«The Christian people (….) find means of salvation in the ordained ministry; in the consecrated life they find a stimulus for a full response of love in all different forms of diaconate” (Consecrated life 34). From this text, I draw the inspiring motive of the following brief notes. In the Council perspective of the Church-communion, which John Paul II insistently underlined, proposing a spirituality of communion (Novo millennio ineunte 42-45), I shall speak of two fundamental co-ordinates: the relational dimension and the sharing of ideals push us in the relation between the presbyters and the women consecrated life. By calling to memory my occasional journey from infancy –adolescence- to the Institute of the “Daughters of Maria Ausiliatrice”, where, entrusted to God’s faithfulness, never to my own strength, I hope to persevere up to death, I see fundamental turning points in the given relation, linked to complex and  multiple touching individuals and communities”. 

Uncertain modernity

I remember two challenges of the mentioned turning points: the liquid-modern society with the primacy of the virtual relations and “low” democracy, namely the individualistic freedom that stops at the opinion, chasing away the sense of truth and goodness. The liquid-modern society forbids itself, as collective reality, to state what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil. It does not favour the sharing of life-humanising values.  These challenges affect also the relation between presbyters and the women consecrated life, challenging both parts with quality relations and authoritativeness.

«Calling to mind the Biblical-Christian anthropology, Fr. Dalmazio Mongillo stated that identity is rational».[i] The Trinity is not only Motherland, but also Source and nourishment in our communion journey. Secularisation, rather secularism, tends to strike off this reference by preferring the human I-You relations, or man’s relation with the world of animals, which is more provocative, to the three relational dimensions that the Bible underlines –the fundamental relation with God, the relation among human beings and that with the cosmos deriving from them.

From his socio-cultural viewpoint, Zygman Bauman often reflects on identity-relation-values, signalling that a man without identity is a man without relations. The solitary citizen in the swarm of consumerists is one of the many persons who run without any goal, attentive to board a speedy train without knowing “where” it goes. Starting from the romance of Musil, “The man without quality”, he concludes by saying that this is a man without relations.[ii]   With his commitment and acumen, he conquers any quality, “any bond”, which he desires. Isolation is the result. He freely connects and disconnects himself from relations, because we can establish “virtual relations” quite easily, but also easily, we can break them off (…): we can always press the “cancel” button. ³

Its first victim is solidarity. «The right of the stronger, of the more cunning person, able or astute in doing whatever is required to survive the weaker and unlucky one, is the most terrifying lesson in history. It is a fearful and gruesome lesson (…). Today the world seems to conspire and to damage trust ».⁴ Anxieties and fear push us to raise walls among individuals, groups and peoples, downloading the motives of their ill-being on those who are beyond.

Democracy in crisis

Here is a thought on today’s crisis of democracies. The ideal of the great founders of democratic societies –let us think of De Gasperi-, was that of raising the people to a moral, cultural and economic level: a “high” democratic form. To emphasise the individual freedom of unqualified man leads to a “low” democracy, deprived of values collectively accepted. This affects the sense and value of authority, its authoritativeness, its educative and formative dimension and solidarity. People –subject of democracy- as single, perceive a reference point for growth in humanity there, where they find an authoritative authority. In a society of equality like the swarm of consumerists, each man decides for himself, picking up his food from the ground, without any regard for values.  Relations are virtual or, more or less, functional, instead of being reciprocally constructive.

In this context, the relation between presbyters and women consecrated life is subject to evaluation and demand of quality, of respect for one’s own personal and vocational dignity, as well as for the dignity of others. This is possible also in the modern liquid-society, because “to believe in the God of Abraham, the God of the Bible is to believe in Him whose love we trust. It is also a source of faith in us, in our capacity of promising and of keeping the promises, despite the awareness of our frailty, inconstancy and vulnerability of beings that depend on the passing time and the variations of feelings (….). Thanking God, we can promise as well as trust the promises of others».⁵

Experts of Communion

Faith is the foundation of relational anthropology: every man bears the image of God “love”. He carries His imprints with his vocation to love, to communion; the Church is sacrament, sign and instrument of this (See Lumen gentium 1).

Today both challenges face the presbyters and women religious with a more explicit evangelical identity and mission, growing and favouring the growth of the communion spirituality.

The documents and studies of these two forms of vocation, underline their relational dimension and the high ideal push, as presuppositions for a reciprocal enrichment in the mission of the Church and of the world (See: Pastores dabo vobis; Directory for the ministry and life of the presbyters; Consecrated Life). «It is within the mystery of the Church, as a mystery of Trinitarian communion in a missionary tension, that every Christian dignity reveals itself, therefore, also the specific identity of the Priest and its ministry flows from here. Thus, we can define its nature and mission “in this multiple and rich web of relationships, flowing down from the Most Holy Trinity and prolonged in the communion of the Church». The ecclesiology of communion is the context “to catch the identity of the presbytery, its original dignity, its vocation and mission among the people of God and in the world» (Pastores dabo vobis 2).

The consecrated persons are in the same perspective, in particular the women religious who are particularly competent in the art of relations. They must “be true experts of communion and must practise its spirituality, as witnesses and artists of “the communion project” that is at the vertex of man’s history, according to God. By developing the spirituality of communion, the sense of ecclesial communion promotes a way of thinking, speaking and acting that favours the growth of the Church in depth and extension».

Ministerial creativity