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Foreword

THE INSTITUTE OF SISTERS FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES OF MARY

OUR SPIRITUAL FAMILY

FOREWORD

The unceasingly renewed invitation to re-visit the charism of our Institute is a constant call to live in truth, in the today of God, the name which was given to us in the beginning as a vocation, and which is particular to us in the Church.

The name Within human society, it identifies a person or a group, and situates it in a wider whole and also in history, with the responsibilities towards others that this carries with it. It brings to light an identity which whilst individualising, makes appear the contact with a relational network, without which the person or the group would not exist. In a Biblical perspective, the name receives in addition a new importance, especially when it is God who imposes it or proposes it, or again when He substitutes it for the one that was given at birth. It indicates the vocation to a particular covenant: it is a call and a sending at the service of the Covenant of the Lord with his people. So it is with Abraham and with Sara, with John the Baptist and with Jesus himself. It confers on an individual or collective existence, a meaning, an orientation, a precise role, that is to be discovered little by little.

The charism, for its part, refers us back to the New Testament which formed this word to designate the gifts made by the Spirit to one or to several people: a supernatural and efficacious help permitting each one in their own way to collaborate in the building up of the Church, the Body of Christ; in other words, to carry out the vocation received with the name, as is the case in religious life. That is why (even though this term like many others has often been deviated from its original meaning1), the Second Vatican Council took it up again and highlighted it. We, too, shall use it in this sense. The baptised who are beneficiaries of these gifts see their life of faith deepen at the same time, whilst taking on a more specific Gospel orientation (spiritual path), which enlightens and inspires their response to the call. Identity – Spirituality – Charism Before going into more detail, we can already notice that in our lives consecrated to God, there exists a close link between these three realities. Since the updating (‘aggiornamento’) of our Constitutions according to the Council’s directives, at each general chapter and in our documents – whether official or not – these terms often come back, and we sometimes ask

1 For more details, refer to Chapter III which is especially devoted to the Charism.

1 ourselves if we are putting exactly the same reality under all three or if they differ in anything. This can give rise to confusions and uncertainties; thus it was for those Chapter members who, once one of the General Chapters closed, asked themselves: “What exactly did we really want to say by: identity, spirituality and charism?” In the course of our reflection, we are going to try to say with greater precision what these words represent for our life which, like every human life, is complex. For the moment, we shall try to situate them one in relation to the other, following the very movement of our name.

Among our identifying reference points: -“Our identity” designates the most general reality; it globally takes in the other two, whilst together with them situating us in the Church and in the world. -“Our Spirituality”, for its part, specifies the Gospel way of life which characterises our ‘extended spiritual Family: the Franciscan Family composed of members with diverse charisms, just like other spiritualities which are equally inspired by the Holy Spirit and officially recognised by the Church (e.g. Ignatian, Dominican and Carmelite Families). As for “our Charism”, this is the most specific part of what makes us who we are within the Church: our ‘Spiritual Family’, among all those of the ‘extended Family’, each called to highlight certain values of the common spiritual patrimony, by going into them more deeply and living them in a particular and creative way.

A FIRST DIAGRAM is an attempt to help us to visually grasp how the realities designated by these three terms – to which our name refers us – are inseparable yet without merging (cf. the three frames overlapping each other) and mutually influence each other (cf. the arrows which link them together).

2 Invited once again to explore the harmonics and the meaning of our common vocation, in order to live it as fully as possible at this moment of our history, we shall therefore do this taking as our starting point the name which identifies us within the Church. And this always according to the fundamental Conciliar orientations: - to remain faithful to the charism of our origins, as did the Sisters who transmitted the heritage to us; - to remain attentive to the calls of the Spirit which unceasingly challenge us to bring it up to date.

The main lines of our process

According to the very movement of the unfolding of our history, we shall follow the following stages:

- INTRODUCTION – A PROJECT FROM GOD A short historical account of the coming to birth of the Charism, “a gift of the Spirit” to the Church for its mission in the world.

- PART I – “MISSIONARIES OF MARY” The Charism, a common call to witness to Christ in the world in Mary’s way.

- PART II – “FRANCISCAN” The integration of the Charism in a given form of Gospel life: the belonging to the Franciscan Family and the sharing of its Spirituality; what the FMM charism receives from it and what it is called to bring to it.

- PART III – “SISTERS FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES OF MARY” - A gift to the Church: a religious institute dedicated, with its own characteristics, to the universal mission, - sharing its Charism in communion with lay people; - And a gift for the world: ‘integration’ in humanity. (Identity)

N.B. We can only make this study in summary form, in a synthetic way, as an invitation to go more deeply into it, especially starting out from some basic documents that we have at our disposition. In particular:

- With regard to the beginnings, the biographies of Mary of the Passion and her writings both official and spiritual; for what regards the separation and the original nucleus, “’The foundresses’ – First Companions of Mary of the Passion”1; for what concerns the Franciscan adoption, particularly “MEMOIRS”2 of Mother Mary of the Passion. – For a more advanced research, and when language is not an obstacle, the basic document is obviously “Positio super Virtutibus” of the process for the Beatification of Mary of the Passion3. – Without forgetting the biographies of our 7 Martyr Saints and of Blessed Maria Assunta Pallotta. –

1 Rome – Grottaferrata, December 2008 2 Published posthumously in 1909 under the title: Very Reverend Father Bernardino dal Vago and the Institute of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary 3 Each province possesses at least one copy.

3 For a more advanced critical reflection, the booklet “The Century of Mary of the Passion”4 can be a great help.

- For what regards our history, the Acts of General Chapters and the writings of the Superior Generals; we also have precious sources in the book “For the Mission and its Risks”, and in the series of Annals, Chronicles and Bulletins with various titles; not to mention the Journals of Provinces and the History of each one.

- For what concerns today and tomorrow, the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the more recent ones on Religious Life as well as on Mission, emanating as much from the Holy See as from the International, Regional or National Unions of Religious (men and women), those of Missionary Congregations and those of the Franciscan family.

4 By Sr. Marie Thérèse de Maleissye fmm

4 INTRODUCTION – A PROJECT FROM GOD manifested to Mary of the Passion and progressively discovered by her throughout the course of her life-story

“The wind blows wherever it pleases; you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.” Jn. 3,8 Genesis of a charism As she herself said, Mary of the Passion did not receive the call to be a foundress and to live the charism of the Institute in a sudden flash of inspiration. She received and understood it step by step: God prepared her progressively by ways that were often disconcerting and by signs that she had to decipher. It was in re-reading in the evening of her life the path she had travelled that she could judge that the task to which she had been invited had been accomplished and that she could totally identify the charism of her religious family. The hour had come for her to transmit it to others. It would be interesting to see in detail how God had directed her from her earliest years towards the task that was awaiting her, through the gifts of nature, those of a Christian family and a solid education, but also through events in the world and in the Church and through the experience of various trials. In the framework of our study we shall only pause at the stages where she clearly heard and received a call which, leading her by unknown paths, was becoming more and more precise.1

1- THE CALL AND THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT RELIGIOUS LIFE WITH THE POOR CLARES “Here I am…” Is 6, 9 - In 1856, at the age of 17, during a preached retreat for the Children of Mary, she unexpectedly had a very strong spiritual experience during the final Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and she suddenly understood the love on the part of God of which she was the object2: “I had knelt down, as cold as ever. Then this thought came to me, ‘It is I who will always love you more than you will ever love Me. I am perfect, spotless Beauty, for I am Infinite Being, God.’ […] This ‘thought of a moment’ was to mark her forever […].” After some weeks of inner journeying, the call became clearer: “ ‘the religious vocation imposed itself on my consciousness and even upon my desires as being the only kind of life possible for me’.” “Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more.” John 15, 2 - In December 1860, after various events which impeded her vocation (including the death of her mother), and confirmed in her aspiration by the Bishop Mgr. Jaquemet, she entered the monastery of the Poor Clares in Nantes. Her preliminary interview with the Abbess had been decisive in her choice: “ ‘Until then I had never felt able to say, I am made for this place or that. But at this moment my vocation was decided without my even realising it. Poverty took possession of my heart! I became a daughter of St. Francis and have never ceased to be so’3

1 For a reminder of these stages cf.: Very Reverend Mother Mary of the Passion English translation of the biography by M.M. Jehanne which was first published in Vanves in 1914; and Hélène de Chappotin and the franciscan missionaries of Mary English translation of the history written by Marcel Launay and published by Les Ėditions du Cerf in Paris in 2001. 2 Cf. English Translation of M. Launay, p.52 3 English translation of the biography by M.M. Jehanne, p.42, quoted by M. Launay, see English translation p.60

5 This period was marked for the Papacy by the progressive loss of the Pontifical States. For Hélène, the call began to become clearer to offer herself (according to the spiritual terminology of her time) ‘as a victim’ for the Church and for the Pope, who had become ‘a prisoner’ in the Vatican; she had already obtained her bishop’s permission to do this before entering the monastery. And there she mystically received the name ‘Mary Victim of Jesus and of Jesus Crucified’ (23rd January 1861) But soon afterwards, illness obliged her to return to her family. 1. WITH THE MARIE REPARATRICE SISTERS - After many vicissitudes, in 1864 she was able to return to religious life; but in obedience to her spiritual director, in a new congregation: the Sisters of Marie Reparatrice, who had an Ignatian spirituality. They were adorers of the Eucharist, and had a Marian spiritual orientation, they were cloistered but given over to apostolic activities within the convent. On taking the habit she received the name of Mary of the Passion, and later she was to say that she was then ‘penetrated by one only word: Ecce [here I am]’ Her great devotion at this time was that towards Mary ‘Mother of Sorrows’ (Mary at the foot of the Cross). “… send me!” Is 6, 9 - Whilst there was nothing to let it be foreseen, in 1865 she was sent on mission in India (in the diocese of Madurai entrusted to the Jesuits) where her life was to be marked out by unforeseeable calls, to which she would always answer “yes”, though not without difficulties to be overcome and sufferings to be carried. In 1866, after her First Profession, she was named superior of the community; and the following year, in 1867, already before her Final Profession (1871) and in spite of her fears, she became provincial. During this period she acquired a lot of experience, which allowed her to broaden her horizons. Her devotion to Mary was deepened and became more focussed on the hidden life of Nazareth. At the same time, she realised that the missionary religious life of her Sisters needed other regulations than those of a cloistered community, and she asked the Superior General to authorise an adaptation of existing customs.

2. SEPARATION – AND FOUNDATION OF THE SISTERS MISSIONARIES OF MARY “you will be weeping and wailing […] but your sorrow will turn to joy.” Jn 16, 20 - Inextricable difficulties in the mission of Madurai and in the relations of the latter with various authorities in Europe, led in 1876 to the separation from the Reparatrices of a group of 20 Sisters among whom was Mary of the Passion. The latter would willingly have chosen the life of a hermit… But, understanding that her companions had need of her help in order to pursue their religious life, she saw therein the will of God and accepted to take in hand the future of the group, which remained at Ootacamund (in the diocese of Coimbatore, entrusted to the Paris Foreign Mission Society). The bishop, Mgr. Bardou, sent her to Rome to take the necessary steps to have official recognition “You must be born from above. The wind blows wherever it pleases […]. That is how it is with all who are born of the Spirit”. Jn 3, 7-8

- On 6 th January 1877, with the blessing of Pius IX, the Institute came to birth simultaneously in Rome and in Ootacamund, as a diocesan congregation depending on the

6 Apostolic Vicar of Coimbatore. But from the beginning its aim was universal mission1 to which its future Constitutions would have to be adapted: and its spiritual orientation was Marian, as its name bore witness “Missionaries of Mary” and soon its watchword: “I am the handmaid of the Lord […] let what you have said be done to me.” Lk 1, 38 “… the sisters, in the image of Mary, were to have as their sole programme to love Christ, to serve Him and to offer the Gospel to the whole world. For, as she was to say later in one of her meditations: ‘It was Mary’s part to give Jesus to mankind: she gave Him in the Incarnation, at the Nativity, the Epiphany, at Cana, and on Calvary. There she gave birth to the Church and became the Mother of the Church.’2

3. FRESH DIFFICULTIES – AND FRANCISCAN ADOPTION OF THE INSTITUTE3

“…a mustard seed […] which at the time of its sowing in the soil is the smallest of all the seeds on earth”… Mk 4, 31

- Between 1877 and 1882, Mary of the Passion went from Rome into France to look there for vocations and to found a novitiate in accordance with the recommendations of the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda; and from France to Rome, with the support of the Bishop of St. Brieuc, there to defend her young institute, which remained threatened by unjust accusations; but also to make a foundation there. It was a period of hope and of uncertainties, and at the same time one of intense activity. “a… seed which a man took and threw into his garden.” Lk 13, 19

This was also the time when without seeking for it, Mary of the Passion linked up again with the spiritual family of Francis wherein Fr. Bernardino dal Vago4, the Minister general of the Friars Minor, seconded by Fr. Raphaël Delarbre, became a providential support for her, as well as a defender and a sure guide. Moreover, encouraged by an Encyclical of Leo XIII, she made her commitment within the Third-Order Regular and invited her Sisters individually to do the same, whilst making it clear that “ Nothing would be changed in the particular character of the Institute or in its Constitutions (which had just been drawn up). Though there was a sharing with the Friars Minor in the same spirituality, there was no affiliation to the Franciscan Order.”

“I tell you most solemnly, unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.” Jn 12, 24

- All unforeseen, the storm against the foundress and her Institute, broke out again in 1883 and was to last right until 1884: she was suspended by the Pope from her responsibility as superior general, together with a ban on communicating with her sisters. She lived ‘a long night of small agonies’. In submission and in hope, it was the moment for living her offering as victim not only ‘for the Church and for the Pope’, but also through them. “ Her immediate and total submission that caused her to embark again on a road of darkness was accompanied by a storm, as is borne out in her writings. As for the Institute […] it was left with no one at its head, as the assistant generals had only the capacity to handle current affairs. There only remained the unfailing support of the families who were friends of the sisters, of the bishop of Saint-Brieuc and of Father Dal Vago who continued to believe in its future, Father Delarbre, her confidant in these dreadful hours, hammered into his spiritual daughter ‘Be strong’, referring her to the example of Francis in his total deprivation. […] She had to recall once more her vocation ‘as victim’ whose new exigencies she was discovering as she meditated on the words of Scripture ‘My ways are not your ways’5”

1 cf. 1st Plan of the Institute. 2 Cf. Marcel Launay, English translation, p.124 3 For all this section see Chapters V and VI of the biography by Marcel Launay 4 Also known by the name of Fr. Bernardino de Portogruaro. 5 Is 55, 6-9.

7 - An official examination of the affair, directed by a Consulter of the Holy Office during the whole month of March 1884 led to her full and entire rehabilitation. The Institute was free to elect her as superior general, which it did in the course of its first chapter in July of the same year.

- In 1885, with the temporary approbation of the first Constitutions, the vocation of the Institute to universal mission was confirmed. It was international, of Pontifical Right, under the jurisdiction of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide. This “ corresponded well with [the] universal vocation [of the Institute] which differentiated it from other congregations of strictly diocesan origin and with more limited geographical ambitions. A strict dependence vis-à-vis the Holy See […] made it possible to safeguard internal cohesion in the face of the divergent orientations which Apostolic Vicars belonging to different orders might try to impose.”

