08). Recalling these most recent teachings of the Holy Father, we feel ourselves reassured that the teachings of our well beloved Fr.Justin, are not teachings of the past, but they retain all their worth and their actuality. We, priests, teachers, catechists, pastoral workers, accept and live the command of God to the Prophet Ezekiel: ‘Son of man, eat what you have before you. Eat this scroll, then go and speak to the house of Israel’(Ez.3:1). ‘Son of man, listen and take to heart all I say to you, and then go the exiles, your fellow country men, speak to them and tell them: ‘This is what the Lord Yahweh says’, whether they listen or not.’(Ez.3: 10-11). Our religious formation, our time of daily sacred study, all our life of prayer centre on the Word of God, likewise our meditation, our preaching and our catechesis. Fr.Justin built his spirituality and our Congregation on the biblical principle: ‘The sacred Scriptures instruct you for salvation ....All Scripture in fact is inspired by God and it is useful for teaching, convincing, correcting and forming to righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete and well prepared for every good work’(2Tim 3: 15-16). The Vocationist and the Sacred Scripture(Cf. Opere of Fr.Justin, vol.1, nn.273-290). Being the image and likeness of God, one and three, we cannot but find the Trinity in the Sacred Scripture. Fr. Justin writes : ‘The instrument of spiritual work is one and three like the Lord. It is one because it is the Word of God: all were made through him and without him nothing was made. It is three because this word can be and must be said by the Lord to us ( received in preaching and sacred study), by us to the Lord (both in vocal and mental prayer), by the Lord and by us to the neighbour (in ministry of the word or active preaching to others) (Opere. Vol.12, p.205). Divine inspiration is the base of our esteem, respect and love for the Sacred Scripture. Hence, the place of honour to the Sacred Scripture in our Churches, in our rooms, in our libraries; for this, the holy book forms integral part of our religious habit. For the same reason, it must be read and meditated only at the time destined for prayer and in a position of prayer. We consider it a grave fault, almost a sacrilege, to cite the Scripture incorrectly and superficially, and much more to make references and applications from it to profane things and situations, almost willing to legitimize them and so, banalizing the Word of God. We celebrate - also with the procession and the kissing - the feast of the sacred book on the day of Pentecost and during its octave, and on the feast-days of St.Thomas, St.Alphonsus and St. John of the Cross to promote its knowledge and diffusion. We make of our memory a jewel-box of the Word, learning by memory long passages and re-reading it in its integrity at least once every year. Reading the holy book, we want to deepen its mystical sense, applying all to our relationship with God, discovering, as the Pope has reminded us, ‘ the present in the past, the Holy Spirit who speaks to us today in the words of the past’. Every divine word is extremely holy and important for us, but, among all the words of the Lord, we treasure in a special way the ‘direct words’ and, among these, of the ‘divine imperatives’. In the sacred Scripture, we want to find ‘the arm for the stroke of victory against temptation, the ray of light for every shadow of doubt, the consolation for every sorrow and the strength for every weakness’. Like soul-spouse of God Trinity, more than any other person, we want ‘to receive and to assimilate the great letters of love of the Almighty to mankind’ so as to feed and deepen our intimacy with the Lord. Banquet of the Divine Word. ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes form the mouth of God’. Who eats of he Word of God is truly blessed. ‘Blessed is he who hears the word of God and puts it in practice’. The word of God is a food to enjoy, to take for our satisfaction, to eat with avidity: I wish heaven and every one of us could say with Jeremiah: ‘When your words came to me, I ate them with avidity’(Jer.15,16). For us, Vocationists, it is a sacred duty ‘not to deprive oneself and others of the banquet of the word of God’ in the active or passive preaching or at least, in the form of spiritual reading. To listen to the word of God or to preach it, is a true or proper form of prayer, this is why we cannot present ourselves unprepared for this banquet. The efficacy of the Word of God in us is directly proportioned to our preparation. Listening to it and administering it, we conserve the same external and internal posture that we maintain in prayer. Listening to the Word of God, we hear it with internal activity, with the interest of the one who wants to follow and to satisfy, with alive desire, the spiritual perfection. In order that the Word may truly be spirit and life ‘it must always be honoured with our devoted reflection: only it merits our passionate comment’. In our study, prayer