Life is a mystery that discloses itself progressively to our eyes and our heart. It is a promise that travels along the road of fullness and gradually is fulfilled in our hands. It is a project of love which precedes and accompanies us.

The vocation, every vocation, is a mysterious secret that gradually unveils itself to our eyes and sweetly inhabits our hearts. It is a covenant that travels along the road  of fullness and gradually is fulfilled in our hands. It is a design that waits for us and pushes us forward.

The call to life is a call to walk, to be pilgrims with the backsack on our shoulder and a desire to walk, with a song in the heart and a choice of life in the hands,  with the horizon in the eyes and the joy of existing in the face.

"Pilgrims in time", to walk in the here and now of history, with a sense of the meanwhile in the heart. Not like tourists, in the eternal search for new places to be discovered and new experiences to be lived. Not wanderers without a concrete point of reference,  in which to centre oneself, where to leave from and where to arrive at¹.

The journey of the pilgrim tastes of earth and of heaven, of the finite and the eternal, the now and the elsewhere. It is a journey that leads to one's own centre, makes us discover the true centre of our existence, widens the boundary of ourselves to encounter the other. It is a process that unveils and incarnates, in all its dimensions, the image of God that each man carries engraved in the depth of his being in a unique and unequivocal way.

For him who chooses God as the Absolute of his life and history, this journey becomes the journey in the Spirit rooted in the heart of the human adventure. It is the following of Christ in a progressive movement that gradually leads to the intimacy with Christ up to the identification with him. An identification that allows us to say, with conviction and joy: "It is no longer I, but Christ living in me" (Gal 2,20), and spurs us to exclaim, "Life to me, of course, is Christ" Phil. 1,21).

This journey is, first and above all, a life that implies action and growth: an endless action and growth, without stops, without resistances. A growth movement that pushes the winning post of our life always forwards, since we are always on the journey and never arrive!

A journey is opened by walking ….

To walk bearing fruit and without hurting ourselves, we need to grow in the awareness that we walk gradually, taking a step at a time, without impatience, without hurry, without jumping, without ever stopping! The journey is slow and progressive. This is taken for granted, but it is not so!

The climbers of mountains teach us that to reach the peak with some breath we need to find the "right step", neither to slow, nor too fast. The "right step", adequate to our strength, that accompanies us from the beginning to the end.

The climbing is made a step at a time, in patience with ourselves and in the understanding of being on a journey, a journey in ascent!

In every journey there is a still foot, the one behind which is firm, and a foot in movement that moves forward and is somehow unsteady, always in search of new steps. When we climb a mountain - an ascent like the journey of the Spirit- the lower step is firm and solid; the foot which moves forward, which climbs and opens the journey for the new steps, staggers in search of stability for the successive steps, but it is just this foot, the advancing step, that allows to move forwards, higher  and higher. It is the action of the advancing step that consents to reach the goal.

The lower foot is solid, well anchored in the memory of the past, in the experiences, the securities built up with the passing of time, the points of reference discovered and decanted during the journey. The other foot, the one that advances, is staggering because it pushes towards the research of the new, of the changes, of the beyond and the overcoming of mediocrity or half measures.

The foot that moves forwards seeks the truth of ourselves and in ourselves and finds the truth of ourselves.

The journey of the foot that moves forwards is toilsome and, sometimes, fearing the fatigue, we weigh excessively upon the step which is behind (securities, acquired certainties, experienced choices …), preventing the other foot from going and discovering new horizons.

The foot that moves forwards alternates with the other, so that the lower step is now the one that advances and the other, then, becomes the foot that remains behind, and so on and so forth in an endless harmonious dance … till the peak is reached.

…. and we discover to be on the rope"

A journey in the Spirit  is not a "journey in solitude" … even if I, and I alone can move my feet one after the other. It is a journey on the rope, in a caravan with those who share my dream of life and carry my own song in the heart. It is a journey of relation: with myself, with God, with my community, with others, with the whole world. It is a journey with a unique companion: Jesus Christ, the Crucified, the Risen, the Saviour of my life and of my history; the Master who supports all my steps, the Messiah who takes my journey to completion.

