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Pie Discepole del Divin Maestro (Pious Disciples of the
Divine Master): a Congregation, a programme of life. They are
consecrated women totally devoted to love, to honour and to serve Jesus
Christ, the unique master of humanity, today, yesterday and always,
present and active in the Eucharist and in the Church. To serve Jesus
means to participate actively and with the whole Church in the
celebration of the Divine Mysteries, remaining in continuous adoration,
day and night, in turns. A never stopping love current, capable of
moulding the femininity consecrated to the service of the ministry and
the ministers in the Church of God.
Sr.
Regina Cesarato, general counsellor for the past five years, reflects
with us on the future of the consecrated life in the light of the
instrumentum laboris of the world Congress planned for the month of
November. As requested, she has rightly made a reflection on the world
Eucharistic Congress that will be celebrated in Guadalajara (Mexico)
during the coming month of October, and on the year dedicated to the
Eucharist wanted by John Paul II.
To project the future, it is written in the preparatory
document of the Congress in November: starting from the deep change of
mentality which promotes new forms of government. "The
consecrated life in all its forms appears in the Church as a series of
not always exploited energies, sometimes even wasted and used in a
repetitive way". Do you share this statement?
"Yes,
partly, if we read it in an operative perspective. However, I think that
the various exercised ministries in the area of consecrated life, are
connected with a particular charismatic experience and, therefore, they
have an accentuation that can enrich the Church with a distinguished
service. The energies, "used in a repetitive way" and sometimes "wasted"
in the vast church or humanitarian area, have multiple and complex
causes".
What are, according to you, the reasons that have
brought, somehow, to this suffocating situation?
I think
that the fundamental reasons for which they speak of a "suffocating
situation" are mainly of a historical and structural nature. The
phenomenon is at present becoming acute, as we experience at world level
an "epochal" turning-point. This allows us to catch the urgency of
changing "the institutional mentality", so that the dialogue and the
collaboration among our Institutes may not be left to the good-will of
only some single persons. Before Vatican II, the set up of our
institutes caused worries especially about keeping the structure and the
apostolic works alive. This demanded a type of government more of
administrative than of "animation" type. The resources were often
managed within the institutes; we felt self-sufficient and there was a
certain anxiety of "recruiting " the needed vocations.
Today,
under the hard trial of vocational scarcity, we receive the grace and
the opportunity of becoming poorer and, therefore, more available to
share the received gifts. The Ecclesiology of communion educates us to a
broad-minded dialogue with the other ecclesial components and with the
cultures.
The
interpretation of our Founders, their great love for the Church and
their prophetic attention paid to the needs of the people, provoke us,
today, to invent once again a way of service that may adhere to the
Gospel and to the world we live in. The adhesion to the Gospel, that is
to the person of Christ himself, will make us capable of such a newness
and freshness as to put aside the excessive care for our "little
orchard" so that we may look, all together and without competition, at
the wider field of God's Kingdom, where all of us are called to work.
Do you have any personal proposal to get out of this
situation?
"Starting
from the experience of the difficulty which we are living, I think that
we are in the right position to promote not only new "forms of
government", which is an important aspect of organisation type, but
also, and above all, our growth towards a culture of sharing and
proximity.
I believe
that in the epochal turning point which we are in, we are called to live
the spirituality of the Exodus, to feel part of the people walking
within history and seeking the sense of one's own existence; to form
ourselves to the listening, the following, the service, the indications
of God.
In this
context, my personal proposal is that of helping one another, as women
consecrated to God, of letting ourselves be evangelised first of all. I
mean to say that the sequela Cristi is an attraction, a falling in love,
it is the grace of living in Christian communities. Finding once again
the "Gospel quality" of our presence in society, we witness to the
possibility of a transformation of history and of relations, at deep
level, based on a gratuitously received and donated love".
In the preparatory document we find a reference to the
Novo Millennio Ineunte, a programme of the Church for the third
millennium of the Christian era. How do you personally translate into
your daily mission this duc in altum that the Holy Father has
addressed to all?
"Blessed
James Alberione always recommended us to be broad-minded and
broad-hearted persons. I feel the invitation of the Holy Father to the
whole Church of "moving higher", at the beginning of the third
millennium, as a challenge of life. First of all because I have received
the grace of the religious vocation, then because our specific mission
as Pious Disciples of the Divine Master within this Family makes us
sharers of the urgency of evangelisation with "the fastest and most
efficacious means", to use an expression of the Founder.
My
present service in the Congregation puts me in contact with many people
and cultures, but even in Rome, I feel the grace of my vocation that
has its climax in the Eucharist. I perceive that the whole life of the
Church is born and culminates in this great mystery and that all her
missionary action is a living liturgy, lived by a baptised, prophetic,
regal and priestly people. This awareness nourishes my service and my
love for the Church and humanity, which I feel at my side as a companion
of my journey. Don Akberione exhorted us to go for the Eucharistic
adoration with a globe, to open our heart to the milliards of men and
women who live on the face of the earth, to pray for all of them, and
to work so that the good news of the Gospel may reach all of them, and
so that they may nourish themselves with the Word and with the Bread of
Life.
