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 “Be
strongly rooted in charity and humility, observe your charisma, caring
particularly for the needy”. These are the words of Pope Benedict XVI
who, on the past 1st February, at the Angelus, encouraged the
persons who have offered their life to Christ through the religious
profession, and asked them “to pray for peace as well as for the
conversion of the world. The religious are distributed in the world as
follows: Religious Presbyters 136 thousand, professed men religious not
priests 55 thousand, women religious 750 thousand (given by the Holy Se,
updated for 2006). In Italy there are 32,990 diocesan Priests and 1.498
foreign priests; 18,610 men religious and 122.356 women religious. The
General houses of Orders and Congregations in our Country are 360, while
the number of male and female convents is estimated to be around 1.000
unities. To the already quoted number we must add some thousands of
consecrated persons belonging to the Society of Apostolic Life and
Secular Institutes.
The message written on the occasion of the Episcopal commission, for the
clergy and the consecrated life, underlines the exigency that the
“monastic and religious communities be oasis in which the absolute
primacy of God is lived, in his glory and in his love, expressing a
“generous service to the poor, according to the charism of the Institute
of belonging”. We have addressed to Enzo Bianchi, Prior of the community
of Bose, some questions on the challenges that the contemporary world
poses to the consecrated persons.
To consecrate oneself to God may seem today a contra-sense, apparently,
almost a “fuga mundi”. What does it mean, today, the choice of following
Christ?
“The
choice of dedicating a life totally to Christ in his following, involved
with Him in celibacy and mission, can truly look like a folly in our
hedonistic, individualistic world, which thinks only of carriers,
self-success and power. However, for those who know Christ, it is
something that happened yesterday, it happens today and will happen also
tomorrow. When a man knows Him and loves Him, he knows also that this
requires such a concentration of love on Him as all other things become
relative. They are no longer things that can hold back a believer.
Therefore, the choice of giving up the whole life radically, totally for
the sake of the Lord, of the Kingdom and of the Gospel becomes something
possible, something that opens the way to beatitudes”.
They speak of vocations crisis, but the situation seems to have a light
and shade effect. From your observatory of the Bose Community and
according to your experience, would you tell us which season are the
vocations living today?
“Undoubtedly, this talk changes according to the territory and the
continent on which we focus our attention. It is true that in the
churches of old Christianity, namely the European and North American
ones, we witness a crisis of vocations, especially for the Religious
Life. Undoubtedly, we miss the vocation to service and mission, to the
deaconate that had a fertile season above all in the eight and nine
hundred. This is why we see today less vocations. However, it is also
true that vocations continue to choose the monastic life and the
Presbyterian life, though not everywhere. The Lord keeps on calling the
souls also in this moment of poverty of vocations. He calls us to listen
to his voice. There are still men and women who, thanks to Him, leave
everything behind to follow him”.
John Paul II wrote the apostolic exhortation “Consecrated Life” centred
on the consecrated life and its mission in the Church and in the world.
Is this document of the Polish Pope still actual?
“I
think that it is, also because it is the unique document after Vatican
II, fruit of elaboration of the papal magisterium from the ecumenical
Council Vatican II up-to-date. It has been an extremely passionate
reading of religious life, a reading made with discernment; a reading
that asks the religious life to become prophetic, that is, to be the
mouth-piece of God’s Word. It asks the religious life to be a parable,
namely a sign of the coming Kingdom. To me it is the most important and
decisive document that we have on religious life in the Catholic
Church”.
What is it that, today, makes the consecrated life robust and ready to
face every type of weather-inclemency?
“We
need a sound formation and preparation. We need plenty of discernment at
the time of the call: we need great patience because the times of
discernment and formation have become longer. However, if formation is
truly intense, serious and authentic, if the religious is built up as a
man of prayer and assiduity with the Lord, then it is well armed in his
battles against the seductions and temptations that are becoming more
intense, thus requiring perseverance of struggle. Sometimes I say to
myself that once the problem was in the vocations, today, instead, the
problem is in the perseverance that must accompany the vocations. Too
easily, today, we put under discussion the emitted profession and vows.
It seems that there is the incapacity of living a promise up to death, a
covenant made with the Lord, with our brothers and sisters, with the
Church”.
In this year dedicated to the Apostle of the Gentiles, what message does
St. Paul offer to the consecrated persons and which indications does he
give us to live the message of Christ’s salvation daily in our community
of belonging?
“Surely the Apostle Paul has a message for the whole Church and for all
the faithful. It is just Paul who, in the New Testament, individuates
the possibility of the charism of religious life through the gift of
celibacy, to be lived –these are his word- assiduously with the Lord,
without distractions, without divisions, without worries. Religious
life, therefore, is a staying with Jesus, without any separation.
Celibacy is a journey of unification for this unique love that is above
everybody else. Paul gives us a strong teaching on this theme.
In the light of the recent Synod of Bishops on the Bible, how to witness
to the centrality of God’s Word?
“According to what the assembly of the synod and Pope Benedict XVI have
said, in the life of the consecrated person, the Lectio Divina must have
a central place soon after the liturgy of the hours and of the
Eucharist. A religious must absolutely live by placing the Word of God
at the centre of everything. If the religious puts at the centre the
Word of God liturgically celebrated and the Word of God assimilated
within the Lection Divina, surely he will live according to the Word,
namely according to the Gospel; he lives with the nourishment of the
Word, under the primacy of the Word.
On the occasion of a meeting dedicated to Consecrated life, Benedict XVI
auspicated that the religious might nurture their day with prayer,
meditation and listening to the Word of God. He also solicited them to
appreciate the old practice of the Lectio Divina. Do you think that this
invitation of the Pope has been honoured?
“I do
not want to pronounce a judgement, but what I can say is that at this
moment the real risk is that of being upset by too much ado, by doing
good things, by serving others, by being a Diakonia. Perhaps the “being
first evangelised to evangelise” and “the stay with the Lord to be
evangelisers in his name” are still missing. We need to take our food
from the Word that moulds us every day, that gives us a face and a form,
that makes of us the body of the Lord
The message of the CEI for the 13th world day of consecrated
life underlines the exigency that “the monastic and religious
communities be oasis in which the absolute primacy of God may live in
his glory and in his love”. Which difficulties are there for the
realisation of this inalienable exigency?
“Surely the whole history of religious life witnesses to the temptation
of “doing” more than of “being”. The religious are often tempted of not
keeping the primacy of praise, of adoration to God, things that should
characterise them. If the celibacy that moulds religious life does not
create a space to stay with the Lord, it will put to risk the entire
consecration. It is just here that religious life loses its power and is
denied. Consequently it is like the salt that loses its savour, as St.
Paul would say.
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