 |
|
|
|
 Sr.
Anna Calazza, from Naples, with a degree in Law and a Licentiate in
Canon Law, is a daughter of St. Paul since 1985. She dedicates herself
to animation and diffusion, to radio editorial books. She has fulfilled
the task of provincial Councillor for six full years. At present she is
a General Councillor.
What would Paul of Tarsus say to today’s man?
I think that the Apostle of Gentiles would have a lot to say to today’s
men and women. No definitions appears to be more appropriate than this
to bring to evidence the extra-ordinary actuality of his figure and his
message for today’s variegated humanity. Benedict XVI often repeats,
“Paul is not a figure of the past”. I would rather say that he is a
figure of all times, because he embodies the deepest aspirations of the
human being, his need of transcendence, his nostalgia of authenticity,
stability and communion. He who approaches Paul-and the Pauline Year is
contributing to this a lot- overcoming the obstacle of th apparent
difficulty that we find in his writings, discovers, first of all, a
“solid” and determined man, because he tends towards a unique centre:
Jesus Christ; a passionate man, authentic in manifesting his feelings.
His language is franc, sometimes biting, often full of tenderness and,
always, of deep participation. Paul has the other at heart, any other.
No obstacle restrains him; no ethnic, social, religious belonging
frightens him. He crosses, shares to their depth all differences,
shoulders the other, makes himself “all to all”, without giving in to
easy compromises. It is because of his interest for man at 360° that he
cannot help proposing to him –with charity and respect-the motive of his
happiness: faith in Jesus Christ.
What can the religious learn daily and make it to fructify?
I think that it is not mistaken to think of Paul as “father and model”
of the consecrated, above all because of his being rooted in Christ,
because of his life totally dedicated to Him and to the proclamation of
His Gospel. However, I would like to underline some “secrets” of the
Apostle which, to me, must be guarded and cultivated ever more by the
religious.
First of all, the deep and always renewed awareness of being chosen by
God from the time we were still in the womb of our mothers (See Gal
1,15), of having been “clutched” and conquered by God. This love of
predilection pushes us to the mission (See 2 Cor 5, 14): to communicate
this love is a need that “compels us” (See. 1 Cor 9,16). Paul reminds us
that we must live of faith (See Rom 1, 17) and that the “success of
evangelisation” is not our work, it does not depend on our
“professional” state, on our means. This will free us also from the
temptation of abandoning our field of activity when we do not see the
hoped results…I believe that, today, witnessing to the primacy of God
in our life is the true prophecy of the consecrated life.
Paul teaches us that we cannot conceive the apostolic life without the
light that flows from prayer. A prayer born from a solicitous and
grateful heart, that embraces persons, situations, problems, joys and
that expresses the urge of taking the Good News, Christ himself, to all
men and women. A prayer after the example of the Apostle, who does not
forget our “co-operators for the Gospel”.
Finally, there is another interior dimension of Paul which we,
consecrated, must cultivate: to welcome the fatigue, the suffering and
the eventual failure of our apostolate. In other words, it is the matter
of carrying in us the cross of Christ, so that all of us may have life.
(See 2 Cor 4,10-12).
The scopes of the Pauline Year are to make St. Paul better known and to
insert him into an ecumenical project of growth and dialogue. According
to you, how is it possible to propose it to the youths?
I am convinced that the Apostle Paul is truly able to create enthusiasm
among the youths, who are generally attracted by people that embody
great ideals, by witnesses who open them to boundless and mysterious
horizons. Paul is a daring man, who struggled for what he believed, who
moved always “beyond”, obeying the imperious power of the Spirit. He
struggled also against himself, and knew how to confess his weaknesses,
to acknowledge his failures. He believed in friendship and
collaboration, in the warmth that the belonging to a community can give,
but never did he shut up himself from the “outsiders”. How to propose
Paul to the youths? First of all by helping them to approach this great
Apostle directly, through the narration of the Acts, then , gradually
through his own writings. True, the content is dense, the language is
often hermetic and difficult, his thought is volcanic and, sometimes,
not linear at the first reading. But, let us trust: if they enter the
world of Paul with patience and with a good guide, they will allow
themselves to be involved by his breaking out personality, by his
unshakeable certainties and, who knows, they will discover to share his
ideals.
How to narrate to today’s youths the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the
greatest missionary of all times?
There can be many ways: I would start from the narration of the event of
Damascus, for instance from the narrations in the Acts of the Apostles,
which are extremely fascinating, built up on a “cinematographic”
register: the light, the voice that calls and the dialogue, “Saul, Saul,
why do you persecute me?”….”Who are you, Lord?”….”I am the Jesus whom
you persecute”: I feel that it is important to transmit the deep meaning
of what happened in Damascus: Christ, who identified himself with the
Christians persecuted by Paul, broke through into the world of Paul and
upset him; from that very moment, nothing was like before anymore…Only
in this sense we can speak of conversion.
To you, if Paul lived today, which type of mass-mediatic initiative
would he think of?
In 1914, my Founder, Blessed James Alberiore, shared and referred an
expression used almost a century ago by Monsignor Ketteler, archbishop
of Magonza, “If St Paul came back to the world, he would become a
journalist”. It may be. Perhaps he would be a special, realistic,
inspired and passionate person of internet, for a “global” communication
of the Gospel.
The figure of St. Paul, defined by the Pope “itinerant ambassador of
Christ” and “evangeliser of people and cultures”, is a symbol of union
in the variegated ecumenical Mosaic. What role can the religious,
particularly the Daughters of St. Paul, play in this scenario?
Paul was an evangeliser of the Frontiers, he who, because of his origins
and formation, lived in the frontier between the Judaic and the
Greek-Hellenistic world. He experienced the laceration of divisions in
his own flesh, prayed and worked for unity, patiently building up a
communion that makes the diversities relative, but keeps them, because
in Christ the Greek, the free man, man count as much as the gentile, the
slave, the woman…. His “Ecumenical” style is a strong provocation for
the consecrated. It is an invitation to feel truly debtors of the Gospel
towards everybody, without any distinction or discrimination; he is a
stimulus to cultivate a mentality open to diversity, to dialogue and
confrontation at all levels, in full respect for the other and in
charity.
In particular, for us Daughters of St. Paul, who consider the Apostle as
“form” of our being disciples and apostles, all this is translated into
a more convinced and attentive ecumenical opening, in pastoral
solicitude that makes us to treat men according to their physical,
intellectual, moral and civil conditions (Blessed G. Alberione), in the
commitment to be “all to all”, but without emptying the Gospel of its
power and truth, giving value to beauty and good wherever the seed of
the Word is present: in every person, in every people, in every culture
and religion.
|