This is
how, as a woman, I feel to be at the service of life, in deep communion
with the sisters who work in the mission".
The consecrated Life looks at Mary, Mother of the Church: a reference
model for all the consecrated, destined never to be out of fashion,
especially today when the challenges of the present time demand a non
indifferent commitment. This is well underlined in a meaningful passage
of the preparatory document. Fetching from your daily experience, has
it happened to you to draw inspirations from the Virgin for an eventual
commitment of not easy solution?
I refer
to the Virgin mother of God especially to inspire myself from her being
a "disciple" of Jesus. I believe that her journey of faith, from the
very beginning, must have been more difficult than mine. I like to
contemplate the wonders of God in this very beautiful woman, who has
become a perfect transparency, through a gradual journey of
self-expropriation.
I
remember that, whenever I was asked a difficult obedience, at the limit
of my possibility, I read the passage of the Annunciation from the
Gospel of Luke. I allowed myself to be introduced to the triple modality
with which Mary put herself before the Annunciation of Gabriel: first
the silence, an almost upset one, then the question and finally the
assent. I have been going with her through these three stages, remaining
fully myself: a woman who interrogates the mystery of God and, surely
through the intercession of this Mother, I have had the grace of
joining my "yes" to hers and of putting my life at the service of God
unconditionally.
Mary, Eucharistic woman: John Paul II has dedicated a whole chapter of
his latest encyclical to the Mother of Christ, to whom he is very much
devoted. Just recently he has decided to dedicate a special year of the
Eucharist in which to realise the world congress in Mexico next October,
and the ordinary Synod of Bishops. According to you, how much will the
theme affect the works of the Congress.
"I don't
have sufficient elements to say if and how much this theme will affect
the work of the Congress. Personally I think that also the Congress,
like any other Christian community, will find its "mirror" in the
Eucharist. We cannot live without the Eucharist, because it is the
source of the gratuity which nobody would be capable of, if not given by
God. This has been for Mary, the "Eucharistic woman", and this should be
a fruit of the
Eucharistic year and of the Eucharistic Congress.
We live
an epoch of great contrasts and fragmentation. The passion for the world
is born just from the sharing of the Easter mystery of the Lord who has
freely donated himself so that all of us may have life, and have it in
abundance. Convoked to the unity of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, all the dispersed are re-united in the Eucharist. I believe
that the work of the Congress, enlightened by the two icons of the
Samaritan and the Samaritan woman, will find its source and its climax
in the Eucharist.
The title of the world Congress "Passion for Christ,
passion for humanity" clearly alludes to the passion that must animate
the mission of the consecrated beings. Through which modalities is it
declined?
"I think
that the modalities are as many as the religious Institutes and the
ministries of the Church. I believe, anyhow, that every service of
charity is authentic on the condition that it flows from the
contemplation of Christ hanging on the cross, as an act of love's
absolute freedom. The way of looking at the passion of our brothers and
sisters cannot be different from that of His passion, which made the
compassion of God for our evil transparent. The strength of loving till
the end and without repentance.
Therefore, I believe that the modality is that of entering the
contemplation of the passion of Christ through the loving thought of the
unheard mystery of the love of the Father, who reveals himself in the
Son with the power of the Holy Spirit: to enter the passion of Christ
not only with the consideration of the tragic events at the end of his
public ministry, but in every instant of his human life. This is a
grace to be asked: "to feel what He felt" before the crowds that were
hungry of his word, of bread, of healing, of sense. I don't think it to
be a question of emotions which could reduce themselves to a sterile
weeping on our own sufferings or on those of the world. It is a grace of
"conformation" with the Easter of the Lord. Only like this we can serve
joyfully, passing from generosity to gratuity.
The Pope keeps on praying for new vocations and asking the faithful to
do the same. In the light of the reduced number of consecrated persons,
especially in Europe, which modalities could be used to propose the
religious missio to the youths?
"By
witnessing the beauty of God's service and the joy of a life based on
self-donation, in a community of brothers and sisters. All of us are
challenged, also in Europe, by the culture of death with its multiple
masks.
If our
communities are proposed as places of life and of service to life,
within the experience of a Church communion, we shall see the
flourishing of vocations in all the ministries necessary for the
edification of the Body of Christ.
This also supposes, as the Holy Father exhorts, the prayer of
intercession that may help us to find our true place in the plan of
God; I think that the reduced number of consecrated, especially in
Europe, is a trial which we are bearing, but most probably we are
supposed to stress the evangelical quality of our presence. Jesus said
that the Kingdom of God is as tiny as a mustard seed and that a handful
of yeast in the hand of a woman is enough to leaven the whole dough".
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