My deep belief in the Word, that invites me to go on along the essential and radical courses of shared love and donated life, cannot be missing among the things contained in my backsack for my nourishment and growth. There cannot be missing my trust and the entrusting of myself to the promise of God, One and Triune, communion and relation, who makes himself Covenant and gives me the courage to walk against current . There cannot be missing the choice to be integrally at the service of the GOSPEL, to proclaim to all men the Word that saves and builds, starting the Kingdom of God from now and here. The decision of a fundamental option cannot be missing: to live decidedly for the Gospel of love! There cannot be missing the commitment to live the daily faithfulness to the community "I belong to" and which, above all, I share. There cannot be missing the responsibility of an authentic and credible witness, starting from my "here" and my "now".

Each journey has its own map

 Every journey, every course of growth, every action oriented to self-development, every formative itinerary, presuppose one or more "finalities" and some "objectives" to be attained through a "project" adequate to the pursuing of the chosen finalities and objectives.

The project shows and describes the "how" to reach the given finalities and the chosen objectives.

The finalities constitute the "why" a course of growth is started and show the "where" it wants to go through a project that distributes the objectives to be pursued in the time.

The objectives illustrate what is concretely wanted to reach at brief, middle or long term, through the evolving of the Project that leads to the chosen finalities.

Finalities: ample ideals which act as the background of our existence and are oriented towards the promotion of …

for the initial and permanent religious formation, the finalities can be oriented to the acquisition of a balanced freedom, of an autonomy that enables the person to make decided and decisive choices, of being open to confrontation, of a loving attitude, of a prayer style, of an active listening, of a docility to the Word.

The objectives can be:

final: they constitute the goal of the journey and represent the final aim of the formative process; the verification of their achievements is made at the end of the itinerary; they are expected to be translated into a concrete behaviour to be reached in due time and in phases;

intermediate: they articulate the final objectives spreading them along the time and making them possible, concrete, individual, visible, verifiable; they form a kind of hierarchy to be covered faithfully, to the end of reaching the final objectives through successive winning posts;

 immediate: they show the action to be fulfilled now-and-here, in a brief term; they signal the operations to be activated and suggest the behaviour to be assumed in order to achieve, gradually, the fixed objectives  and to obtain the desired finalities.

The finality which I intend to reach, for instance with the sisters in formation, is the achievement of an intense prayer life, by promoting integrated personalities. I propose, therefore, a formative course able of promoting the reality of being "women" and "women of prayer" who know how to bring prayer into life and life into prayer; women who, along with the community prayer, live also the personal prayer, the heart-to-heart with God which incarnates the Word of God in the daily life;  women who do not live prayer as a refuge and the spirituality as a spiritualism.

The final objective, which ferries towards the fixed finalities, is the achievement of an incarnated spirituality that keeps the person in a lasting attitude of prayer and enables it to look at everything with the eyes of God.

The final objectives, which we shall fix all together and shall verify each time, can be the following: to go deep into an incarnated spirituality, to understand the meaning of an "existential" and "experiential"  reading of the Word of God, to make an experience of the heart prayer, to become familiar with the oriental methods of meditation, to learn new prayer techniques.

The immediate objective, the starting point of the course, is that of dedicating at least two hours per day to take a contact with one's own body and sensibility, to become familiar with the techniques of relax and meditation, to practise the prayer of the heart.

To reach a finality we need to translate the finality into concrete objectives. To achieve the objectives we need to jot down a project.

Project: orderly, detailed, systematic and particular plan of work; together with the elaboration and development needful to define unequivocally the objectives to be achieved (time and criteria) and the choices to be activated in order to reach the fixed objective (instruments).

The project is in function of the achievement of fixed objectives and the objectives (mainly the immediate ones) recall the behaviour to be activated, to be assumed, to be treasured up.