or meditation on the Word of God, we draw inspiration always from the example of the Virgin Mary who conceived the Word and then kept every one of his words. The Preaching of the Word Fr.Justin has been an untiring and effective preacher, not only one time but many times a day; in some occasions he preached two courses of spiritual exercise simultaneously. We, the elderly ones, remember him seated on the predella of the altar, dictating the meditation with simple words, with practical examples from the Scripture or from the lives of saints; he did the same in the parish, seated in small wooden pulpit, placed in the front part of the nave of the Church of St. George, at the left hand side while entering the Church. While he preached always had a lighted candle on the altar, to symbolise the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Code of Canon Law stresses our obligation to preach: ‘Since the people of God are first brought together by the word of the living God, which altogether proper to require from the mouth of priests, sacred ministers are to value greatly the task of preaching, since among their principal duties is the proclaiming of the Gospel of God to all’(Can.. 762) . We cannot and must not content ourselves with preaching to the good faithful who come to mass every day. The christian message must reach all men. A life dedicated exclusively and totally to this ministry would not be sufficient to fulfil this duty. Hence, it is necessary to do one’s best to always find new forms and always more numerous messengers. Fr. Justin would have been happy to see how, in the new Code, the Church emphasizes the importance and obligation of homily during all Sunday masses and the strong recommendation: ‘That he(the priest) may give homily also at masses celebrated during the week’(Cf.can.767). We exhort and thank the Lord in seeing that our spirit and our good traditions enter to be part of the patrimony of the universal Church. We want to be the first and best to fulfil this sanctifying duty. I refer to a long passage from For the Advent of the Kingdom, since it is a proof of Fr. Justin’s preaching and contains a little of his theology of preaching: ‘Having been formed by the preaching and by the example of Jesus Christ, and washed in his blood, the Holy Spirit came on the apostles in the form of flames, and immediately they flooded the world with the word of God, to prepare it for the same baptism of fire and of the Spirit which they received. A deluge of words of God, that brings a deluge of pious deeds, that form a deluge of saints of God, that generate a deluge of families of saints and form the new chosen people, the great kingdom of heavens on earth. Yet, the deluge of the word of God necessarily goes on: the written word of God, the spoken word of God, the personal word of God living in the Blessed Sacrament: the same Jesus that multiplies his presence and fills the world. Sea of the Word, sea of the host, sea of sacrifice and sacrament that envelops, inundates the world. Sea upon which the Holy Spirit comes and lightens and from there draws a deluge of holy deeds, a deluge of wonders of saints and thus he makes new heavens and new earth worthy of God. Hence, there is the necessity for a very special consecration to the divine word taken integrally: that is, to the word spoken by God as inspiration, to the word spoken by the soul to God as prayer; to the word spoken together by God and by the soul, and addressed to the world as preaching. Preaching coming from inspiration and from prayer as from an only principle in imitation of the Spirit proceeding from the Father and from the Son. Just as the just of old, who first found grace in the presence of God, had the mission of saving mankind; so the just one who, in our time, has found grace in the presence of God, has the mission to open the flood-gate of the heavens of the Word, to inundate the world in a new deluge’(Opere. Vol.8, pp.127-128). No wonder, the same Fr. Justin, always in his Book of the Soul, declares: ‘We say with St. Paul that the Lord has not sent us out with our own specific mission to baptise but to evangelize and so woe betide me forever if I do not evangelize.(Opere.vol.12, p.266-227). ‘Every Vocationist must be a daily perpetual catechist. The daily preaching must be catechism. Every ministry of the word must be proclaimed in form of catechesis, questions and answers, real and imaginary dialogue’ (Opere, vol. 11, p.206). ‘You can well do a little teaching of catechism every day and allow the younger aspirants to come with you to the promenade…’ ‘Yes, my lord, in joy!’