At the same time, after a long progression, its insertion in the Franciscan family was officially recognised: as an institute, it adopted the Rule of the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis, and the Superior General was under the direction of the Minister General of the Friars Minor for the maintenance of the Franciscan spirit and of discipline in the Institute. Its full identity was now expressed through its name: “Institute of the FRANCISCAN Missionaries of Mary”.

She had already laid claim to this name in March 1884, when she wrote to Father Dal Vago1: “ ‘I like to have things straightforward and open […] If we have the name everyone will know what we are and what the spirit of the Institute is’. This Franciscan spirit would thereafter preserve the Institute from the dangers of the world and of the times ‘against selfishness and an inordinate love of money by detachment.’ It was simply a matter of recognising a situation that already existed. ‘In the mind of God we have been Franciscans for twenty-two years: It seems to me that the Institute was born at the feet of St. Francis, when, poor little child that I was, I offered myself as a victim for the Church.’.”

4. THE RAPID EXPANSION AND ORGANISATION OF THE INSTITUTE – THE WORDS OF THE TESTAMENT OF MARY OF THE PASSION

“It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air sheltered in its branches” Lk .13: 19

“May they all be one Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.” Jn 17, 21

- The Institute was now free to expand, and in responding to the multiple calls, either from Propaganda Fide or local Churches, it spread rapidly throughout the continents. During this time, Mary of the Passion, who progressively went more deeply into the charism in accordance with events in which she read calls from God, little by little put into place the necessary structures for the unity of the family, in a great diversity of nationalities and languages. “Think of a farmer: how patiently he waits for the precious fruit of the ground until it has had the autumn rains and the spring rains!” Jm 5: 7

- On 2 nd February 1899, Mary of the Passion feeling the end of her earthly mission approaching, addressed to the whole Institute what she considered as words of her testament. In a few words she synthesized what she considered at the end of her long journey to be the meaning of the vocation of the “Missionaries of Mary” in the family of Francis2: “My very dear daughters,

1 Cf. M. Launay, English translation, p.159. 2 Quoted in the preparatory document for the centenary of her death in 2004: cf. the Card Index CR/1:72, 73

8 Today, on the feast of the Purification, I wish to accomplish a duty which has been on my mind for some time […] The years of my life are flowing past and I must hasten to communicate to you all that Our Lord and his Immaculate Mother placed in my heart and soul for our religious family.

Whilst making my meditation, I was struck by this prayer: ‘ O God, who commanded that two turtle doves or two small pigeons be offered for the purification of mothers, prepare us to be a living victim, you who made yourself our Victim, who came to accomplish the law and not to destroy it, deign to develop in us the grace of the Gospel in all its richness.’ All our vocation is there: […] victim doves. We ought to be filled with the grace of the Gospel in all its richness. Then, we will fulfil our reason for being.

- After the Ascension, the Holy Spirit gave himself to the earth, descending upon Mary Immaculate and on the Apostles. The world was regenerated by Pentecost. The apostles became capable of teaching the grace of the Gospel in all its richness to the world. - In the thirteenth century our Seraphic Father, under the protection of Our Lady of the Angels, received in his turn the mission of teaching ‘the grace of the Gospel in all its richness’ to the world. - And now, at the end of the century of the Immaculate Conception, God has brought forth the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary in the East. Our Most Rev. Father, Monsignor Bernardino of Portogruaro said on 19th March 1883: ‘Our Lord had his missionaries, Mary Immaculate had to have hers and you have come into the Church of God.’ My children, we are also called to spread the grace of the Gospel in all its richness according to our Constitutions. But to do that we must develop it in ourselves, we must possess it. May this thought become the habitual object of our meditations, of our desires, of our constant seeking – for ourselves and for the souls of those of whom we have charge.”

- In 1903 in her Retreat notes, she was to say with more precision1:

“In my heart, I hear something telling me that Mary’s mission is the third Pentecost. The first was that of the foundation of the Church (which gave us Jesus and his Gospel2). The second was that of the Seraphic Francis who came to renew the Gospel spirit. The third is that of the century dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin, that of the third feast day (a renewal of truth and of charity3). Action on earth is Mary’s. The reign of true power.

How will this come about? […]Mary does not tell me how this is to be done but I feel sure that having been destined to be the mother of the Missionaries of Mary, it was by God’s special design that I was born under the protection of the Holy Spirit, on a Pentecost Tuesday4 and that my soul bears the stamp of truth and charity.”

In the same year she presided over what was to be her last General Congregation: the occasion to give with even greater precision the organisational details that could help the generations to come to perpetuate what she had noticed with joy among the participants5 “the family spirit and the spirit of charity, these precious treasures”.

“Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing: how he does not know” Mk 4, 27

- It was also the occasion for her to re-read for her Sisters the whole journey that had been travelled, during which, step by step, God’s Project for the Institute was revealed, both in its spirit and in the form of life which embodied it: contemplation in action, and the offering of the renunciations which this presupposed:

1 “Where are you leading me?” 22nd May 1903, n° 89. 2 Ibidem, 27th May, n° 104 3 Ibidem 4 In the liturgical calendar of that time, before Vatican II, Pentecost was celebrated during three days. In 1839 this feast fell in May. 5 Biography by M.M. Jehanne, English translation, pp.532, foll.

9 “Our early days, in Rome above all, […] were days of prayer and piety. We did not then foresee the Institute as it is today. The Institute has become a fighting Order. We did not know that then… and we imagined that we would continue to enjoy serenely our family spirit of peace, piety and calm. But that was not in God’s plans. We had to struggle in order to make expiation. What was born of all that was what you are today! […] This militant life sometimes seems incompatible with meditation. Nevertheless, this was the life led by Jesus, Mary and Joseph. […] This militant life was hard for the Holy Family. Crossing the Egyptian deserts the Blessed Virgin did not enjoy the sweetness of meditation as in Nazareth. In spite of this, Mary carried the interior life always within her. She kept all these things in her heart. Saint Francis said: Make yourself a cell which you can carry with you at all times. O Holy Family, do not allow us to be turned aside from God by our militant life!1

 POINTS FOR REFLECTION

The Holy Spirit led Mary of the Passion to be a foundress, without her envisaging it and even “with her body withholding from it”. He did this progressively, by stages, through events that were unforeseen and often appeared to be unfavourable; what the FMM Associates of Canada very rightly called: “An Itinerary of faith through the broken lines of a life2” - As brief as it may be, how does the historical overview of Mary of the Passion’s life permit us to affirm with her that the Institute is not her work but God’s? This overview shows us the coming-to-birth and the progressive development of two complementary “gifts of the Spirit”, for the Church and the world: a personal “charism” of the foundress, - and one that is collective, belonging to the congregation. - How is the first at the service of the other? - How did God prepare and accompany Mary of the Passion in the discovery, and then the exercise, of her personal vocation? Is it the same for us? How did the “charism” of the Institute come to birth and develop? Can we already extricate the fundamental elements which constitute it, - which among them must remain stable so as not to distort its identity – and which must evolve with time so that it may live and convey its message? How have we ourselves evolved in the understanding of our FMM charism?

1 Biography by M.M. Jehanne, English translation pp. 534-5. 2 Cf. their programme for deepening their knowledge “Mary of the Passion – a woman, a charism” – guideline for the centenary year 2004.

10 PART I –In the Franciscan family “MISSIONARIES OF MARY” A common call to follow Christ and to be his witnesses in the world in Mary’s way

“God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will” Heb 10, 7 “I am the handmaid of the Lord […] let what you have said be done to me” Lk 1, 38

- Since the birth of Mary of the Passion into Heaven until our own day, the generations who have received the inheritance and have succeeded each other, have made it bear fruit in love, initiative and fidelity, sometimes even to the point of heroism. They have also taken up the challenge of a “renewal” rendered necessary by the passage of time and the evolution of the world and of the Church, a task which Vatican Council II asked of all religious families. It is, in fact, a matter of an evolution that is never ended, moving on as life goes on. It is confided to both the personal and collective responsibility of the family with a double orientation of fidelity: to the charism of the beginnings and to “the signs of the times”. And so this evolution still concerns us today.

- This incites us to stop sometimes, to review and deepen by fresh efforts our understanding of the meaning and the how of our existence. Now we in our turn are going to apply ourselves to do this by tackling in greater detail the subject of our FMM charism: that of our “restricted Family”. The Introduction has already led us to encounter and discern the essential elements, in their progressive discovery by Mary of the Passion and their maturing throughout her life. We now feel the need to realise a little how they function and hold together; in other words, what makes their unity. To grasp this might help us to reply to the question that is often irritating because we do not see the way out of it “What is the Charism of your Institute?”…

- Our reflection will unfold according to the following process:

CHAPTER I: “CHARISM”, WHAT DO WE INCLUDE UNDER THIS WORD? - Before entering into a study of the FMM Charism, we are going to clarify in what sense we shall make use of this expression which, with the passage of time, has become hackneyed and ambiguous. Otherwise we would be running the risk of confusions.

CHAPTER II: AN OVERVIEW OF THE FMM CHARISM. Afterwards, with the help of a diagram, we shall rapidly analyse the elements of the FMM Charism, and we shall try to make a synthesis of them which the two following chapters will explore in slightly greater depth.

CHAPTER III: ECCE – FIAT, THE “HEART” OF THE FMM CHARISM and the Gospel Message in which it originates.

CHAPTER IV: THE THREE DOMAINS OF THE INCARNATION OF THE CHARISM IN OUR LIVES, or the concrete expression of the Message to which we are called to bear witness.

TRANSITION PART I AND PART II. Or: Charism and Spirituality

11 Chapter I CLARIFICATIONS “Charism”: What do we include under this word…?

Like many other words (e.g. “vocation”, adorable”, “church”, “spiritual”, “terrible”, etc.) the word “charism” is today caught in a trap. Would it be better to use another word, one that is more precise?

1. WHERE MIGHT THE CONFUSION COME FROM? We shall particularly distinguish three causes: - The passing of the meaning of this word from the religious domain to the secular Coming to birth in a religious context, and to be more precise, a Christian one, in order to designate the specific gifts of the Holy Spirit, in our days the word “charism” has been largely taken over to be applied to remarkable gifts, but relating to the human domain. For example, one can hear it said that such and such a political leader has ‘the charism for bringing in the crowds’, whilst another does not enjoy success because ‘he is lacking in charism’. - Extraordinary phenomena linked to groups known as “charismatic” The cause can also be found in the strictly religious sphere: the apparition towards 1960 and the relatively recent multiplication of “Charismatic Renewal” groups – with their distant Methodist-Pentecostal origins. This movement has given rise to exuberant manifestations that are quite often laden with marvels and have been able to provoke a certain reserve with regard to all that touches on ‘charisms’. The movement has been well accepted by Popes Paul VI and Benedict XVI, but it has been monitored so as to avoid deviations. -Within the religious domain itself, a great diversity in the applications of this expression On the other hand, even when used in its original spiritual sense, the word can be applied to very diverse realities. When these are brought together in the same context, it can happen that confusions are produced. And so, one speaks of ‘the charism of the religious life’, and of ‘the charism of the congregation’; of ‘the charism of the founder or foundress’ and of ‘the foundational charism’: are there differences between them or is it a question of the same charism seen from different angles?

2. ORIGIN, HISTORY AND MEANING OF THE WORD ‘CHARISM’ In spite of the distorted meanings which it may take on today, the word ‘charism’ is still currently and officially used within the Church, particularly to designate the spiritual inspiration which gave rise to and animates religious congregations. In its original meaning, the expression is in fact the one that fits here with the greatest exactitude and no other possesses its richness, given the origin of the word and its history. a - ‘Charism’ is the direct transcription of the Greek word ‘kharisma’ which did not exist before the Christian era. On the other hand, three words in common use existed which were at its root: the nouns khara = ‘joy’, and kharis which has both the physical and psychic sense of ‘grace’; and the verb derived from them kharizomai, meaning ‘to grant a favour, to please someone’ – and ‘to pardon, to spare someone’. From this root, it was the Acts of the Apostles that were going to forge the expression ‘kharisma’, to designate the extraordinary gifts through which the Holy Spirit manifested his presence from Pentecost onwards, in favour of the Church that was coming to birth and still had to be constructed.

12 Here is what is said on the subject by a lexical specialist1: “… Imagine a little in what mental state the apostles could have found themselves on coming out of the Cenacle, where they had received the Holy Spirit under the form of tongues of fire and a violent wind, when they noticed that the crowd of foreigners who had come up for the festival understood their speeches each in their own language; and when they saw that they were working miracles, that it was sufficient for them to lay their hands on the faithful (Acts 19, 6) for the Holy Spirit to come down upon them and for them to begin to prophesy! There was no word in any language to say what all this was about, and it was then that from the verb kharizomai they derived the active noun kharisma, generally used in its plural form ‘kharismata’.” “These extraordinary phenomena were graces, gratuitous gifts which God made to them, The word charisma did not exist before the New Testament. It is particularly frequent in the writings of St. Paul, who is the true inventor of the precise meaning which it has re-found in religious language. One example will suffice, it is taken from the First letter to the Corinthians (12, 4-11) where in the slightly older versions of the Bible it is translated by the word GIFT:

‘There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose. One may have the gift of preaching with wisdom given him by the Spirit; another may have the gift of preaching instruction given him by the same Spirit; and another the gift of faith given by the same Spirit; another again the gift of healing, through this one Spirit; one the power of miracles; another prophecy; another the gift of recognising spirits; another the gift of tongues and another the ability to interpret them. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, who distributes different gifts to different people just as he chooses.’

“A close neighbour of the word charism, the word eukharistia ‘thanksgiving’ [in English EUCHARIST], serves to designate the ritual renewal of the Lord’s Last Supper.”

Again from the same root is the angelic Salutation in Luke’s account, “Khairé kékhartôménè”: “Grace upon you – or: Rejoice – Brimming with grace” which is much stronger than our “Hail… full of grace” and in which “Brimming with grace” becomes as it were the proper name of MARY. b - After the apostolic times 2

“ The Fathers of the Church use the word charisma in contexts where it is a question of managing these extraordinary occurrences and of discerning who are the true and the false prophets, or the true or false wonder- workers. St. John Chrysostom strongly affirms that charisms are not a privilege of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and monks, and that each baptised person has received a particular gift of the Spirit. But, after the 3rd century, we notice that extraordinary charisms became scarce. Not that the Holy Spirit had abandoned the Church, but he manifested himself more discreetly, in less spectacular fashion. […]” c - The word ‘charism’ would have begun to take on a profane sense from the end of the 19th century, to designate the power of ‘seduction’ of a person over a group or a community; a power based on exceptional natural qualities (experience, courage…), linking that person to the group in a given situation. It is in view of avoiding confusion that generally, when we are addressing an audience whose religious formation is not very advanced, it is doubtlessly better to use the expression ‘spiritual gifts’, as do some translations of the New Testament.

3. WHAT USE SHALL WE MAKE OF IT?

- Obviously not a profane use! But as we have been able to see through Paul’s text in the 1st Letter to the Corinthians, even in its original religious context, it is a question of a generic expression, which includes every supernatural gift made to certain people by the Holy Spirit for the unity of the Church in its diversity. And so it is important to be more specific.

1 Cf. her web site: http:www.jacqueline-picoche.com. 2 Ibidem

13 - In what concerns us here, we shall centre ourselves on that which, within the wider framework which is the gift (charism) of religious life to the Church, is called “charism of the congregation”, precisely that which ‘God confided to Mary of the Passion3’ to be transmitted through her to the Institute. We shall call it without distinction: either “FMM Charism” or “Charism of the Institute”.