The behaviour is made up of a series of circumscribed, possible, concrete, observable, "operations" verifiable in the result. These operations refer to a concrete action of performance type.

An objective which is not translated into action,  into behaviour, risks to remain abstract, of transforming itself into illusion and into alibi. An objective translated into action and into behaviour becomes a "thing to be done" and a "choice to be made" which compels to action, to change, to the tucking up of one's sleeves.

The action of projecting, in the area of initial or permanent religious formation, recalls the personal project of life (p.p.l.). Such a project has its implications with the growth of the person, with the relational dynamics, with the demands of the being in situation.

It is not a generic project or end to itself, but a precise project, oriented to live one's own existence in its fullness

The p.p.l., if well formulated and faithfully followed, reveals itself as a powerful means

 because it helps to enter and to stay in a constant process of human, spiritual, relational, social growth.

To pro-ject: to caress the future

The etymology of the word "project" is enlightening. The term "project" derives from the Latin word "proiectus", past participle  of  "proicere" which means "to throw" Its is  strictly linked to  "proiectare", pro+iectare= to throw forward.

The definition of "pro-ject" and of  "to pro-ject" alludes to the action of "throwing something forward". This action implies a physical and not only physical movement, and reminds us  the opening to change, to transformation: when something (object, idea, force, concept, thought … ) is thrown forward, to a certain extent it is "set to liberty", it is freed, taken out of prison, it can assume another form, it can move towards another reality, shifted to another plan.

The term "project" makes the consecrated person better aware of the active and responsible role it is called to live because of its commitment to "prolong", in its life and in its existential history, the consecration of Christ to the Father. We project how to be a space  in which God makes his abode and continues, in the running of time and history, to write his Gospel of love: how to be a tend of the Word; how to be a manifestation of God, of his forgiveness, of his mercy, of the attention he pays to the poor; how to collaborate with the building of a "society of love" and of that Kingdom  which is a Kingdom of justice, of peace, of freedom and reconciliation. How to ferry oneself to the suggestion-law of "loving the others" and oneself (Lv. 19,18; Mt. 22,39), to that infinite measure, handed over to us by Jesus, of loving as he himself has loved (see: Jo 13,34).

The project makes the future to be caressed: imbibes the today with hope; fills the past with love, colours the tomorrow with expectations. All this is possible because the project makes a reference to that "purpose", to that "end", to that "design" that the person feels able to give and must give to its own life. Thus, the way does not get exhausted and does not flatten on today's horizon, but wide-opens itself and welcomes ever newer reasons for living, practises to give reason of the hope that dwells in itself (1 Pt 3,15)

To project, by spurring to stay in the today and projecting towards the future, educates to think of oneself in a horizon of meaningful things in which every experience carries the sign of a research, of a desire, of the fullness of life; in the optics of the projecting, no experience passes unobserved and without leaving a sign, no experience is archived  without the due verification and without the record of what has been conquered. The commitment to the verification and to the acknowledgement of whatever has been learned, urges us to seek the cause and the purpose of the events that touch one's own life, giving them a sense, a global sense, a sense in the time.

Life as a project,  and a project for one's own life

The projecting, always and even more in the perspective of the growth in the spirit, concerns every segment of life and every age: no one excluded! The projecting regards the initial phase of the journey, in our case the initial formation, but also the central phase, in our case the permanent formation. The excuse of the age, of being advanced in years, of not being possible to change one's own habits, of not having time to think of projects … clash with the Gospel invitation of being "new men", always; of having "new clothes", always; of being  "new wineskins", always (Mt- 9.16-17). It clashes against the advice given by Jesus, in the heart of the night, to old Nichodemus: "No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above" (Jo 3, 3). Nichodemus does not lose heart, puts his hands into his pockets, counts his years and exclaims, "How can anyone who is already old be born again?"(Jo. 3, 4). He can, if the Spirit is there, the Spirit that "blows where it pleases, when it pleases (at any segment of life), as it pleases (Jo 3,5-8).

Life is a project, thus it requires a personal project of life.