( Ibid. p.207). The Synod on the Word of God Here is an excerpt from the Instrumentum Laboris of the General Synod of Bishops, whose theme is: The Word of God in the life and Mission of the Church, so that we too may meditate on it while preparing ourselves to receive later the official document that the Holy Father and the Bishops will give us. ‘The Word of God vivifies the Church, ‘the letter that God has sent to men’(n.36), the Church grows and lives in the Word of God; - the Word of God sustains the Church in all her history; - the Word of God permeates and animates, in the power of the Holy Spirit, all the life of the Church. It is a constant factor in the life of the people of God to derive strength from the Word, which is not therefore static. This has been happening since the prophets spoke to the people, Jesus to the multitude and to the disciples, the apostles to the first community, up to our days. The christian community builds herself every day, abandoning herself to be guided by the Word of God, under the action of the Holy Spirit, who gives illumination, conversion and consolation. In fact, ‘all that has been written before us, has been written for our instruction, so that in virtue of perseverance and of consolation that come from the Scripture, we may keep alive our hope (Rm.15: 4). It becomes then the primary assignment of pastors to help the faithful understand what it means to meet the Word of God under the guidance of the Spirit, how in particular this may happen in the spiritual reading of the Bible, in the attitude of listening and of prayer. Pastoral Impact If the Word of God is source of life for the Church, it becomes essential to consider the Sacred Scripture as vital nourishment. This involves: a) Maintaining a constant verification of the effective place that the Word of God occupies in the life of one’s own community, in the more constructive experience and also in the more reoccurring risks. b) Recognizing the history and diffusion of the Word of God in one’s own community, diocese, nation, continent , in the Church in general, to learn the great actions of God (magnalia Dei), to better perceive the need, the initiative to take and to give solidarity to the community poor in material and spiritual resources. c) To actualize, in incisive manner, a pastoral animated by the Word of God, it is indispensable to recognize and to promote the irreplaceable role of the particular Churches in communion with others. It is from their effective initiative, as people of God united with the Bishop, that great and small experiences arise, creating a continuous flow of the Word in the diverse community. The Word of God in the multiple services of the Church ‘The bread of life from both the table of the Word of God and of the Body of Christ’(DV.21) Word of God and the Eucharist While in praxis the liturgy of the Word appears rather often improvised and some times not sufficiently connected with the Eucharistic Liturgy, the intimate unity between the Word and the Eucharist is rooted in scriptural testimony (Jn.6), attested to by the Fathers of the Church and reconfirmed by Vatican Council 11(Cf. SC.48,51,56; DV.21,26; AG. 6,15; PO.18,PC.6) In the great tradition of the Church we find significant expressions as : ‘Corpus Christi intelligitur etiam (….) Scriptura Dei( also the Scripture of God is considered the Body of Christ) (46), ‘ergo Corpus Iesu Evangelium puto’( I consider the Gospel as the Body of Jesus)(47). The growing consciousness of the presence of Christ in the Word favours both the immediate preparation to the Eucharistic celebration and the union with the Lord in the celebrations of the Word. The Church lives and grows through the Word and Catechesis ‘In diverse ways, the parish realizes the plan of the Father which is the plan of salvation for all men by announcing the Word of God. This happens principally through preaching, catechesis and homily. In listening to the Word of God, the community remembers the great deeds carried out by him in the history of men, the teachings of Jesus Christ, the testimony of the prophets and of the apostles. It does not only deal with a remembrance of deeds distant in time. The Word of God is a living, powerful and effective word, because it realizes always that which it says. When God speaks, what he says always happens. For this, when we put ourselves truly to listening to this word, our life changes. Through his word, God dialogues with man, he communicates to him his same life and waits from him his response so that there can be a reception (like Mary’s) but, also, a refusal. Therefore, the catechism is important for all, the children, the youths, adults, the old ones: it does not serve only for preparing and receiving the Sacraments. Hearing the Word of God in catechism and in preaching, the Christians take inspiration from that message for their own life of prayer, reflections, actions and chosen practices’(CCC). Preaching and catechesis, which mutually feed and increase each other, more than two distinct activities, can be considered as two faces of the same medal. In every parish, the two apostolic activities walk hand in hand. It is difficult, if not impossible, not to find an excellent catechesis where there is good preaching. A strict cooperation is, therefore, necessary among ministers of preaching and those of catechesis. A lack of coherence among these vital organisms will always