4. CHARISM OF THE CONGREGATION a - Generally speaking, founders and foundresses, at the point of departure, do not have a well structured outline of the charism which they are going to transmit to their brothers and sisters. They progressively hear a call, to which they respond step by step. In re-reading their life and that of their religious family, they discover what was God’s Plan for them, in all its unity and coherence. Thus it was that Mary of the Passion (as we were able to note in the Introduction) and Francis before her, began by living and responding to God’s call for themselves and for the Institute or the Order, as they came to understand it better. They did not “theorise”. b - But for those coming after them there is need to be precise, so that in the years and centuries to come, we may remain faithful, in the unity of diversity, to the inspiration of the beginnings whilst incarnating it in new realities; and also so that we may better understand ourselves and make known the gift of God for the Church and the world. St. Bonaventure began to do this for Francis. – For Mary of the Passion, the Second Vatican Council gave the Institute the decisive impulsion to begin to do this in a more concerted way. c - When we have to speak to others about our calling, about what is our particular Gospel way of life, it is often a problem! There, too, it is better to follow an existential path: to begin by proposing an experience of sharing our life; then progressively to reply to the questions posed, whilst adapting these replies to the persons and to circumstances in view of a progressive understanding. Basically, it is what the Lord did: “Come and see!” … “Have you understood?” We could be surprised by drawing out from all of this an unexpected deepening of our own understanding.

But this asks of us, a whole preliminary deepening of reflection.

 POINTS FOR REFLECTION

From our personal experience in this domain:

- Did we understand straightaway what was meant by the expression: “Charism of the Institute”? Which of its aspects posed problems for us? How have we progressed in its understanding?

- What presentation would we make of it today?

3 Constitutions, Art. 2.

14 Chapter II OVERVIEW OF THE FMM CHARISM

1 - QUESTIONS WHICH STIMULATE US - Who among us has not found herself embarrassed one day in face of the question, even if asked kindly: “Finally, you FMM, what are you: Franciscans? Marians? Missionaries? Adorers? ‘Victims’? Contemplatives? Apostolics?...”. In other words: what is it that makes this whole collection coherent, what is your centre of gravity, that which distinguishes you? Perhaps it has even happened that we have asked ourselves this question … For example, when during the years of preparation for entry into the year 2000, the Church organised meetings around various themes: Marian, missionary, Eucharistic, etc.: all or almost all of them concerned us! - Neither is it easy when, at a meeting, each congregation is asked to present its charism. Or again to explain in what way it is more “Franciscan” than “Jesuit”… - A question that is perhaps even more formidable for us is when, in a precise situation, we have to make a really practical choice: for example, should greater privilege be given to adoration, or to the mission?...

And so it is not superfluous to stop a moment to seek to express a little more clearly first of all to ourselves what we are living, without always being able to explain it just as clearly.

2 -A PRELIMINARY CLARIFICATION N.B. As we have already seen, in the beginning “the charism of a congregation” is confided to a founder or foundress and to his or her religious institute which remains the guarantor of its authenticity; but we know that it can be lived in a lay state as much as in a religious state of life, each of them being a particular form of our common baptismal covenant. - Speaking of the FMM charism, for the moment we shall look at it in its original springing forth, as it was given to the Institute, leaving until later its eventual sharing with lay people, which, in her time, was already outlined by Mary of the Passion. a - We often have the impression that it is more difficult for us to present our charism than it is for others. In effect, in order to speak of theirs, most of the time men and women religious present their specific activity: prayer, teaching, care of the sick, helping the poor, evangelisation through the ‘mass media’, etc. But, we do not have a specific activity! Of course, we do say that we are essentially missionaries. But that is not an activity; and moreover, at the present time, are not all the baptised considered – quite rightly! – as people sent on mission, and more especially so the religious congregations?... b - A first remark: The specific activities of an institute are important, but they come in second place. Alone and in themselves, they are not the charism, but the more particular way of incarnating the central message of the charism; the domain or domains of human life where it is preferentially called to manifest itself. Many of these activities (humanitarian ones for example) can be lived moreover with great human dedication even by lay people without any religion.

15 c - Hence our second remark: it flows from what has just been stated.

- What is at the heart, at the base, is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: the aspect of the Good News of the Gospel that is to be incarnated in our life and in our activities, in order to witness to Christ and to the Reign of God.

- But for that inspiration to be lived together and to become witness, the Institute must define its particular and concrete way of following Christ, of being disciples, of bearing together the Message. It is this which naturally appears in the first place, which is seen like the part of an ‘iceberg’ that has emerged and that is carried by the submerged part, which is much bigger, but which at first sight only allows itself to be guessed at and remains to be discovered. d - As a summary: a “charism of a congregation” is always composed: o of an inspiration of the Spirit rooted in faith and an interpersonal relationship with God, o and of the incarnation of this inspiration in the concrete reality of existence , so that the inspiration can become first of all life within us, and that, with the grace of God, it may become the Gospel message perceived and received.

3 - DIAGRAM OF THE “FMM CHARISM ”

To try to get an overview of our charism and to understand how it functions in unity and diversity, we are going to make use of a diagram.

As we have just seen, the spiritual inspiration (the “breath” coming from the Spirit) is its heart. It holds the practical elements together and gives them their unity: it is a bit like the “nucleus” of the “atom”.

(See the diagram on the next page)

16 FMM CHARISM

IN THE FRANCISCAN FAMILY

ECCE in relation to ECCE in relation God-Trinity to oneself (mysticism) (asceticism) Eucharistic Self-offering in Adoration total disponibility (of the One Sent by the (for the church and its Father, the Christ who Universal mission) sends us)

Of the WORD to His FATHER For the Life of the world in the SPIRIT

ECCE in relation to others (witness of life - apostolate)

Universal mission In international and intercultural fraternal communities

Here we see that : - The central spiritual element of the FMM charism is: communion with the “ECCE – FIAT” of THE WORD for the Life of the world, - in the attitude of the entire disponibility of Mary in her “ecce-fiat”; - this central element, by giving them meaning, unites together the three interdependent and indissociable elements in which it is incarnated in our lives: adoration – universal mission – self-offering.

17 4 - BRIEF COMMENTARY ON THE DIAGRAM 1 a - THE HEART OF THE CHARISM

Its inspiring, driving and unifying element is at the same time the Gospel message which we have to live and of which we must bear witness within the Franciscan Family, the Church and the world.

In fact, the Spirit, through its “charismatic” inspiration, is always centred on Christ, contemplated in one of the multiple (and inexhaustible) aspects of his Person and of his mission, That is why we cannot just say: ‘the heart of the FMM charism is the Ecce-Fiat 2 of Mary’, even if this has its place therein and is our watchword.

o At the heart of our charism, is to be found the Word (the Son) turned towards the Father, offering himself out of love in his ‘ECCE’ and ‘FIAT’ to accomplish his will, and sent by Him for the Life of the world. Therein lies a fundamental aspect of his Person, in his love towards the Father and towards creation. - This attitude leads him to accept to become incarnate in Mary, through the Holy Spirit; to become in his very being a covenant with humanity; to “reduce” himself, so to say, to the human condition with all the consequences that would follow… - During his earthly life, this will be the constant attitude of Jesus, “New Adam”, “First- born” and “Head”3 of reconciled Humanity.

o Our Gospel way of being disciples and witnesses for the world today is that of Mary communing through love in the Holy Spirit with that Ecce and that Fiat of the Word. b - THE INCARNATION OF THE MESSAGE IN THE REALITY OF LIFE

o In order to become life and to bear witness, this Gospel message has to take shape. This could be done in a multiplicity of fashions, but always within the three domains that constitute the life of faith of a baptised person: the mystical, ascetical and apostolic domains. These three mutually support and blend with each other to constitute the interior, spiritual person, called to be a witness. The 3 bear the seal of the same charism and are nourished at the same source. They are directed towards the same goal.

Cf. what the Church says about the ‘charism of a congregation’ and about the need for on- going formation in this domain: “all these elements are united in the dimension of the charism proper to each Institute, as it were in a synthesis which calls for a constant deepening of one’s own special consecration in all its aspects, not only apostolic but also ascetical and mystical. This means that each member should study diligently the spirit, history and mission of the Institute to which he or she belongs, in order to advance the personal and communal assimilation of its charism.” (“Vita Consecrata”, n° 71)

1 These two sections a and b will be considered later in greater depth, in Chapters III and IV respectively. 2 Ecce = Here I am; Fiat = Let it be! 3 Cf. Col 1.

18 o As for ourselves, “to commune like Mary in the Ecce-Fiat of the Word for the Life of the world” is accomplished through:  The Eucharistic contemplation of Christ the Adorer and the One sent by the Father in the Spirit: mystical aspect (following him, he sends us to our brothers and sisters and to mission).

 Universal mission in international and intercultural communities: apostolic aspect (which requires an entire disponibility, the strength of the Spirit of Jesus being drawn from within the Eucharist, and of which the aim is the reorientation of humanity – ourselves included! – towards adoration of the Father).

 The offering of ourselves in total disponibility (renunciation) for the universal mission, in communion with that of Jesus: ascetic aspect (it is marked by the mission, its detachments, its risks, its difficulties, its “Kenosis” – and by union with the Eucharistic offering of Jesus for the Church and the world).

 POINTS FOR REFLECTION

- If we have had the experience of finding difficulty in presenting our charism to others or of explaining it, what was this due to?

- In what ways does the above presentation of the FMM Charism match up with the one we were making for ourselves? In what ways is it different?

- What would we like to clarify? to go into more deeply?

19 Chapter III ECCE-FIAT “heart” of the FMM Charism

In this chapter, we shall tackle the subject of the ‘Ecce-Fiat’, the heart of our Charism. – The incarnation of its message in the concrete reality of our lives will be the subject of the following chapter. This present chapter will comprise two parts, the same as those in article 2 of our Constitutions: III a – The Ecce and the Fiat of the Word III b – The Ecce and Fiat of Mary

« Our charism, which God confided to This charism is lived in the fundamental Mary of the Passion, commits us to follow attitude that was Mary’s in her Ecce and Christ as he gave himself up to the Fiat2: she offered her whole being in Father for the salvation of the world, in complete and loving disponibility, in faith and the mystery of his Incarnation and his humble service, so that the Spirit might carry Pasch; […]1 out the Father’s work in her.” (Const. art. 23)

As far as possible, it will be a question of a going more deeply, in which will be mingled: study and meditation of the Word read within the Church in the light of the Holy Spirit, and of our Franciscan and FMM sources; and an invitation to contemplation, the re-reading of our lives and prayer.

III a – The ECCE and the FIAT of the Word Trinitarian communion – Ecce and Fiat of the Word – Covenant and Mission

“[…] he said, on coming into the world: You who wanted no sacrifice or oblation, prepared a body for me. You took no pleasure in holocausts or sacrifices for sin; then I said, just as I was commanded in the scroll of the book, God here I am! I am coming to obey your will.” Heb 10, 5-7 (referring to Ps 40, 7-9 in the Greek text).

[…] he emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are, […] he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross. But God raised him high.” Ph 2, 7-9.

He said to his Father: “Holocausts were not pleasing to you and then I said: ‘Here I am’. Such is the divine cry of the Word in the bosom of GOD and also the first heart-beat of Jesus in the crib. Left to itself, fallen humanity would have sought in vain for a sacrifice capable of re-opening heaven to it, the dwelling place of love. But behold the Word is made: the gap is crossed, love is born on the earth. “Thank the Divine Child for having come in our midst, and live in his grace and truth, in humility and detachment. Consider these virtues as the special heritage of the Seraphic Father, as Saint Francis, like his Divine Model, was espoused to poverty and humility. Our Seraphic Father says: ‘Who does not give himself, gives nothing’ and he truly gave himself.” (Mary of the Passion: Liturgical Meditations, Christmas Day)

- To invite us to commune like Mary in the ECCE and FIAT of the WORD,

1 We have not retained the quotation from Col 1, 24 because, being too limited for here, it belongs more justly to the section of the charism concerning “Self-offering” as we shall see further on in Chapter IV. 2 Lk 1, 38. 3 2009 edition of the Constitutions.

20 offering himself to his FATHER in order to achieve in the SPIRIT his plan of love for the world, commits us to contemplate the mystery of his INCARNATION1, that is so dear to the Franciscan tradition. Here, Fr. Thaddée Matura ofm tells us in a few words what this mystery represented for Francis2: “Humility-poverty seems to be one of the original and privileged aspects of the vision that Francis proposes of the mystery of God: ‘See, Brothers, the humility of God’3 Francis […] speaks of a double descent (kenosis) of the […] Lord of the universe: - God and Son of God infinitely rich, who leaves his royal throne to take on the flesh of our fragile humanity, chooses poverty with his mother Mary, becoming infinitely small, a simple human being marked by limitations and by mortality. The supreme gesture of his earthly abasement, of his love which begs for the human response, is the washing of the feet of the man whom He created. What an astonishing, incomprehensible paradox: to see the majesty of the absolute mystery kneeling before his creature! - For Francis, something of this mystery of the humility/poverty of God – sublime manifestation of the intimate Trinitarian communion – becomes present in the Eucharistic celebration, when ‘the Son of God descends every day from the bosom of the Father on to the altar in the hands of a priest and appears humble – anonymous – in a small piece of bread’.

- On this subject, a question has been asked: Would our charism be centred only on the Incarnation? Before being able to give a more detailed response to this question, let us now already recognise that “the Ecce-Fiat of the Word” is not just the expression of a one-off action accomplished in a moment of world history: being born as man, but that of an existential reality, which remains for ever and ever and which contains in seed all the other stages of the earthly mission of Christ. In the Trinitarian communion, the “Ecce-Fiat” of the Word expresses the constant and fundamental attitude towards his Father, of the One who in love recognises himself as Son. and offers himself to serve the Father’s plan of love for the world. - In other words, the contemplation of the Incarnation, leads us immediately there where it has its origin: in the bosom of the TRINITY, where every other Mystery finds its source.

