The heart of our spirituality, the focus of our charism and the source of our mission is expressed in our Rule as: “Through the eyes of our crucified Saviour we see the world which he redeemed with his blood, desiring that those in whom he continues to suffer will know also the power of his resurrection”(C 4). The next constitution of our Rule of Life that we will spend time reflecting on, reflects our founding vision today and impels us to do exactly this:
We are members of the prophetic Church. While recognizing our own need for conversion, we bear witness to God’s holiness and justice. We announce the liberating presence of Jesus Christ and the new world born in his resurrection. We will hear and make heard the clamour of the voiceless, which is a cry to God who brings down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the lowly (cf. Lk 1: 52). This prophetic mission is carried out in communion with the Church, in conformity with the directives of the hierarchy and in dependence on our Superiors.
CC&RR, Constitution 9
Fernand Jetté, our Superior General from 1974 to 1986, comments on this:
… everyone recognizes that it is necessary for a missionary Congregation dedicated to evangelizing the poor to open itself to this new dimension and to commit itself, clearly and according to its proper vocation, to the struggle for justice and the defense of human rights. That is the sense of the present article, an important article that is not without its elán (ed. animating force).
In fact, the prophetism that it asks for, even though it may bear in a special way on social justice, is much more vast than the sole defense of human rights. It expresses a reality that lies at the very heart of the religious life, the latter’s basic prophetism, namely, contesting the world, that is to say, the world filled with ambiguity and marked by sin in which we live, a world to be contested with God’s justice and holiness. If lived the way it ought to be, that is to say, radically, the religious life is, by its very existence and the practice of the vows, both an absolute contestation, often silent, of everything that is worldly in the world and in the Church, as well as the proclamation of a new world born of Christ’s resurrection.
The Apostolic Man, p. 99
“The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” Walter Brueggemann
Having just returned from experiencing an incredible retreat on the Cross given to us by Ron Rolheiser. It is with this backdrop, or in this setting that I read and reflect on what Frank has offered here.
Everything somehow seems to be connected as I find myself focussing on the very last sentence; ‘this prophetic mission is carried out in communion with the Church, in conformity with the directives of the hierarchy and in dependence on our superiors’. What a loaded sentence. Not by myself; not just between myself and God, not even just with one or two members of my community. In communion with my Church, in conformity with the directives of the hierarchy – not just a particular piece of the hierarchy – of the hierarchy in in dependence on our Superiors. All of that together – with. With. I am thinking of the word “Trust” that came to me on my retreat. Trust, ultimately trust and being in the moment. If nothing else I realise at this moment in time in a very particular way that God is not going to simply give me a word and then walk away. I thought I’d have more time -even when earlier today I asked him to help me surrender – I thought I would have more time.