and only create emptiness, infidelity and confusion. Evangelization is non other than preaching and catechesis may be corroborated by example of authentic and coherent christian life of the various ministers of these two forms of apostolate. The Vocationary and Catechism Fr. Justin, as a good teacher, gives these passages to help us understand the importance of catechesis: ‘One cannot love a person that he does not know, the more a person knows, the more he loves, the more a person is loved, the more he wants to remain with him and wants to serve him. Practical consequence: A good, profound catechesis helps effectively to discover also the priestly and religious vocation. Almost to confirm this teaching, Fr. Justin made that famous statement: ‘The Congregation was born by a seminarian who taught catechism every day and often for the whole day’. The numerous vocations that arose in Pianura around the founder were not an excellent proof of this doctrine? The Constitutions stress that the Congregation considers the parish ‘the centre of permanent catechesis’ (Art.169.) The Canon Law prescribes : ‘It is one’s own and above all the grave duty of pastors of the souls to take care of the catechesis of the christian people, so that the faith of the faithful, through the teaching of the doctrine and exercise of the christian life, may become a living, explicit and active faith’(Can.773). Not only catechesis to the kids, or sacramental catechesis, but, also, catechesis for life which will last all through life. This is why it is permanent catechesis! Article 123 of the Society of Divine Union gives these directives: ‘The confraternity of Christian Doctrine, the perpetual catechetical schools, the annual catechetical mission and all the present and future forms of the catechetical apostolate for every class of the faithful, are not only for the little children, they remain always recommended to the seventy-two external ministering religious. I believe it is useful and right to consider once again the entire chapter 75 of the Rules and Constitutions, For the Catechetical Teaching, that offers us a true mine of theological and pedagogical principles, pastoral indications and prudence:
Art.802:‘The duty of daily preaching and the research and perpetual cultivation of vocations, especially among poor people, must involve and commit the Vocationist to the teaching of catechism, in a form and at an ever more perfect and integral level. Art.803. In our houses, Vocationaries and institutes, the first benefit that must be offered to those who live there, is catechetical instruction, proportioned to their age and understanding, so that, even if they do not persevere, they will obtain sufficient education and religious formation. Art. 804 Every religious, priest and lay, teacher and worker must be formed and trained catechist, and have his proper school or circle of catechism in which he develops his vocation as missionary of asceticism, servant of the Church and animator and formator of saints and priests. Art.805 Not only the Vocationist of the parochial religious communities, but also those of every other residence, must not only take interest in the religious instruction of the people among whom they live, but must take care of it with great zeal and abnegation, even if they are overburdened with work. Art. 806. Therefore, everyone of our house, not only the parish, must be centre of a perpetual catechetical mission, of the Confraternity of the Christian Doctrine and of every other association that may have catechetical interest, spirit and work or of higher schools of religious education for local catechists. Art.807 The catechetical apostolate of the Vocationists must be integral, with the aim of forming in the world, religious of God according to Jesus Christ; in a way that must harmonise all the natural and supernatural means; with a frequency that must be daily, to arrive at a great formative and transformative efficacy. Art.808 In the weekly conference of sacred study, in the chapters of faults, in the spiritual exercises and retreats and in every reunion, even partial, of the community, the catechetical note, as relation, program, method, exhortation or such similar things, must not be lacking. Art.809. The dialogical form of catechesis from the simple to the difficult, from the known to the unknown, must be used and perfected by us, and extended to almost all the ministry of the word to the people and to the community, as the most accessible and efficient to every intelligence. Art. 810 Every religious will search and form, from the people with whom he will exercise his ministry, his own school and catechetical audience, with preference to the little children and the poor, but will refer the feminine element to the Sisters and other pious souls, well formed catechists. Art 811, Since in every and any work of worship and of apostolate, every Vocationist could work with the feminine element, he must personally deal only with truly devoted persons and mostly elderly