I see so clearly what a Franciscan Missionary of Mary should be… I see the Holy Trinity, towards whom she constantly directs her activity, while love, which is God, is her motivation. I see the Incarnation, as the model and the source of the humility resulting from the unitive life I see the Redemption model and source of her expiation. […] if they only knew the gift of God! (Mary of the Passion “He speaks to me…” n° 169, 20th Jan.1886)

“all that the divine providence will carry out for the government of the world, are actions of the Most Holy Trinity who acts indivisibly. We do not say that the Father, or even the Son or the Spirit cooperates with the Divinity because that is indivisible, but […] that the Father has some actions which are peculiar to him; and that so likewise have the Son and the Holy Spirit, for these actions work towards our Redemption and complete the work of our salvation. – […] the Father has had compassion for our misfortunes, the Son took it upon himself to remedy them, the Holy Spirit inflamed everything by the fire of his love […]4

1 Cf. Final Document of the General Chapter 2002, p.3 n° 3. 2 Extract from his homily during the Eucharist celebrated at Greccio during the course of the OFM General Chapter in 2006. An unofficial translation. The original is in Italian. 3 Letter to the whole Order, 28. 4 Pope St. Leo, 5th century – ‘Sermon on the Trinity’ – cf. Théo – L’encyclopédie catholique pour tous, (The Catholic Encyclopedia for all) p. 674 – Edition: Droguet-Ardant/Fayard 1992. – Editing Committee: Michel DUBOST, Eudist, bishop (chief editor), Xavier LESORT, layman and father of a family (General Secretary)

21 1 - ONE ONLY GOD TRINITY OF PERSONS IN COMMUNION, LOVE a - Such is the great novelty, and the summit of the Good News which the Word brings to the world through his Incarnation. But it remains a mystery to which the Church attains in faith, and which it took a long time to be able to explain in human words. Here is a presentation made by ‘Théo’1:

TRINITY: This word which does not figure in the Gospels, has been used since the 3rd century to clarify the Christian faith. Under the form of Trinity or Unitrinity, it indicates what is distinctive about Christian Monotheism in relation to Jewish or Muslim Monotheism […]. To believe in the Trinity is to affirm that God is Love: if He is love, He is not a solitary being, but neither is He divided. […] Christian faith believes that God is capable of engendering, without for that reason parting with anything; of giving himself, without for that reason impoverishing himself; of distributing himself without for that reason breaking himself open. It is because He communicates himself within himself that He is capable of communicating himself to his creature outside of himself, with the same Love through which the Father engenders his Son in the Spirit.[…]

Adhering first of all to Jesus with a simple and marvelling faith, the Church had to go little by little more deeply into this mystery, in the measure that, from without, other monotheisms were asking questions. Thus it formed its vocabulary: in God, there is one divine nature which is shared by three persons. It goes without saying that these words, which are human as all words are, must not be pushed too far, for fear of leading into error: notably with regard to the word ‘person’. […] Faith in the Trinity is particularly developed and lively within the Oriental Churches (both Orthodox and Catholic).” b - But monotheism was too strongly the identifying mark of the Jewish people, in the midst of others – and its leitmotiv: “Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the ONE Lord” (Dt 6, 4) – for them to be able to accept easily the three Persons in God. And yet, the Old Testament carries discreet indications of the existence of Three Divine Persons. They would only be perceptible ‘a posteriori’ (e.g. the 1st account of the Creation in Gn 1; the visit of the three “angels” to Abraham and Sarah; the sending of the Word “alive and active”; the work of the Spirit who purifies, heals, enlivens; a certain number of psalms making mention of the Word and of the Spirit of the Lord… c - As a man, and as a Jew, without doubt Jesus himself progressively discovered this mystery in all its clarity, in his day-to-day existence, and also thanks to events such as his Baptism in the Jordan or again the Transfiguration. The Synoptic Gospels show us in fact, that the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus, “truly man” progressed in knowledge little by little, just like every human being. Here ‘Théo” gives us an explanation:

“WHAT WAS CHRIST’S PSYCHOLOGY2? – […] Modern psychology leads us to ask the question about the awareness of Jesus in new terms. What would be a human psychology that knew everything in advance? Man’s awareness develops slowly, and little by little takes stock of his identity, without this it would not be human. Moreover, someone who reads the Bible can notice how Jesus affirms that he does not know everything (in particular, he does not know the day or the hour [Mt. 24, 36]

of the end of the world), he is tempted, he seems to learn from events or to feel himself abandoned by the Father when he is on the cross. In short, it is the apocryphal gospels – which the Church has not recognised – which show us a Jesus who knows everything, all the time. Not the Gospels of Christians. And so, the majority of theologians today accept, in the light of the Gospel, to recognise that Jesus, being truly man, did not know everything about everything, and even that his knowing God was in the order of faith: he did not see God; but he believed. And yet, the same theologians affirm that Jesus had a diffuse but deep awareness of his very specific connection with the Father. This awareness, in the order of a feeling of belonging, must have been present all throughout his life, but growing within him and little by little becoming

Stanislaus LALANNE, priest, member of the Holy See’s International Council for Catechesis, Vincent ROUILLARD, priest. 1 Ibidem p. 675. 2 Ibidem, p. 675.

22 more explicit in the measure that he analysed his own life, and soon his own journey to death, with the help of Jewish Scripture and tradition. Thus, these theologians profess that Jesus must have lived a totally original human experience, marked by a constant feeling, though not necessarily explicit, of union with God.” d - It is also through the events of life that he prepares his disciples to enter into this mystery when he will have passed through his Pasch: in his own filial relationship with the Father who sends him, and recognition of the unceasing action of the Spirit in him and through him. He does not apply himself to explaining this mystery theologically, as the Church is still trying to do after twenty centuries of its existence. And it has to do so; whilst being aware that it will never be able to do so completely: the Infinite will always let itself be sought after, always penetrating further and more deeply… But, especially after his Resurrection, he will introduce the others to the encounter with the Father and to the reception of the Spirit. e - After Pentecost, the Christian community was expecting the imminent return of Christ in his glory: there were no grounds for being concerned about fixing the new faith in precise formulas, in view of transmitting the faith to hypothetical centuries to come. They followed Christ the most faithfully possible, basing themselves on the teaching of the Apostles, which they interiorised in the light of the Spirit. f - The succeeding generations will certainly live this mystery, but not without asking itself questions; but the Church was to take more than three centuries to agree upon the definitions necessary for a just presentation of the Trinity within the contemporary culture, in particular with regard to the double nature in the unique Person of Christ, and the mysterious Person of the Spirit (Cf. the 4 first councils in the 4th and 5th centuries). The Apostles Creed, and that of Nicean-Constantinople, which is still included in our Eucharist on Sundays and feast-days, are its fruit. N.B.- With regard to the Nicean-Constantinople Creed, it is fitting to add here a little nuance. For in the West, a discordant note was going to be introduced in this unity, by unilaterally adding to the text about ten years later, a word: “Filioque” which was not the fruit of the consensus of the undivided Church of the first centuries1. The latter confessed that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father”. The Latin West would henceforth confess that he proceeds “from the Father and the Son” (“Filioque”). Right up to our own days this is a delicate subject in the dialogue between the Churches of East and West. The Council of Lyons (1274), in which the Orthodox were also to participate, was to try to find a common formulation, without quite reaching it. Still in our day, ecumenical meetings apply themselves to it.

The three texts of the Catholic Church reproduced below may perhaps throw light for us on the process of its reflection in this domain. The first is from ‘Théo – l’Encyclopédie catholique pour tous’, the second is from the ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church’, and the last is from the ‘Presiding Council of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000’.

“ It would seem that today agreement would be reached on the formula ‘the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son’ […] In any case the filioque is not the only admissible formulation in the eyes of the Roman Church: the dialogue continues between Catholic and Orthodox theologians.”2 1 This formula first appeared in Spain in the 6th century, to block the way of the Arianism of the Visigoths. In the 11th century, Charlemagne, happy to teach a lesson to the Emperor of Byzantium (Constantinople) was to generalise its use in the West, rousing the reprobation of the Eastern Christians because it was a question of heresy. Cf. “Théo” op. cit. p. 374. 2 Cf. “Théo” p. 375. – As we have been able to notice in recent liturgical celebrations presided over by Popes John Paul II and then Benedict XVI on the one hand, and the patriarch of Constantinople on the other, the Pope of Rome has abstained from pronouncing the ‘filioque’ in question during the common recitation of the Nicene-

23 The joint mission of the Son and of the Spirit1

“The One whom the Father has sent into our hearts, the Spirit of his Son is truly God.2 Consubstantial with the Father and the Son, the Spirit is inseparable from them, in both the inner life of the Trinity and his gift of love for the world. In adoring the Holy Trinity, life-giving, consubstantial and indivisible, the Church’s faith also professes the distinction of persons. When the Father sends his Word, he always sends his Breath. In their joint mission, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct but inseparable. To be sure, it is the Christ who is seen, the visible image of the invisible God, but it is the Spirit who reveals him. Jesus is Christ, ‘anointed’, because the Spirit is his anointing, and everything that occurs from the Incarnation on derives from this fullness3. When Christ is finally glorified4, he can in turn send the Spirit from his place with the Father to those who believe in him: he communicates to them his glory5, that is, the Holy Spirit who glorifies him6. From that time on, this joint mission will be manifested in the children adopted by the Father in the Body of his Son: the mission of the Spirit of adoption is to unite them to Christ and make them live in him.

‘The notion of anointing suggests […] that there is no distance between the Son and the Spirit. Indeed, just as between the surface of the body and the anointing with oil neither reason nor sensation recognizes any intermediary, so the contact of the Son with the Spirit is immediate, so that anyone who would make contact with the Son by faith must first encounter the oil by contact. In fact there is no part that is not covered by the Holy Spirit. That is why the confession of the Son’s Lordship is made in the Holy Spirit by those who receive him, the Spirit coming from all sides to those who approach the Son in faith7.

The true end of Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit8 Prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit is so important that there exists a variation of the Our Father, followed by numerous Fathers of the Church, where, in place of the invocation “Thy Kingdom come” we read “Thy Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us”. 9

2 - TRINITY, FULLNESS OF LOVE FROM WHICH ALL OF US HAVE RECEIVED ALL a - To contemplate the mystery of God-Trinity in the light of the Spirit, from the Bible read, studied and meditated upon, and from the liturgy celebrated in the Church, is the work of every Christian who prays. Francis and Mary of the Passion resolutely urged their brothers and their sisters along this contemplative path. b - To try to explain something of this mystery which will always go beyond all understanding and all human language is much more difficult. Numerous theologians have done this in each generation, seeking to penetrate more deeply into the legacy of a long Tradition. And it is certainly not yet finished. All the more so since language evolves, and each culture must find the most appropriate expressions for the present moment. It is fitting to remind ourselves that we can only speak of God in analogical terms, since he is the Totally-Other; but at the same time this is made possible, because beyond all distance, there is like a harmony between the Creation and the One who never ceases to draw it out from its nothingness in order to communicate to it his life and his love, leaving therein the traces of his presence, making the human being “in his own image and likeness”, intervening in human history, going even so far as to send his Word and his Spirit.

Constantinple Creed. 1 Cf. “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, 689-690 and following. 2 Cf. Gal. 4, 6. 3 Cf. Jn 3, 34. 4 Cf. Jn 7, 39. 5 Cf. Jn. 17, 22. 6 Cf. Jn 16, 14. 7 At. Gregory of Nyssa, De Spiritu Sancto 3, 1. 8 Cf. “L’Esprit Saint remplit l’Univers” Document of the Presiding Council of the Great Jubilee 2000. Introduction, p. 11. 9 Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, “Homily on the Our Father” III, 6.

24 c - This effort of reflection is necessary for every Christian in order to progress in his/her knowledge of God and of his love for him/her, and in order to render an account of his/her faith to whoever asks him/her questions. But it is even more particularly so for us, as missionaries often in contact with non-believers, or those who believe “differently”. At the same time, it is necessary for each one to understand himself/herself a little better, since in spite of the infinite distance which separates us from him, we carry his image within us. d - Among all the possibilities offered by tradition, for the moment we are going to take as our starting-point a very expressive image, used by a Father of the undivided Church of the 2nd century, both eastern and western: Ireneus, a disciple of Polycarp (who himself was a disciple of John), and then the evangeliser of Gaul and Bishop of Lyons. Speaking of the Son and of the Spirit, he refers to them as “the two hands of the Father”. In fact, it is inseparably through the Son (his Word) and in the Spirit (his Breath of life) that God gives existence to all things. And this can be applied to every divine action that we can know about. To make comparison with two hands dedicated to one and the same task conceived by the heart and the head, immediately suggests an otherness and a complementarity making the accomplishment of this task possible. Knowledge of oneself, expression of thought, like love, like dynamism and action, presuppose “the other”, the difference which engenders movement and life.

o The Name of God 1, in the Old Testament, is unpronounceable; but as the ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church’ tells us2 there he is called Father in as much as he is Creator of the world (cf. Dt 32, 6; Mal 2, 10). He is also Father in relation to Israel his “first- born son” (Ex 4, 22), with whom he contracted a covenant and to whom he gave the Law; he is Father of its king (cf. 2 Sam 7, 14). But most especially he is the Father of the poor, of the widowed and the orphaned.

“ By calling God ‘Father’, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood (Is 66, 13; Ps 131, 2) which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood (cf. Ps 27, 10) although he is their origin and standard (cf. Eph 3, 14; Is 49, 15): no one is father as God is Father.”3

“The Father and I are one.” (Jn 10, 30) “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (Jn 14, 10) “I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever, that Spirit of truth […]” (Jn 14, 16-17)

o By his words and by his life, Jesus will reveal that, in himself, God is eternally Father. The Being, the unique Source of everything, designated by the tetra gram YHWH, can have no equal opposite him, outside himself: he alone is “THE ONE WHO IS”. It is within himself that unceasingly there takes place simultaneously the differentiation of the identity of the two other “persons”: his Word and his Breath4; and this will permit

1 We know that this Name, YHWH, composed only of consonants, is unpronounceable for the Jews. Only the high-priest, when there was a Temple, knew its vowels and could pronounce it once a year, on the day of Expiation for the sins of the people (Yom Kippour), beyond the veil which separated off the Holy of Holies. 2 Cf. “Catechism of the Catholic Church” n° 238 3 “Catechism…” 239.

25 exchange, dialogue, movement, dynamism, especially the gift of self and love. All three, the Catechism tells us again are

“distinct from one another in their relations of origin: ‘It is the Father who generates the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds’1.” “Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son2.”

o The accomplishment of the creative plan of God (called “the divine economy”), issuing from Trinitarian love,

“is the common work of the three divine persons […]. ‘The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three principles of creation but one principle3’. However, each divine person performs the common work according to his unique personal property. Thus the Church confesses, following the New Testament (cf. 1 Co 8, 6), ‘one God and Father from whom all things are, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and one Holy Spirit in whom all things are’4. It is above all the divine missions of the Son’s Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit that show forth the properties of the divine persons. Being a work at once common and personal, the whole divine economy makes known both what is proper to the divine persons, and their one divine nature. Hence the whole Christian life is a communion with each of the divine persons, without in any way separating them. Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him (cf. Jn 6, 44) and the Spirit moves him (cf. Rom 8, 14). The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity (cf. Jn 17, 21-23). But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: ‘If a man loves me’, says the Lord, ‘he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.’ (cf. Jn 14, 23)”5.

o We could stop for a moment in order to meditate on what has just been said to us: the properties of the divine persons are “manifested to us especially through the Incarnation of the Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit”, carrying out together in complementarity the “paternal and maternal” plan of the One “from whom all things exist”, from whom they themselves receive existence and communion in Love Their common project is “the entry of creatures into the perfect unity” of that communion, at the end of a long process of returning to God - that return which the Parable of the “Prodigal Son” (Lk 15, 11-32) magnificently illustrates.

o Rembrandt’s painting which represents the return of the “Prodigal Son” and the welcome of the Father, offers us a key for our reading by using the picture of the “two hands” of which Ireneus speaks to us. The two hands which hug the shoulders of the son, who is kneeling before his father bending over him, are one masculine and the other feminine; they press him against him as if to make him re-enter into the “maternal womb” and there receive a second birth.

4 “Word” and “Breath” are the symbols preferred by the Oriental Christian to speak of the “Son” and of the “Spirit”, for they express their unique “Source” and their complementarity, the word only having existence and only able to be pronounced within the breath, and the latter only clearly transmitting a thought through the word. 1 Lateran Council IV in 1215, quoted by “Catechism…” 254. 2 Council of Florence in 1442, ibidem 255. Note that the preposition “in” is not concerned with a material space, but with an existential presence, because God is spirit. 3 Council of Florence 1442. 4 Council of Constantinople II. 5 “Catechism of the Catholic Church” 258-259-260.