The p.p.l. is a valid instrument because it helps to bring to emergency the "hidden I" and supports it in its becoming able of orienting itself, of being faithful to itself, of living its own fullness.

In the area of consecrated life, the p.p.l. reveals itself as a powerful means because "it throws forwards",  makes the soul to land on the sacred soil of the Spirit and to dwell in Christ. It stimulates us to live an authentic experience of God's mystery. It urges us to enter and to stay within the constant process of docile conversion to the formative action of Christ, the Master who is the life, the truth, the way (Jo. 14,6). It binds us - through a deep, sincere and constant revision of life- to the decisions already taken, to the assumed commitments, to the formulated proposals.

The p.p.l. is not a passive and dry planning of things to be done or not. It is not a rigid organisation of time table that rules and tins life, choices, behaviour in the least details. It is not a captious and aseptic record of objectives to be achieved and interventions to be made. It is not a sterile organogram that plans the periodic self evaluation to make sure about the achieved results.

The p.p.l. is an "active answer" that makes man to manage himself and to have a realistic self-vision. It does not allow a useless "fleeing forward". It does not allow us to deceive ourselves by denying the past. It is a synthesis of our own history: the memory of the past meets and interlaces itself with the today of our present and builds the future which is offered as "possibility" of realising our own potentialities and of bringing  to completion the structures of the personality, by giving a precise face to our own identity. 2

In the initial and permanent  religious formation, the p.p.l. is an "active response" to the call of God who invites man to manage himself, every day, to put himself actively and responsibly in the sequela Christ. Accepting to formulate a p.p.l. means to let oneself be involved in the blow of the Spirit that "throws forward" towards ever newer forms of landing.

The p.p.l., as an instrument and a process of an on going growth, is important to built oneself, one's own relation with God and with the community, as well as the service to others, the mission.

Jesus himself advises that, before venturing a new construction of any type, it is good to prepare a project, to draft a programme, to make a careful account and to evaluate the started  action: "Which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, anyone who saw it would start making fun of him saying: Here is someone who started to build and was unable to finish (Lk 14, 29-30).

The p.p.l. stimulates an attitude of constant discernment, by monitoring the quality of the answer given to the call to life (enthusiasm for life, perception of life as a gift, a sense of praise for the gift of life, research of what is positive, optic of the "half filled bottle" …) and to the call to God's love (intimacy with the Lord, spirituality, prayer ..), as well as to the invitation of taking to others the experienced love and joy of living for … (service, apostolate, evangelisation, love for others … ).

The p.p.l. urges us to keep alive and dynamic the original beauty of God's gift and of the love adventure begun with Him (first love, phase of falling in love). A love adventure that requires to be continually revived (a ceaseless falling in love again and again) to free out the richness that it encloses.

The p.p.l. is a sort of fertile land to be cultivated so that we may grow in Christ. It flows from a personal encounter with the Master: a true, personal, concrete encounter; not just studied from books or learnt from hearsay. It is a means that frees positive energies, reveals hidden resources , shows ideals to be achieved, orients life, motivates and chooses actions.

The p.p.l. is not centred on "having something to do", but on the understanding of our own personal identity and it throws the focus on two questions:

who am I here and now?

what am I supposed to be here and now to be faithful to myself?

These questions require global, authentic, true, sincere answers. The true self understanding, acquired in our contact with God and nourished by prayer, is transformed into a sincere self-acceptance, into the capacity of entering the process of reconciliation with our own history. Such a journey implies the looking at and touching of our own life (the truth of what we are) and accepting it in love.

In any segment of religious life,  and in every age, the final objective of the p.p.l. is tied up with the fundamental option and with a living decided for …. In the initial phase, it helps to build this option through the discovery of the call to the intimacy and communion with the One and Triune God: with the loving Father, the loved Son, the Spirit Love … and to become loving, loved, love. In the permanent phase it helps to re-awake constantly this option and to keep it awake.