ones, so that they may be humble cooperators of his work and mediators between him and other souls’. In these teachings, Fr. Justin emphasizes the centrality and the connection between catechism and vocational apostolate. Every Vocationist residence must be a catechetical school and every Vocationist must form his own catechetical school. He suggests the inductive method and the everydayness not only to facilitate the understanding of the teaching but to transform it into a formative and transformative element. The Vocationist should never accept invitations to isolated preaching. Our preaching must last at least three days to be able to give a small course of ascetic formation. An isolated preaching can just arouse enthusiasm but it does not succeed in sinking to the roots. The questions that Fr. Justin had often raised to his listeners – from whom he expected no answer- and the questions that he made to us, his children, - from whom he expected written answer - were not other than a happy marriage between preaching and catechesis. When Fr. Justin speaks of the requisites for being a Vocationist, he says that in order to be accepted amongst us one must be capable at least of being a good catechist: catechism is inseparable from our vocation! Who does not do catechesis cannot be a good Vocationist; this is why permanent catechesis is an obligation for all the members of the Vocationist Family (Fathers, Sisters, Brothers, Students, Apostle, Oblates, Friends. Members of the Society of Divine Union, Cooperators, aggregates, associates, affiliates). As a child of his time, but, much more, as a profound expert of the human spirit, Fr. Justin wanted that catechism be taught with the method of question and answer. This helped in synthesizing the concept or the truth that he taught, facilitated concentration and the retention of the pupil. After many years, we, the elderly ones, still remember the questions and the answers of the catechism; though, we never understood fully those questions and answers as children , we had had means of deepening them with years, with study and consequent readings. John Paul 11 advocated a certain memorization of the catechism. Fr. Justin was more than convinced of the usefulness and efficacy of the method of teaching according to the scheme of question and answer. He had so taught his parishioners and students. A strong and direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit - as is the case of all the inspiration reported with quotation marks: ‘Extend also to the Vocationist Sisters, this manner of administering the divine word through questions and answers, develop this method in the regulations for the students’ (Opere, vol.12, p.287) In the Apostles of Divine Vocations, Fr. Mario De Rosa reports a strange episode; a day the dough did not leaven and the sisters complained to Fr. Justin. He told them: fill the kitchen with kids, teach them catechism and the heat of their body will ferment the dough. And so it happened. What does this episode teach us? Can it be that he is telling us that, like the mercy, catechism is also useful foreverything? For the Vocationists, it cannot be enough to organize or teach classes of catechism for kids. We want and must do of our life an eternal catechesis, not only to prepare the catechetical programme, but we wish that every parish may be a permanent school of catechesis in which all may be catechists and apprentices at the same time. The Vocationist Parish priest cannot fully delegate to others the coordination, supervision and function of catechesis. The last apostolic image of Fr. Justin coming down to us from his biographies is that of a tired man, consumed by sickness and dragging himself from court-yard to court-yard distributing catechisms and exhorting all to the study of catechism. Jesus tell us: ‘from this (from love) they will recognize you as my disciples. Fr. Justin can similarly say to us: ‘From this (from your permanent catechesis) they will recognise you as my disciples!’. The Catechetical Missions Fr. Justin has left us many precious pearls of profound and practical teachings. One of the most precious Justinian pearls is his lecture on the Catechetical Missions. We discover in this lecture his thought, his teachings, the secret of the efficacy of his apostolate and we make it ours. I recommend heartily a meditative and deepened re-reading of the report of Fr. Justin on the catechetical missions in the seventh volume of his writings. From April 17 to April 20, 1928, the Regional Catechetical Congress was celebrated in Naples, with the intent of offering to the people religious instruction through the catechetical form that Fr. Justin had put at the centre of his apostolate. The theme of the Lecture that Fr. Justin was called to develop was: The Catechetical Missions. Who could have better handled this topic than the one who, when asked how our Congregation was born, responded: from the catechism of a seminarian on vacation. Taking as a starting point the affirmation