26 “The return of the Prodigal Son’, (1668 an oil painting on canvas, 262x205, in the museum of the Hermitage Saint Petersburg) is the last painting completed by Rembrandt; it was painted a year before his death” Cf. http:/www.bibel.lu/

We can see here the “two hands of the Father”: symbols of the Son and of the Spirit, who receive themselves from Him and together accomplish his works, but each in his own way: according to a paternal image for the Son, who pardons unconditionally and reintegrates the one who was lost into the family and into society; a maternal image for the Spirit “who gives life”, calming him down and causing him to be reborn in joy, peace and family intimacy. Thus there appear the two inseparable faces of the same divine attribute: Justice, which would not be Justice if rectitude, uprightness, and obedience to the Law were not accompanied by compassion, consolation and the anointing with oil which soothes, heals and restores life. As

27 the Psalm (85, 10 [85, 11]) sings: “Mercy and faithfulness have met, Justice and Peace have embraced”.

Can we not at the same time understand a little better that, beyond the sexual differentiation as is said above, masculine and feminine which represent two ways of being equal and complementary, they should also have their source in God, in whose image man and woman were created conjointly?

28 e - Here it is to be noted that a more advanced reflection on the Holy Spirit (‘pneumatology’ would be welcome, on the part of Western theology, which has gone very little into it compared with the East. Doubtless this is one of the reasons for which the Spirit is not often enough perceived as a Person just like the other two, but rather as a kind of anonymous energy to which one has recourse when one has need of it. Other causes may come into play in the West; for example the traditional iconography, representing the first two Persons with human characteristics and the third under the form of a dove whereas, for the Christians of certain Oriental rites, only the Word can be shown under human form because he became incarnate. - It was quite logical that a certain child, who was preparing for Confirmation and was questioned about the identity of the One he was going to receive, should reply: “It is the one who became a pigeon”, … the other having become man! For a better approach to the great Trinitarian mystery, one could also wish for more Scriptural and less abstract or philosophical bases for reflection; and consequently for explanations that are more comprehensible or at least more acceptable, especially when in dialogue with our non-Christian brothers and sisters1.

3 - THE “ECCE-FIAT” OF THE WORD, EXPRESSION OF HIS BEING AS SON

“The Lord Jesus says to his disciples: I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. […] The Father dwells in inaccessible light, and God is spirit, and no one has ever seen God. Therefore He cannot be seen except in the Spirit because it is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh has nothing to offer. But because He is equal to the Father, the Son is not seen by anyone other than the Father or other than the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of the Lord, therefore, That lives in Its faithful […]” (St. Francis, 1st Admonition). a - Through the Incarnation, the fundamental attitude of the Word will be able to manifest itself in the bosom of the Trinity: that of the Son who enters fully into the plan of the Father, for he is but one with him in love.

o These two words: Ecce (“Here I am”) and Fiat (“Let it be”), certainly sum up, let us repeat, his attitude in the event of the Incarnation, which is a founding event for humanity; and for himself a “genesis” in the time and history of the world. But they are not attached to this one event.

o These words of Biblical origin, are in fact the expression of his eternal being as Son, he who, as John says “was with God in the beginning2.”

o That is also why they are like the leitmotiv which will accompany him throughout all his earthly life and even in the Resurrection. b - The Ecce-Fiat of the Word leads to that of the Spirit, the project manager of the Incarnation.

“The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me […] to bring the good news to the poor.” Lk 4, 18).

1 We can particularly note that for Muslims, the words “father” and “son” and the image of generation can only be understood in their biological sense; whereas the words “word” and “breath” emanating from God can be used, because they are to be found in the Koran on the subject of the virginal conception of Jesus, yet without going as far as to say that he is a divine person. However, it remains a mystery for them… 2 Jn 1, 2.

29 It is in constant communion, that, one with the other, they are going to carry out “the work of the Father” for the Life of the world (from the Incarnation to the Pasch and to Pentecost, and even until the Parousia). – Within this communion, little by little the New Covenant will germinate. c - The Ecce-Fiat of the Word and of the Spirit leads to that of Mary, the first fruit within humanity of that New Covenant, the fulfilment of the First, and which one day will permit the entry of all nations into the Kingdom / communion with God-Trinity1 That of Mary will immediately provoke that of Joseph… In fact, the Word is born as a man, “the New Adam”, “the New Man” in order, in the power of the Spirit, to bring all humanity along with him to turn back2 towards the Father from whom it has turned away (cf. Adam hiding himself in the Garden of Eden) so that it may receive Life from him.

4 - HUMANITY REVEALED TO ITSELF a - At the centre of the whole history of humanity, the Incarnate Word The men and women of the ‘post-modern era, maybe even more than previously, ask themselves the question about the meaning of their existence: what purpose can it have?... As Christians, it is in going more deeply into the Bible as a whole that we can find an answer. Since the beginning, we have been invited to do this by the Church; in the light of the Spirit present in the Word and in the heart of believers, and united around its pastors, it does not cease to re-read the Bible, to scrutinize it, to meditate upon it, to pray with it and to savour it, thanks to its exegetes, its theologians, its mystics and quite simply its faithful. b - Already in the first 3 chapters of the Bible, The question is asked about the meaning of existence. The answer begins to take shape there, it will progress bit by bit, but it will only be completely ‘unveiled’ beyond John’s Apocalypse. It will be the whole turbulent and sometimes dramatic story of a Covenant that is sought for. Gn 1, 1- 2, 4 shows God creating the world step by step, right up to the day when he places humanity in it, to whom he hands over the task of developing it and of subjecting it. Like all Biblical accounts, we know that this one is not “historical” in the modern sense of the word; no more than is the text of Gn 2, 5 – 3, 243 that presents the creation in a very different manner.

o What matters is the message that each of them carries in complementarity, and which has to be deciphered. It is this that led the sacred writer to keep side by side these two accounts, which sometimes seem quite contradictory! The exegetical methods which our era has at its disposition permit us to better extricate the elements that could obscure the meaning of the texts, which, moreover, will always remain something to be studied more deeply. o It is sufficient here to point out briefly that the two accounts are to be read differently, because their literary form denotes a different aim:

1 Cf. Jn 17; Rm 8, 1-30; I Co 15, 28; Col 1, 12-23; 3, 1-17. 2 “Conversion”, which comes from Latin, signifies: “turning back”. In Hebrew it is expressed as “teshouvah”, which has the sense of “to come back, to turn back” and comes from the appeal which the Bible attributes to YHWH, like a Father, calling back to himself his people who have gone astray: “Shouv!” “Come back!” 3 Another account of the creation, followed immediately by that of the fall.

30  Gn 1, 1 – 2, 4 presents itself under the very orderly form of a hymn of the cosmic liturgy to the glory of the Creator, celebrating the harmony of the world that has come to life through his Word, enlivened by his Breath, and given over into the hands of the human being clothed with an unheard of dignity. All that comes from God is good, and even “very good”.  Gn 2, 5 – 3, 24 is an account which presents the characteristics of a very ancient myth; this does not mean to say that it does not have consistency. In ancient times, the myth was like a parable whose details are not all to be taken literally, but which unceasingly being gone into more deeply, tried to bring out some meaning, to respond to some problem. Here, amongst others, it is a matter of seeking the reason for the presence of evil, in this world which came forth good from God’s hands.

o Let us also note that Gn 1, - 2, 4, of more recent origin than Gn 2. 5 – 3, 24, reflects a reflection nourished by a different experience. - Gn 1-2, that was developed in a sacerdotal milieu in order to sustain the faith and the hope of the people traumatised by the Exile into Babylon, presents a way of thinking that matured and was enriched by a long and often painful experience. It affirms the value of the human being, created in the “image and likeness” of God, man and woman1, and called by him to perfect the Creation at the summit of which he is placed2. - The more ancient tradition on which Gn 2-3 has drawn, could perhaps already have emerged towards the time when, after the entry into Canaan, the people in the desert found themselves faced with the temptation to abandon the God who was their liberator and protector during the Exodus, and to turn themselves towards the gods that were supposed to give fruitfulness to nature, but which in reality led to death Now the latter were especially venerated by the Canaanite women, some of whom had become the wives of Israelites, even of the kings. Hence the repeated warning not to follow the women given over to the worship of idols, of which one of the images was the serpent, or even the sacred prostitutes. - A story originating in this tradition was able to serve the sacred author as an existential and cultural background to the more universal teaching he was aiming at. We know in fact the account of the episodes that followed the creation of the human being, still undifferentiated, beginning with the clay of the soil, then shared between man and woman by the separation of one of his sides3. Many setbacks awaited them: the woman would weaken in face of the temptation of the serpent-idol and would transmit it to the man, who was just as weak as the woman; and both of them would thus infringe the law of God, who then cracked down on them! c - As far as our theme is concerned we shall try to re-read briefly these two texts in complementarity, whilst regretting that too often it is Gn 2, 5 – 3, 24 which in the Church has served as a unilateral reference to the traditional reflection about the human being, with interpretations which evidently do not take modern exegesis into account: is Eve not the one responsible for original sin: “through the woman, sin has entered the world”…? Hence a certain depreciation of women constitutively represented as being: sentimental, easily influenced and with really limited intelligence, but possessing a power of seduction of which one must be wary!

1 Note that the expressions used (zakar ve nquevah) can be translated as “man and woman” (or to be more exact “male and female”), or as “masculine and feminine”. 2 Cf. Ps 8. 3 A possible translation, more appropriate here than that of “ribs”.

31 This interpretation dies hard and throughout the centuries it has engendered numerous consequences for women, as much in the life of the Church as in the social and family life of nations known as Christian. This being said, we must recognize that, even when it treats women as minors, the Church has, however, always officially defended their dignity as human beings.

o What we distinguish today, with our Christian eyes, in the overall of the two texts is the presence of the Trinity: the Creator, who only acts through his Word and through his Breath (in Hebrew: Ruah, feminine1), the two together, in communion, inseparable from himself. Humanity – man and woman equally – is created in the image and likeness of God: God’s plan for humanity is to confide to it the completion of creation; a plan to be seen through to completion “together” with reference to him, just as the ‘Word’ and the ‘Breath’ do.

o Here is what the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” says about it:

“… Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity ‘in the image of God’. In their ‘being-man’ and ‘being-woman’, they reflect the Creator’s wisdom and goodness. In no way is God in man’s image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective ‘perfections’ of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother (cf. Is, 49, 14-15; 66, 13; Ps 131, 2-3) and those of a father and husband (cf. Hos 11, 1-4; Jer 3, 4-19).” “Man and woman were made ‘for each other’ – not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be ‘helpmate’ to the other, for they are equal as persons (‘bone of my bones…’) and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming ‘one flesh’ (Gen 2, 24) they can transmit human life […]. By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents co-operate in a unique way in the Creator’s work (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 50, §1). “In God’s plan man and woman have the vocation of ‘subduing’ the earth (Gen 1, 28) as ‘stewards’ of God […].God calls man and woman […] to share in his providence towards other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them2.” Here now is a supplementary reflection by Fr. Pierre Deberge 3

“From the very first page of the Bible, the reader of the first account of creation cannot fail to notice: image of God, this is what the human being is in its sexual differentiation. This is what is affirmed by the author of this account who, by playing on the singular and the plural, recognises that the image of God is inscribed in humanity by the separation which gives rise to man and woman: ‘In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them’ (Gn 1, 27). Therein lies the foundation of the common dignity of man and woman: one just like the other they have been created in the image of God: together they have received the mission of pursuing the work of creation. This appears in the five verbs that follow: ‘Be fruitful, multiply. Fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth!’ These verbs are addressed with full equality to the man and the woman. To refuse this or to damage the quality of the man-woman relationship is therefore to undermine the image of God inscribed in the heart of the human being.

“A helpmate” We find this expression in the second account of creation where, after having fashioned a human being of dust from the soil (Genesis 2, 7) and observed that ‘it is not good that man should be alone’, God decides to ‘make him a helpmate’ (Genesis 2, 18). To speak of the woman as a help for man could let it be understood that she is in a subordinate position. This is to forget that the Hebrew word which is here translated as “help” signifies, in the Bible, a salvific intention of God in favour of his people or of a human person, grappling with a danger that is life- threatening4. Far from being confined in a subsidiary role, even less in one that is subordinate, the woman is therefore presented as having a salvific vocation. From what is she going to save man? From being enclosed in a mortal and sterile being face-to-face with himself. […]”

1 Feminine in Aramean, the language spoken by Jesus; of the two genders in Hebrew, but almost always feminine in the Bible when it is speaking about God. 2 Catechism of the Catholic Church 369, 370, 372, 373. 3 Fr. Pierre Deberge, Rector of the Catholic Faculty of Toulouse, his article “Homme et femme sont-ils égaux devant Dieu” which appeared in the Review “Croire aujourd’hui” n° 252, January 2009, p. 32… 4 Ex 18,4; Dt 33, 7,26-29; Ps 33(32) 20; 115(1113b), 9, 11; 121(120), 2; 124(123), 8; 146 (145), 5 etc.

32 o Gn 3 will teach us that this beautiful harmony between man and woman, and between them and God is still far from being a reality: it is God’s plan, the goal to be reached. It still has to be built up and this will be so until the Parousia.  There will need to be the long education of humanity by God, through the successive covenants, where the Lord, whilst respecting its liberty, will intervene in its history to lead it to a communion in love, within itself and with him; it will at last become what it already was in germ “in the image” of its Creator.  God’s covenants with: Noah, his family and renewed humanity, - Abraham, Sarah and their descendants, and in them with all the peoples of the earth, - Moses and the chosen people as a witness in face of the “nations”…., are a progressive preparation for the conclusion of the definitive Covenant of humanity in Jesus Christ, the God-Man, the summit of human history. (cf. Heb 1-2). N.B.- Mystically since Francis, and more theoretically since John Duns Scotus, Franciscan Christology considers that the Incarnation of the Word is an integral part of the divine plan of Creation: that it would have taken place even if, by hypothesis, humanity had not turned away from its Creator. For without the mediation of the God-Man on whom the Spirit rests, the distance between divinity and humanity is impassable, and any covenant impossible.  It will be the mission of the Church led by the Spirit, to live from day to day this Covenant with the Christ who is risen but still present, to bear witness to this and to guide it until its accomplishment, when God will be All-in-All, on the Day of “the Wedding-feast” of humanity with its God1. d - The ECCE and the FIAT of the COVENANT are the path for man and woman, so that they may reach their fulfilment. o To enter into the New Covenant, is to become the echo of the Ecce and Fiat of the Incarnate Son. It is to become in the power of his Spirit, the beloved children of the Father. Outside of this, there is no future.  Turned away from him, humanity seeks in vain to find meaning for its existence. Hence the despair of many of our contemporaries. Hence also for many the search for spiritual values, without knowing too well where to find them, not even what they are,  Man and woman are programmed to encounter God. Without being aware of it, they carry within themselves an unfulfilled desire to know him, to be in communion with his love and thus to find their fulfilment.  Created in his image and likeness, they can only understand themselves and one another in the discovery of his Face and of the love with which he has loved them. They can only fulfil themselves in the Ecce and the Fiat of the Covenant, at whatever stage of this Covenant they find themselves.