A well elaborated p.p.l. during the initial formation can accompany the whole process of growth. In this case, the "global face" of the initial p.p.l., has to be progressively translated into a micro p.p.l. (yearly, biennial … ) that focalises and concretises particular aspects of one's own physiognomy and favours the progress towards the fixed finalities and the acquisition of the chosen objectives,

A good p.p.l. requires an accurate formulation and a punctual elaboration.

First of all, it requires a clarity of the finalities to be achieved, the linearity of the project to be followed, the precision of the objectives to be pursued  in the brief (immediate objectives), middle (intermediate objectives) and long term (final objectives).

Moreover, it requires the use of the personal pronoun "I" and the reference to oneself: I am the subject of my p.p.l., nobody else.

Finally,  it requires a particular attention in the use of verbs: the verb must be utilised, always, in the indicative and in the first person singular (I see my resources with new eyes); never in the infinitive time (to see my resources with new eyes) or in the future time (I shall see my resources with new eyes).

My resources at the centre of the project

I am "I" here (space) and now (time), with my resources and my limits, my history and my desire of the future, my failures and my conquests, my ideals and my  resistance, my aspirations and my fears … To elaborate a good p-p-l- it is necessary to start from what I am here-and -now and trace, with serenity and objectivity, the adequate course towards the desired objectives.

A p.p.l., understood in this sense, is not static, it is necessarily dynamic and evolves harmoniously with the development of the person itself. The p.p.l., because of this dynamic dimension, though the direction to be followed is clear, it does not always proceed along a rigorous rectilinear way, it often proceeds at zigzag, with ups and downs, with stops and final rushes.

When a p.p.l. is adopted, understood in this sense, the choices made or to be made depend on values considered to be the "bearing axes" of one's own p.p.l. But we need to be attentive because pseudo-values insinuate themselves causing a disorientation and a deviation from the true self-realisation.

The elaboration of a good  p.p.l. demands:

*     a mature and growing self-knowledge and the  tension towards a constant search of one's own identity and one's own  self image;

*       the awareness of being the "protagonist" of a project and the desire of building a strong and mature, a balanced and responsible, an autonomous and free "I" that knows how to be close, it is not independent, and how to depart, it is not dependent;

*      a mature and balanced knowledge of reality;

*      the choice of a "fundamental principle" which inspires one's own life and one's own history;

*      the awareness of the maturation time and the commitment to start with the exploration (I look

*      around myself), to reach the orientation (I centre myself on one thing out of many others) and, through hypotheses (I can do … I can say … I can commit myself …), to reach the option (I choose this "polo of attraction" around which my life can be structured).

A "good project" allows us to live better

To "waste" a little time for the elaboration of one's own project is worth-while. A "good" p.p.l. favours a better life because it encourages such an attitude of research as it gives warmth and colour to our daily life and a positive trust in ourselves and in others. This gives us the capacity of looking at the world with different eyes. It favours the growth and the change with faithfulness to the nucleus of the bearing values, developing the joy of living, the love for what we are, the enthusiasm for what we do, the gratitude for what we have. It increases the effective capacity of loving and allowing ourselves to be loved; it frees the affectivity by helping it to express itself with balance. It fortifies our sense of responsibility and warms the availability to seek help and support, without creating dependence.

The p.p.l. stimulates us to look beyond the present and projects us towards a future full of hope … it projects us towards God's future!

 *         A consecrated lay person of the Missione Chiesa-Mondo; lecturer of sociology in the Facoltà Teologica dell'Italia Meridionale, sessione San Tommaso: (Faculty of Theology in South Italy, St. Thomas session): facilitator in the help relations.

 1.       See Z. Bauman, Dentro la globalizzazione. Le conseguenze sulle persone, Laterza, Bari 2001; particularly Chapter IV p. 87-112) dedicated to the category of the wandering tourist who moves freely in the actual society of consumerism, living only in time, because the space has no more value and has become without boundary.

2.       Identity as "a stable sense of interior continuity that remains in time and in circumstances" (Erikson).