of St. Paul that faith depends on preaching, Fr. Justin asserts in the lecture that: ‘ the instrument of the Word needs a minister or interpreter: an apostle that speaks and an evangelist that writes’. For this, it is an inescapable duty of the priest to announce the Word every day and, in this announcement, the catechetical mission represents a favourable moment. The catechetical mission is a period of time in which missionaries, who received expressly the mandate of the bishop to ‘evangelize a parochial community with catechetical instruction and liturgical celebrations’ turn themselves to the people of God involving the various social classes and the different age groups. What are the fruits of the catechetical mission? Fr. Justin points them out in the ‘ vigorous awakening of the souls from vigorous sleep of sins’, ‘they aim at sanctifying first, the local clergy on whom depends the work, example, all doctrine. …the mission, besides the work of instructing the local catechists and forming a permanent school of catechesis, which at the end of the mission will remain at the service of the parish.’ Which are the instruments available to the missionaries for transmitting religious instruction to the faithful? In the first place, they would treasure the experience of many apostles of the past and in so doing, fill all people with enthusiasm for catechetical apostolate. In that way, evangelization will be the work of all the community and the local churches will come to find themselves in a state of permanent mission. Fr. Justin concludes his lecture by bringing concrete examples of the catechetical mission carried out in Great Britain, in France and in Italy through the hands of evangelizing saints like John Eudes, Vincent de Paul, Paul of the Cross…..(Cf. Opere. Vol.7, pp.21-57). Catechetical missions and catechetical missionaries are not things of the past; thanks to God, even today the catechetical missions under various names, carry out the evangelization on the road or similar ones and represent a true spring for the Church and involving, as it were, so many youths in this work of evangelization. Among the groups present and working in this sector, I cite: the Community of the Beatitudes, the Sentries of the Morning and the New Horizons. We also walk on this road, born from the zeal of a humble parish priest that made of his life the best catechetical mission. What are we, Vocationists, doing today as regards these missions? Every one expects someone else to do it, but then, why does it not begin with you? Accept this invitation, in it you will find your realization, your happiness, your sanctification and that of others.
Conclusion At the second meditation on the first day of spiritual exercises, on July 10, 1953, Fr. Justin records this inspired programme that is also practical and useful for us: “The relation of sonship with the Father grows through sacred study; The relationship of spouse with the Holy Spirit increases through the hour of mental prayer; The relationship of Mother of Christ develops through preaching! Amen. In the holy mass and communion, the grace for all supernatural life is received. We continue preaching all day with general and particular behaviour that is all edification, all testimony of the gospel, all irradiation of Jesus living in us. We continue praying all day long with conversation or dialogue with the Lord living in us. We pursue our sacred study all day long expecting and receiving form the Father his Word under every veil” (Opere, vol.12, pp.234-235). Often we lament - both in our parishes and in our communities - because we find little to gather from the sowing of our predecessors! We should thank the Lord who makes us find a free field where we can sow and build on. You and I have not been called to be reapers or gatherers, but sowers and, the seed that we must cast with outstretched hands is non other than the word of God! It consoles and surprises me at the same time my consideration of Jonah, whom Jesus presents to us as the only sign which may be available to us. The reflection is: just as at the words of a rebellious and unbelieving prophet the people of Nineveh converted, so often at our preaching, miraculous conversions or spiritual growth may follow, notwithstanding our unworthiness and our poverty! What would be our preaching if we were truly saints? We must work then to make ourselves saints not only for our good and for the salvation of our soul, but for the greater effectiveness of our apostolate, the good and the sanctification of all the souls that we may meet on our journey. May we make ourselves truly saints and work for the sanctification of others. May all the angels and saints of God accompany us in our work and grant us their zeal, their generosity, their fire of love to create a deluge of saints and of holy deeds. In union of prayer, With heartfelt greetings, fraternal embraces and choicest divine blessings.
Your most obedient servant and affectionate brother, Fr. Louis M. Caputo, S.D.V.
|
|