N.B. Every “yes” to the inner invitation of the Spirit – such as they understand it – to live in Truth and Charity, is a participation in the Covenant between God and humanity in Christ (cf. Abraham, the prophets of the O.T., every person “of good will”), a Covenant which transcends time. e - THE NEW COVENANT is promised by Christ, from the birth into the Life of God through the gift of the Spirit “the giver of Life”, the “Spirit of Holiness” which makes each

1 Cf . Rv 21-22.

33 one commune in the holiness of God who alone is Holy, whilst incorporating him/her into the unique “people of the Covenant”1. It is a path of “holiness”, of “deification” as Oriental Christians say, for this Covenant is a mysterious participation in the life of God. o It is a path of a communion of love after the example of that which exists in God- Trinity, in detachment and the reciprocal gift of self. That is why it involves only two laws which are really only one: filial love of God and fraternal love for one’s neighbour whoever he/she may be, with preference for the least. o It is a path of communion which is both human and spiritual with respect for differences, and with cooperation in equal dignity, between “the masculine” and “the feminine” in all the domains of life, in order to lead creation towards its fulfilment according to the designs of God-Trinity.

…man had lost the way, the truth and the life. The Emmanuel espouses humanity in order to give us back this way, this truth and this life. … Come to me, says the Emmanuel, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Jesus, our way, strips himself of everything: Jesus, the truth humbles himself even to self-emptying; Jesus, the life immolates himself even to the sacrifice of his blood in order to live according to the will of his Father. Let us now look at what is our share in this way, this truth and this life which is born today upon the earth (translated from Mary of the Passion’s Liturgical Meditations for Christmas Day). The first page of the Chapter Document of 2008, in commenting on the Washing of the Feet, echoes these words of Mary of the Passion: “To share in the mission of Jesus, the One sent by the Father, we, like Peter, have to accept first of all this image of a God who is humble and a servant, who comes in the weakness and powerlessness of human limitations, and welcome his love, source of life in abundance. The Spirit leads us to continue this mission in our suffering world by living in minority, serving, and sharing life with others.”

 POINTS FOR REFLECTION

- Note what seems to us to be particularly important for us in this section; what we would like to clarify or to go into more deeply. How?

- Does the fact that our God is Trinity have an influence on our lives? In what way? God Father, Son and Spirit: is this something abstract for us or is it a living reality that is close to us? In particular, who is the Holy Spirit for us?

- In the encounters of our daily or professional life, have we had difficulties in “giving an account of our faith” in God Trinity, especially with those of “other faiths”, or with non-believers? How to face up to this? How to form ourselves for it?

- Are the Ecce and the Fiat of Jesus an inspiration for our religious and missionary life? How do we live this in practice?

1 Cf. Jn 3, 1-21; Ep 1, 3-10, 18-22; I P 2, 4-5, 9-10.

34 IIIb – The ECCE and the FIAT of Mary Eve – Mary – and the Covenant

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you […] and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called the Son of God […] ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me’. And the angel left her […] Mary set out […] and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country.” (Lk 1, 35-39)

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord […]because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid […]” (Lk 1, 46-48)

“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. Seeing his mother and the disciple he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, ‘Woman, this is your son’. Then to the disciple he said, ‘This is your mother’.” (Jn 19, 25-27)

“All these joined in continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers […]When Pentecost day came round, they had all met in one room […] They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Ac 1, 14 – 2, 1. 4).

I […] want to note the love that Mary seemed to have for us, by reserving it to the Institute to go through the world saying: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” […] For several days I have been inclined to consider this motto as a grace which was reserved for us as if by miracle. (Mary of the Passion)1

Hail O Lady, Holy Queen, Mary, holy Mother of God, who are the Virgin made Church, chosen by the most Holy Father in heaven whom he consecrated with His most holy beloved Son and with the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, in whom there was and is all fullness of grace and every good.

St. Francis: A Salutation of the Blessed Virgin Mary 

Within Francis’ evangelical family, we are – it is the name which identifies us “the Missionaries of Mary”.

Our motto refers us back to the YES of Mary to her vocation, which is a communion in the Ecce and Fiat of the Word for the Life of the world.

These two words: ECCE and FIAT, which give orientation to our whole life, place us therefore at the service of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, in the way in which Mary was its servant, throughout her life. By receiving unconditionally within herself the action of the SPIRIT, she made possible in favour of all of us, the realisation of the FATHER’s plan of love, of which the WORD offered himself to be the Servant.

1 “He speaks to me…” 214, 14th December 1885.

35 “In faith, like him we place our will in the Father’s will1: a gift of self that can go as far as total renunciation.2 To it we bring Mary’s attitude of complete disponibility before God.” Const 2009 art. 67

We have just paused a while to consider the Ecce and Fiat of the Word, - first as the fundamental expression of his being as Son; - then in the immediate consequence of his offering: his descent into the midst of the world in the humility of his Incarnation (‘kenosis’), in order to reconcile it with the Father. Now we are going to turn our attention towards Mary, who has become the servant of this divine plan. We shall introduce our meditation on this mystery by making reference to the Eucharistic liturgy for the feast of the Annunciation, for it clearly shows us how one cannot go without the other: the “Ecce-Fiat” comes absolutely in first place; but without Mary’s reception in the Spirit, it cannot be realised in the Incarnation. That is why our Eastern brethren affirm that there is no Christology without Mariology or Pneumatology.

1. WHAT THE TEXTS OF THE LITURGY TELL US a - On the 25 th March, unsurprisingly, the Gospel of the Mass is that of the Annunciation: Lk 1, 26-38. As preparation for its reading we are proposed:

o In the Responsorial Psalm 40 (39) 7-9: “You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings, but an open ear. You do not ask for holocaust and victim. Instead, here am I. In the scroll of the book it stands written that I should do your will. My God, I delight in your law in the depth of my heart.”

o In the second reading, Hebrews 10, 7: “then I said, just as I was commanded in the scroll of the book, ‘God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will’.”

o From the Acclamation before the Gospel, Lk 1, 38 : “[…] Here I am, I am the handmaid of the Lord”. b - On the last Sunday before Christmas (4th Sunday of Year C) It is interesting to note that in the Eucharistic liturgy of this immediate preparation for the feast of Christ’s Nativity, we find the same second reading as for the feast of the Annunciation, and in the Gospel Acclamation we read “I am the handmaid of the Lord: let what you have said be done to me, uniting the Ecce and the Fiat of Mary to those of the Word. c - Thus the Liturgy reminds us: - that the feast of the Annunciation is above all that of the Incarnation of the Word, the starting point of that great “adventure” that the New Covenant willed by the Father represents, for the Salvation of the world; - and that at the same time and inseparably, it is the basic Marian feast: Mary, the first person redeemed, in becoming the Mother of God, begins already to become the mother of Humanity, which represents the second stage of her maternity in the Spirit.

1 Jn 4, 34 2 1st Constitutions, 34

36 d - This is indeed the perspective of our Foundress, when she gave us as our motto the Ecce and the Fiat, as some of her texts, already well-known to us will now remind us. Afterwards we shall verify whether this perspective is indeed still ours.

2 - WHAT OUR SOURCES TELL US a - What does Mary of the Passion say to us?

o In the Liturgical Meditation for 25 th March The Eve of the Annunciation Intention for the meditation: “Let us ask that the Institute, as a whole and in each of its members, may make its beautiful motto: Ecce Ancilla Domini (Behold the handmaid of the Lord) a lived reality”. - At 23h there was a community Eucharistic adoration, which ended at midnight with the singing of the Ave Maria and the solemn proclamation by the superior (in Latin): “Behold the handmaid of the Lord”, to which the whole community replied: “And the Word was made flesh”. Feast of the Annunciation “ MARY, in perfect recollection, listened to Gabriel’s explanation of the mystery. […] It was the HOLY SPIRIT who was to overshadow her. Then with an obedience which knew no limits, she gave herself: ‘Behold the handmaid of the LORD.’ Immediately, Life entered into her, the Word was made flesh: Life in her soul, for Mary herself was saved by the merits of the Redeemer, Life in her body, for the GOD of life was incarnate within her; and, moreover, through the faithful Virgin, life for all mankind; for their souls for whom Heaven is now open, for their bodies which shall rise again in glory.”

o From the Customs Book Directory for the feast of the Annunciation: Mary of the Passion sums up in a few words what living the Ecce Ancilla Domini means for us in practice: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (Jn 1, 14). What a day that was! No one will ever make so complete an offering of her entire being to her Creator as Mary made; nor will anyone ever obtain as much as she has obtained. But in the measure in which a soul annihilates herself in God, God will dwell in her.” This is the ‘kenosis’ … and Mary of the Passion adds: “Oh! If Franciscan Missionaries of Mary knew how to understand this truth and to lead other souls to understand it with them, how powerful their work would be on earth even in the obscurity of the hidden life!”

o From the Liturgical Meditation for the 2 nd Sunday of October: the Motherhood of Mary “Let us raise our souls to the contemplation of the Holy Trinity. The FATHER chose MARY for the Mother of his Son, the SON accepted her to be his Mother, the HOLY SPIRIT decided to make his sanctuary within her by forming within her the body of the Incarnate Word. All of us as Christians, ‘we believe that she is truly the Mother of GOD.’ […] MARY is associated with the eternal fruitfulness of the FATHER […] and in all truth she calls the Son of GOD: my Son. ‘My Son, why have you done this to us?’ She is associated with the authority of GOD the FATHER over the WORD; she has brought to birth the One who governs heaven and earth. […] Mother of GOD, she produces fruits of life for the Christian, she produces life itself, the light of souls.” b - What has the Institute to say to us at this beginning of the 3 rd Millennium?

o In the way traced by our Constitutions (2009 edition)

“To continue the mission of Christ1, who was sent by the Father with the power of the Spirit to bring the Good News to the poor, is the missionary vocation of all the People of God. (Art. 34)

1 Lk 4, 18-21

37 Sent in our turn (Jn 20, 21), and dedicated to universal mission in accordance with our priorities, we commit ourselves in a specific way to this mission within the Church, surrendering our lives like Mary in complete disponibility, and drawing our apostolic dynamism from the Eucharist.” (Art. 35)

o The General Chapter of 2002 invites us very specially to find again the Marian orientation of our missionary lives.

Mary, the first disciple of Jesus, leads us to: say our YES anew each day, unite our offering with that of Jesus.”1

 That is to say that we are invited to be:  Gospel Women – disciples - Contemplating the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, the One sent by the Father […] live as WOMEN DISCIPLES passionately in love with Christ, simple, transformed by the Word.” - Mary of the Passion tells us that Mary is “the inseparable companion of Jesus” and “way within the Way”2. And so it is she who can best teach us how to “revitalise our encounter with Jesus Christ3.”

 At the service of life - Like Mary, the women disciples in the Gospels have as their characteristic to be at the service of life: “[…] like the women disciples in the Gospels, allow ourselves to be healed and sent anew to give life4.” - Together with them, this commits us to a path of “conversion” and of growth.

 Sent “We reaffirm that” like them as women “we are sent to: - “View the world and its realities from a feminine perspective. - To give priority to and promote feminine values of care, compassion, defence of life, goodness and tenderness. - These values will help us to search for responses to the challenges of globalisation and work in collaboration with others5. N.B. - It is to be noted that for the first time there is such precise mention in our texts of the necessity of seeing the world also from a feminine perspective so as better to discern what it lacks, - and also of the need there is for truly feminine values in order to humanise globalisation.  And we are therefore invited to;

 Continue and develop Mary of the Passion’s option for women - whom she recognised as having an essential role in the world, in partnership with men, but which still remains a cause to be accepted:  “ We believe our life can question the negative effects of globalization: marginalization, exploitation and exclusion of entire peoples, and announce a new world.

 “To make our own Mary of the Passion’s strong option for women - To increase our awareness of the situations of women in the society in which we live and in the world at large. - To enable women to be aware of their dignity and help them to grow in self-confidence and self-esteem […]

1 Chapter Document ’02 “Gospel women – Disciples” n° 4. 2 Cf. Mary of the Passion, 1st Constitutions Ch. 1, et passim. 3 Chapter Document ’02 passim. 4 Ibidem, Lines of Action 2. 5 Ibidem passim.

38 - In a world marked by violence and a culture of death, promote non-violence and the defence of life.”

o The General Chapter of 2008 encourages us to commune with Mary in the kenosis of Christ for the sake of mission

 “ Minority is what gives colour and flavour 1to our following of Christ. It is our way of living mission with the One who washes other’s feet, offering himself that all may know the fullness of Life (Jn 10, 10).“

 “ Mary walks before us in this way of mission. Her response to God opening the way for the Trinity of Love to enter this world through the Incarnation. She sings her littleness celebrating God who loves and saves the poor. Mary standing by the Cross knows the pain and agony of mourning; and in the dawn of new Life, the joy of Resurrection.2

3 - WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES FOR US TODAY ? a -In describing Mary as “the first disciple”, the Chapter Document of 2002 situates her: - On the one hand in the group of disciples on the same level as all the others, both men and women (especially in the Gospels according to Luke and John); - On the other hand as the head of the line of all those who were to be called to be “disciple-witnesses”, and this as a woman, she whose mission came long before that of the apostles and disciples... b - This prompts us to revisit our own Ecce-Fiat

o As “Gospel women” and as sisters, in solidarity with all the women of the world who are still searching to find their true place in it, the place willed by the Creator.

o A world in the process of “globalisation” for better or for worse, where the number of poor and excluded people is growing unceasingly, and where numerous women struggle to accomplish their mission at the service of the Covenant of Life, love and peace which Jesus confided to his Church, a mission that all too often is hampered.

o With the help of the Spirit, we shall seek our inspiration in the Word of God, while reading it from a feminine point of view. c - Mary of the Passion can help us in this, by presenting Mary to us as “the woman with true power”.

o The first time we find this expression in her life, is when whilst with the Poor Clares in Nantes, she received what she would later call her “name from heaven”; in other words her call or personal charism: “Mary victim of Jesus, and of Jesus Crucified, the woman with true power”. So for her it is an expression which indicates a vocation: that which consists, as she says elsewhere, in “continuing the mission of Mary” by making her whole life an offering in communion with that of Jesus even in the sacrifice of the Cross, for the Church and for the world. By doing this she herself becomes “the little woman with true power3.”

1 Fr. José Carballo, OFM Min. Gen. – Talk to the General Chapter 2008, 1st September 2 Chapter document 2008, “Introduction” last paragraph. 3 Cf. “Where are you leading me?” n° 86; 103.

39 o All her life she would seek to penetrate more deeply into the meaning of this name given to Mary, from which she received her inspiration: - How and why is Mary the woman with true power? - What is this “true power”? - How to acquire it for herself and transmit it to her daughters?... o Throughout her Spiritual Notes, we can pick out some principal accents:  As the first to be redeemed, Mary is very powerful, because she gives Jesus to the world;  And together with him, she gives the Gospel, the path of Truth and Charity, of poverty/detachment from riches and simplicity…  She can do this because being “all pure” she is the temple of the Holy Spirit to whom the “true power” belongs, and who communicates it.  Cooperating entirely with his action which “renews the face of the earth” by causing it to “be reborn from on high”, she is “the New Eve”, the mother of the New Adam and of all humanity. o It was at the end of her life that Mary of the Passion perceived with greater clarity and intensity this “true power” of Mary fully welcoming the Spirit, as is borne out by a number of texts from her last retreat1. d - We are invited today to “revive the gift of God” “Following Christ, in the Spirit, I […] give myself unreservedly to the Father after the example of Mary […]2.” o The undivided commitment of Mary gives dynamism to and inspires our own, now as at the beginning of the Institute. Having meditated and gone more deeply into the Annunciation and the Visitation, which are closely united together and are basic texts, drawn from the Document “The Holy Spirit will take you under his shadow”, in preparation for the Chapter of 2002, we shall not come back to them here3. This meditation already helped us to put our finger on how far the prompt response of Mary to God’s call made her immediately disponible for mission. A mission linked with that of Elizabeth. The one and the other introduced us to the more specifically feminine dimensions of the missionary commitment. o Continuing now our reflection, we are going to do so in the light of Mary’s vocation as “the first disciple”: woman, mother, sister.  We shall look for a Gospel light on the place of Mary “the new Eve” – according to the expression of Christian tradition – in the plan of creation and in the coming of the New Covenant.  LUKE’s texts introduced us to the historical dimension of the divine intervention, thanks to the YES of Mary. We shall now ask JOHN to let us share his meditation on her maternal mission, which is unique in the story of Salvation, based on the texts about Cana and about Calvary.

1 Cf. “Where are you leading me?” Retreat 1903 2 Constitutions 2009, profession – art. 88. 3 Cf. pp 8-19. This document which can always be consulted, was prepared by a team of “Resource persons” from the Studio of Mary of the Passion, and was sent to all the provincials and their councils in 2001, so that they could be worked upon by the communities.

40  And, in making reference to the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, we shall conclude with the event of Pentecost which opened the time of the Church in the waiting for the Return of Christ.

4 - WHEN JESUS CALLS HIS MOTHER: “WOMAN ”… a - Mary in the Gospel according to St. John o John speaks of Mary in two passages in his Gospel: that of the Wedding feast at Cana (Jn 2, 1-12) and that of the death on the Cross (Jn 19, 25-34). They are two key texts: one at the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus and the other at the end. Apart from these, Mary does not appear: in John’s Gospel he does not mention either the birth and childhood of Jesus, nor the meetings and interventions of Mary during his ministry. It is just indicated that after the miracle of the water changed into wine, the Lord “went down to Capernaum, with his mother and the brothers1”. This allows us to suppose that, discreetly, she always remains with him as a loving and maternal presence. The two passages in question, even if they are only two and are hardly long, are yet very dense and rich in meaning at various levels, as are all the Johannine writings. In meditating on them here, we shall limit ourselves to the theme with which we are concerned. o The first remarkable thing is the name which Jesus uses: in addressing himself to his mother, he calls her “WOMAN”! For a long time this vocabulary seemed to be hurtful to Mary, and it gave rise to commentaries that sought to justify it and were more or less embarrassed… However, it is perhaps one of her most beautiful titles and one that is very rich in meaning. In so far as the texts situate “the mother of Jesus” in an essential role at the heart of the Covenant, they make her “an emblematic figure of “the woman”, an icon here on earth of the “maternal face” of God when she acts according to the depth of her being and says YES to her particular mission. In receiving the Spirit, all her feminine values are then put at the service of God’s plan, and become a spiritual maternity for the world. o The two passages enclose the time of the active ministry of Jesus, the aim of which is to bring the First Covenant to its fulfilment by sealing the New Covenant. They thus situate in close cooperation with Mary and the Holy Spirit, this time of the coming to birth of the Church, the dawn of the Messianic era. It is MARY’s part to give JESUS to mankind. She gives him in the Incarnation, at the Nativity, the Epiphany, at Cana and on Calvary. There, she gave birth to the Church, and became the Mother of the Church, represented by St. John2.” (Mary of the Passion) b - AT CANA “MARY, marvelling at GOD’s gratuitous gift3 attentive to listen to the WORD and keep it, open to the needs of OTHERS so as to bring them to HER SON, is the inspiration for our life of prayer4.” (Constitutions)

(b1) - Let us try first of all to slip into the human dimension of the scene- no matter what may moreover be the historical degree of this story and of its details. In fact, if we cannot stop at the commonplace event of a village wedding-feast, neither should we dismiss it in order to 1 Jn 2,12. 2 Liturgical Meditations – Octave of the Epiphany, 5th day II. 3 Lk 1, 45-56. 4 Constitutions 2009, art. 10 – cf, 1st Constitutions 8, 4.

41 pass straightaway to a more symbolical level. Human life is the place of the incarnation and communication of the Word and of grace.

o Mary was “already there” when Jesus arrived with his brand new disciples. When the wine ran out, as a woman who was practical and attentive to the needs of others, she noticed it and she immediately became aware of the embarrassment, even the humiliation and sorrow which this was going to cause their hosts on the day of their wedding.

o With confidence she spoke to her son who had not noticed anything: “They have no wine!” Here, as a man, Jesus was on the point of beginning his Messianic mission among the people, and he was going to learn from the intuition and empathy of his mother to open his eyes to the needs of people, and to be sensitive to their legitimate aspirations. Since his childhood, like all mothers, Mary had played the role of opening his eyes and his heart, a very important role, especially with regard to a son.

It is thus according to Luke1 that after having searched for him for three days, together with Joseph, she found him as an adolescent in the Temple, where he had remained after the “barmitzvah”2 amazing the doctors and all those around by his understanding of the Scriptures, she had brought him back to reality while making an appeal to his heart: “My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you”. In replying to his mother with the brusqueness of adolescence he then made her enter into the way of progressive detachment which every mother must go through in relation to her child who is growing up: “Why were you looking for me. Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

But suddenly, the young person that he was woke up to another dimension of Scripture: more than amazing the learned people by his understanding of it, it was important to live it. And one of the first commandments is “Honour your father and your mother”…””He then went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority.” At the same time he discovered that “his Father’s house” was not above all the Temple; that it was still more important to find it everywhere, in the humility of daily life; and that, after all, in spite of his success, he was perhaps not called to become “a doctor of the law”… Now at Cana, his mother’s role as educator having been completed a long time ago, and he himself having launched out to recruit disciples as “rabbis” do, she remained as the discreet presence, gifted with foresight and efficacious, that he would need right to the Cross: the first “woman disciple” with a faithful heart, on whom he could count in the face of all opposition.

o But for the moment, Jesus’ response to her request shows his lack of understanding of her approach: “Woman, why turn to me?3 My hour has not come yet.” After all, this affair had nothing to do with his mission! However, “she who believed” since the beginning knew her son. His heart went beyond the apparent refusal: she was sure of him, and something – or Someone- prompted her interiorly. Calmly she said to the servants: “Do whatever he tells you”.

o In the Synoptic Gospels, it is the Spirit which incites Jesus to undertake his mission as the Messiah, after his stay in the desert. Here, somewhat as at the Visit to Elizabeth, it is still the voice of the Spirit, but it passes through Mary’s approach of compassion: suddenly, Jesus understands that “it is now the hour” to give a sign of power, that will

1 Cf. Lk 2, 41-52. N.B. Translation in the Jerusalem Bible has “busy with my Father’s affairs” but the conclusion to be drawn here is the same. 2 A kind of adult Profession of faith and official entry into the Synagogue. 3 Translation given in the Jerusalem Bible. A more literal translation would be “Is that any of our business?”

42 substantiate that he is the One Sent by God (John’s Gospel is the one that has “signs”), the first decisive step towards his Pasch – “his HOUR”.

(b2) - For the rest of this story, we shall linger a while over the symbolical dimension of the scene, even though we cannot enter into all the very rich details of the sign which is given; and who could ever penetrate them completely? “Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water, who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste”, St. Francis: The Canticle of the Creatures o In the story, “Water” suddenly appears and takes on a great importance. That is why we are first going to try to go a little more deeply into the role played in John’s Gospel by “water” which in the Bible is a symbol of life – and a symbol of the Spirit. To understand its place here, we have to re-situate it in the immediate context of the story of Cana, as being set among texts about water, the source of Life coming to birth; but also within the overall perspective of John’s Gospel:  Preceding the text about the wedding-feast, in Jn 1,32-33 we have: “John also declared, ‘I saw the Spirit coming down on him from heaven like a dove, and resting on him. I did not know him myself, but he who sent me to baptise with water had said to me, The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and rest is the one who is going to baptise with the Holy Spirit’.”  Following the text about the wedding-feast, in Jn 3, 5 there is: “Jesus replied (to Nicodemus): ‘I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born through water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God’.”  And in the following chapter (the Samaritan woman): Jn 4, 10-14: “Jesus replied: ‘If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you: Give me a drink, you would have been the one to ask and he would have given you living water. […] Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again; but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again: the water that I shall give will turn into a spring inside him, welling up to eternal life’.”  The key text is Jn, 7, 37-39: It was the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Soukkot), the day on which they made libations of water to ask for rain, and which prefigured the Messianic and eschatological “Day” of the end of time. Jesus invites those who thirst to come to draw from him Living Water in abundance:

“He was speaking of the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive”.

 Finally, from the height of the Cross, before he died Jesus was to give his Mother to Humanity. - Afterwards, according to Jn 19, 34, and still from the height of the Cross, but after his death, he was to make the ultimate gift: “[…] One of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance and immediately there came out blood and water.”

Without prejudice to the more direct meaning of this scene, can we not equally see here as it were a conclusion to the whole theme of Water in John’s Gospel?

Let us remind ourselves that before he died, Jesus had declared to his disciples: “I am the Vine, you are the branches…1” Here, Jesus – “the Vine” - (dead but very much Living), transmits to the “branches”2 the Gift of the Father: the “Living Water” that had irrigated

1 Jn 15, 5 2 Represented by Mary and “the disciple Jesus loved” – cf. Jn 19, 25-30.

43 his being all throughout his earthly life; and at the same time the “blood of the vine”, prefiguring the wine1 of the joy of the Wedding-Feast, fruit of the action of the “Living- Water” in the Vine and in the branches…

o There would be much to go into more deeply, beginning from the theme of water in John’s Gospel. Here let us just note that throughout his Gospel, there runs the good news of the Living Water brought by Jesus “from the Father”.

 The Catechism of the Catholic Church n° 694, among the symbols of the Holy Spirit, presents in a few words the signification of that of Water. “The symbolism of water signifies the Holy Spirit’s action in Baptism, since after the invocation of the Holy Spirit it becomes the efficacious sacramental sign of new birth: just as the gestation of our first birth took place in water, so the water of Baptism truly signifies that our birth into the divine life is given to us in the Holy Spirit. As ‘by one Spirit we were all baptized’, so we are also ‘made to drink of one Spirit’ ( I Cor 12, 13): Thus the Spirit is also personally the living water welling up from Christ crucified2 as its source and welling up in us to eternal life3. […]”

o Here, at Cana, we have a figure of the approaching fulfilment of the prophecies 4 of the First Covenant for which the rites of purification prepared. The phase of the New Covenant will be that of the invigoration by the SPIRIT of the water of Baptism, brought by Christ for a new birth into life in God5. It is the beginning of the Messianic era, which will end with the Wedding-feast of the Lamb”, to which all redeemed mankind will be invited, and where the Living Water mingled with the redeeming Blood will cause to spring forth in joy the Wine of elation6, already anticipated in the Eucharist7.

o And “Mary is there”, the humble operator in the Spirit, of the opening of the First Covenant into the New Covenant, by “giving Jesus to the world” on the threshold of his messianic ministry. c - ON CALVARY - Again and right to the end, “Mary is there”

o Mary standing near the Cross, together with a few women. We shall not delay long over this fact, which speaks for itself.

 The fidelity of the maternal and feminine presence has never been denied; it is more than ever the sign of the compassion of the Father in a moment when, according to the Law, the crucified one seems to have been definitively rejected8.

 She was necessary for Jesus to go right to the end of his offering in which, over and above her own suffering, she shared as she always had done in faith and hope against all opposition. – Mary of the Passion says to us:

1 The “blood of the vine” is a biblical expression to indicate wine; cf. Gn 49, 11; Dt 32, 14; (Si 39, 26). Blood is a symbol of life but, in order to be animated and to flow through the body, it needs the support of water. 2 Jn 19, 34; I Jn 5, 8. 3 Cf. Jn 4, 10-14; 7, 38; Ex 17, 1-6; Is 55, 1; Ze 14, 8; I Co 10, 4; Rv 21, 6; 22,17. 4 Is 58, 11; Ez 36, 25.33; 47, 12; Ze 14, 8-9 5 Cf. Jn 3, 3-8. 6 Pr 9, 2. 5. 7 Cf. Mk 14, 25; Rv 19, 7. 8 Cf. Dt 21, 22-23.

44 “This Mother of the GOD-Man understood the mystery that brought together as one the humanity and the divinity […] he was the first to sing in her soul the canticle of deliverance whilst in her heart she wept over the wounds of her Son and of her God1.”

 Also more than ever, there was revealed in her the face of the Consoler (Paraclete, Spirit) whose presence fortified both of them interiorly, and of whom he had promised to make a gift to his disciples when he would be with the Father.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.

Seeing his mother and the disciple he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother: WOMAN, this is your son. Then to the disciple he said, This is your mother.

And from that moment the disciple made a place for her in his home.

After this, Jesus knew that everything had now been completed, and to fulfil the scripture perfectly he said: I am thirsty. A jar full of vinegar stood there […] After Jesus had taken the vinegar he said It is accomplished and bowing his head he gave up his spirit2

o “ Woman, this is your son.”… “This is your mother” There she is the universal mother: mother in the broadest and deepest sense of the word; the most spiritual: every disciple of her Son, every person “of good will” is her child. In the course of his public ministry, Jesus had already prepared her for this: “Who are my mother and my brothers? […]3.  The people of the New Covenant are prefigured there, at the foot of the Cross: the “disciple Jesus loved” and whose name does not appear, symbolises every disciple. Men and women, the first cell of the Church, who according to the Acts of the Apostles were soon to gather together in Jerusalem, were there to learn from Mary how to receive the outpouring of the Spirit and “Its holy activity”4, in order that the “Word alive and active” should become incarnate, no longer just in one culture but in all the cultures of the world; and so that little by little all faces should be fashioned in the likeness of the Risen Son, present in the invisible.  Until the return of Christ on the last day, the disciples, both men and women, will learn from Mary how to live their Covenant as children of the Father for the salvation of the world, by following Christ in the Spirit.

The women will learn from her and from the Spirit their “extended” maternal service and the men (as the disciple Jesus loved was invited to do) the “true power” which is a service of love after the example of the Servant-Christ, the first-born Brother.

1 Liturgical Meditation for Friday after the 3rd Sunday of Lent, the feast of the Five Wounds of Jesus. 2 Jn 19, 25-30. 3 Cf. Mk 3, 31-35. 4 Cf. St. Francis 2nd Rule 10, 8.

45 “The Virgin Mary is fully the one who has given Life. From her we learn how to love as we realize our vocation as women in the disinterested gift of ourselves so that the life of others may grow.”1

 POINTS FOR REFLECTION

- In what way and in what measure is the “kenosis” of Mary, which is a communion with that of Jesus, an inspiration and a help for us in our FMM life?

- The Ecce and the Fiat of Mary led to those of Joseph (Cf. Mt 1, 18-25) before leading many others in this way. Have we witnessed in our lives the fruitfulness of fidelity to our call?

- Until now, how have we responded to the different challenges that were addressed to us by the recent general chapters, “to revive the gift of God that is within us”.

CONCLUSION With Mary, at the service of the New Covenant

From Gn 1, 1 to Rv 22, 21, there spreads out the long course of the Covenant between God and humanity, which is also the story of the slow, progressive and troubled ascent of this humanity towards the true Life, in God. All the way through, the woman is called to exercise an essential service on an equal footing and in complementarity with the man.

- According to Gn 2-3, which is a reflection based on ancient myths, Eve, the very first woman, would be mistaken about “power”. We cannot hold this against her: she had scarcely come out of unconsciousness but had become the “mother of life”, her “antennae” were more in tune than those of Adam “the earthy one” with the Mystery, present in the invisible, and whose power went beyond the human being’s understanding; she sought for it in her surroundings: the “spirits” of nature, the idols…

And this, all the more so because the dialogue between Adam and herself, and of the two of them with God, was not yet established: it was necessary first of all to learn the speech which is proper to human beings, and what an inter-personal relationship is. For the moment, it is naturally the stronger one who dominates and imposes himself…

- Throughout the following texts in the book of Genesis, the woman (at first simply an instrument and object of possession) would not be perceived as a person until the time of Abraham: the sign of this is that he would speak to Sara to obtain her consent and that after her death he would go as far as acquiring a cave in which to bury her. But the woman was still only a person of inferior rank: in a world in which physical force reigned, and was consequently one of violence, she had no recognised power.

1 Cf. Jn 19, 25-26 – Constitutions 2009, art. 79.

46 Later, when the Covenant had further progressed, she would play an active part in it, as did Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron. - But we have to await Mary of Nazareth for the woman to become wholly a person, with whom God engaged directly in the dialogue of the Covenant – and who freely gave her assent to it. - It was also then that the mystery of God as a Trinity of Persons was revealed: when the Spirit carried out the Incarnation of the Word thanks to the consent and the cooperation of Mary in the Father’s plan; Mary, who had become “the New Eve and the mother of the New Adam”, “the woman with true power”, “the woman par excellence”.

- For the Church , until the Parousia she remains “the mother”, and the model given by God to accompany, in the power of the Spirit, the coming to birth of the new humanity in the image and likeness of Christ: the fulfilment of the Father’s plan.

 POINTS FOR REFLECTION

Contemplating Mary, the “Woman with true power”, Mary of the Passion aspired to be the “little woman with true power” - Can we also aspire to become this? How?

- Could not the men and women of today discover in the New Adam and the New Eve, the secret of the “true power” to be acquired – in mutual respect, understanding and complementarity – in order to attain human dignity and to work together for the fulfilment of the world? How to help them in this?

“God is Love1. It is his Will that all men and women should be saved and constitute his People. This is why the Father calls us all to be transformed in Christ, through the Spirit.” Constitutions art. 1

1 I Jn 4, 16.

47 Chapter IV The three domains of the INCARNATION OF THE MESSAGE in our lives “Take the case, my brothers of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him? […] A body dies when it is separated from the spirit, and in the same way faith is dead if it is separated from good deeds.” Jm 2, 14.26

Eucharistic ADORATION OFFERING in complete disponibility at the service of UNIVERSAL MISSION

“[…] I offer my life for the Church and the salvation of the world. I dedicate myself to Eucharistic adoration and to the evangelization of peoples, and I commit myself to live in fraternal community1.” Constitutions

1 - FROM THE ANNUNCIATION UNTIL PENTECOST, MARY

IN LIVING HER ECCE AND HER FIAT – ECHOES OF THOSE OF THE WORD IN HIS INCARNATION – IS FOR US, ACCORDING TO THE WORDS OF MARY OF THE PASSION, “A WAY” WHICH LEADS TO “THE WAY”. She shows us a particular way of being a “disciple” and a witness to CHRIST, the One Sent by the FATHER: without any splendour, in the ordinariness of daily life, through her total attention and docility to the SPIRIT: - Who dwells within her as in a temple and mysteriously “associates her with the eternal fruitfulness of the Father2”; - who rests upon her Son and who progressively makes him discover, know and understand through all the stages of his existence; - who impels her to bring him to the world with his power of Life, even when he is not yet in a position to recognise it; - who teaches her how to make him grow in humanity – together with Joseph – how to discreetly second his actions, and help him in his human relations; - who gives her the strength to be an unfailing support for him, a comfort and a messenger of hope in all the moments of trial and even to the Cross; - who will perpetuate her spiritual maternity, in the time of the Church “the Body of Christ”. 2 - CALLED TO “CONTINUE THE MISSION OF MARY” , IT IS IN HER SCHOOL THAT WE LEARN TO DO THIS: a - In Eucharistic adoration/life She teaches us to be the active and loving presence to the hidden but “real” Presence of Christ Jesus:

1 Constitutions 2009 art. 88. 2 Mary of the Passion – cf. III b 2 a above

48 - in the celebration of the Eucharist – as Francis said, the means which the Lord “chose in order to remain with us” in a visible and tangible manner, not only through the consecrated Bread and Wine, but also through fraternal communion; - and in Eucharistic adoration, which helps us to savour this presence (historically perceived as a “memorial”, and existentially received in faith), - and to gather its fruits.

Among these fruits: - the invitation to welcome Christ within us in a new way each day, and to give thanks to the Father with him; - the reminder that his Word listened to, studied and meditated upon is given to us to be lived here and now; - the gift of the Spirit which impels us to go out to our brothers and sisters and to find the Lord in them.

The daily Eucharistic “rendez-vous” is the concrete and efficacious means – sacramental – of renewing our commitment to unite ourselves to the Ecce and Fiat of Christ, to find our resources in contemplation, and not only to hear his missionary call but to surrender our lives unceasingly in order to respond to it. According to the days, we are invited to commune more in the mysteries of Nazareth, of Bethlehem, of Thabor, of the Cenacle on Holy Thursday, of Emmaus, or even of the Ascension and Pentecost… b - In the sending out on universal mission

Sent from there by Jesus, as in the past Mary was sent from the foot of the Cross, towards our brothers and sisters to share the Good News with them, it is again she who teaches us, together with the Spirit, how to radiate the Presence of the Risen Lord, in our daily lives and how to weave family ties even with those who seem the furthest away. - She shows us how to intercede for them to discreetly invite them, when the time is ripe, to encounter Christ, to listen to him, and to do whatever he tells them then to step aside in order to leave him the full place. - The apostolic part of our life is realized through active involvement in the universal mission of the Church, in the various ways of Mary: in her Visit to her relative; in the silent presentation of her Son to the poor Jewish Shepherds and to the rich non- Jewish Magi; in her discreet presence in the midst of his family and of his disciples, from Cana to Calvary; in her vocation to spiritual maternity when the Church of Pentecost came to birth in the Spirit. c - In renunciation/dis-appropriation – offering in complete disponibility Universal mission requires of us a complete disponibility, and the offering of all the trials, difficulties, renunciations and sufferings which this supposes, in communion like Mary with Christ’s abandonment into the hands of the Father, for the Church and for all humanity. We have the firm hope that the Spirit will transform them into seeds of Life and of Resurrection, as happened for her:

49 tried by the destitution of Bethlehem and the uncertainty of the exile in Egypt; anguished by the prophecy of Simeon and by the loss of Jesus in the Temple; wounded together with him by the lack of understanding of his own people, the ingratitude of his disciples, and the abandonment by the crowds; and especially closely united with him in his Passion and in the hour of his death on the Cross; there she also teaches us how much our suffering brothers and sisters, who are members of Christ, have need of compassion in order not to sink into despair, but to find meaning in their sufferings. In broad outline, such is the ascetic part of our charism, for which we draw light, courage and strength from the Eucharist and the gift of the Spirit.

- For the moment we shall ask Mary to help us to penetrate a little more deeply into our call

Contemplation/adoration, - witness of life/action, - disappropriation/asceticism, are the three distinct and complementary and inseparable facets of our consecration to God for the mission. Now we are going to approach each of them in a little more detail, beginning by the “source”: the Eucharistic contemplation of Christ the Adorer of the Father, and union with him in his offering of love for the world.

50 IV a - Eucharistic ADORATION Contemplation and sending

The mystery of salvation is actualised in the Eucharist1; from our Eucharistic celebration and adoration springs the contemplative and missionary dynamism of our whole life. The Christ whom we contemplate sends us out to our brothers and sisters2 In whom we discover his hidden presence. And our brothers and sisters send us back to the contemplation of Christ.” Constitutions Ch. I, art. 3 

The celebration of the Eucharist, which is central to every Christian life, and all the more so to religious life, would make the subject of another study, one more general. Here we shall rather consider what is more specific to us: Eucharistic adoration. It flows from the celebration of which it is the prolongation, and is like a resonance in the day-to-day of our lives offered together with Christ, and sent out to bear witness to him. Our reflection will unfold along the following lines: 1 - The Eucharist in the life of the Church: – A brief calling to mind of the basic theological orientations of the Second Vatican Council. 2 - Eucharistic adoration: its history and ecclesial practice: A recent form of devotion in the Church, knowing its history can help us to understand its evolution in time and to situate it in its rightful place in our life of faith and of mission today. 3 - The meaning of Eucharistic adoration for Mary of the Passion: - Based on what she has handed over of her own contemplation, and also on the teachings she has given to the Institute, we shall try to grasp a little better what in her eyes, beyond the external forms, makes it so important for our missionary lives. 4 - The Institute and the Eucharist today: - While holding on to the principal axes of the heritage left by Mary of the Passion, we shall try to find the meaning of its evolutions, due to the progression of history in the post-conciliar Church. We shall rely above all on the Constitutions re-written in the Chapter of 1978-9, and revised by that of 2008; then we shall briefly touch upon the progression of the unceasing reflection of the whole Institute in the messages of its General Chapters between these two dates.

1 - THE EUCHARIST IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH “Do this as a memorial of me” Lk 22, 19 The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” opens its chapter on the Sacrament of the Eucharist by presenting it, after the example of Vatican II, as “the Source and Summit of Ecclesial Life”:

“1324 – The Eucharist is the ‘source and summit of the Christian Life’ - (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 47). ‘The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented towards it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.’ (Presbyterorum Ordinis, 5). 1325 - The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God’s

1 1st Constitutions art. 5 “In order to imitate Our Lady in her life of companionship with Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary are dedicated to daily adoration of the Blessed Sacrament exposed.” 2 Ibidem, art 7: “As the Blessed Virgin Mary divided her life between prayer and work, so the FMM […] seek in prayer a blessing on the apostolate, and in the apostolate the object of their prayer.”

51 action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit.’ (Post-Conciliar Instruction , Eucharisticum mysterium) 1326 – Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all (Cf. I Cor 15, 28) 1327 – In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: ‘Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking’. (St. Irenaeus Adv. Haeres, 4, 18, 5).

2 - EUCHARISTIC ADORATION: ITS HISTORY AND ECCLESIAL PRACTICE

“Now while he was with them at table, he took the bread and said the blessing; then he broke it and handed it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognised him; but he had vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?’” Lk 24, 30-32 “And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.” Mt 28, 20

It would be good no doubt to briefly remind ourselves of the history of Eucharistic adoration and its development in the Church, before approaching (in n° 3) the meaning, according to Mary of the Passion, which it takes on for our missionary religious life. a - This history is linked to that of faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Consecrated Bread and Wine, including after the Eucharistic celebration and the Communion of the faithful. o First of all, it is necessary to remind ourselves that the Eucharist is a sacrament, thus a perceptible sign made for human beings, in order to give them and signify for them the grace which makes them more and more sons and daughters of God, brother or sister of Christ and of other people, and Church. In the case of the Eucharist, this sacrament finds its completion in Communion. Christ did not say “Take and contemplate” but “Take and eat – take and drink”. o And yet, already in apostolic times, the custom was established to keep the Consecrated Bread once Mass was over, so as to be carried by lay people or deacons to those who had been unable to come (the sick, the elderly, prisoners…); or even for themselves if they were going on a journey as Viaticum for the road, often full of dangers. Then they also kept a reserve in a particular house for a case of urgency or of need: at that time of persecutions there were no churches. The double aim was always: personal sanctification in the encounter with Christ, and ecclesial communion around him, even of those who were absent. o From the 4 th century and the end of persecutions onwards churches were established, and the Reserve of Eucharistic Bread was surrounded with more and more honours and solemnity. Towards the end of the 4th century or in the 5th century, the custom was established that, after the celebration, a deacon would carry it away (to the sacristy) into a place called the Sacrarium or the Treasure. Sometimes they even kept the Consecrated Wine. All this shows us the strong faith of the early Church in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist during and after the celebration, counter to those who, throughout the centuries and even now, would bring into doubt the Real Presence. o With the Middle Ages we enter into a difficult period. After the invasion of Western Europe by the Barbarians (from the middle of the 4th century and in the 5th century) the custom was introduced to unify the liturgy and to use Latin, and no longer the vernacular languages. Latin was a written language, which was required for the liturgy; but the simple faithful did not understand it. Everything was well codified; but the people assisted passively at Mass and no longer participated in it.

52 At the same time, the requirements of purity and holiness of life became greater and greater, and those who received Communion became rarer and rarer. The 4th Lateran Council (1215) would have to make a precept of annual Paschal Communion. Note that this period with all the consequences that issued from it was that of Saint Francis. In the meantime, in the 12th century the heresy of Beranger of Tours which denied the Real Presence appeared and spread within the Church. Hence a reaction:  A Eucharistic worship outside of the Mass came into being through these different factors, and from the fact that the Blessed Sacrament had been transferred from the sacristy to the church, to the tabernacle. If people seldom received Communion sacramentally, individually they practised “spiritual Communion” and devotion to the Real Presence of Christ in the Host which they adored in the tabernacle. There they contemplated Him, prayed to Him, and sang to Him. At the same time, among the faithful there came to be the desire, at least to see this Blessed Sacrament which they hardly dared to approach. Hence, the new custom of elevation at the moment of consecration and the kneeling of the faithful at this moment, as a sign of adoration. This custom was to broaden out later into contemplation of the Host once mass was over. Hence, the processions that came into being following the institution of the feast of Corpus Domini (the Body of Christ) in Belgium and approved by Urban IV in 1264; the expositions (attested to in Germany already in 1336) and the Benedictions of the Blessed Sacrament which closed them. In 1539, Pope Paul III recognised the new practice of the Forty Hours of Adoration before entering into Lent; according to St. Augustine this was in honour of the forty hours which the Body of Jesus spent in the tomb.  All this flourishing of Eucharistic devotion outside the Mass was to be solemnly recognised by the Council of Trent in 1551, in the context of the doctrine of Transubstantiation that was intended to fight against the tendencies of the Protestant Reformation. But at the same time, the sacrificial character of the Mass was very blurred, in favour of the contemplation of the mysteries of the life of Christ, which were made to correspond with the different stages of its progression. And in order to be sanctified by the Eucharist, there was no longer any need to receive it in sacramental Communion… There was as it were an inflation of all these devotions for their own sake, to the detriment of the Mass, in relation to which they had, in some way, an autonomous existence.  In spite of this imbalance, the 16 th and 17 th centuries were to see the appearance of great mystics, all intensely linked to the Eucharistic source, people such as John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales, Marie de l’Incarnation. In the 19th century, Pierre-Julien Aymard was to be the great apostle of the Blessed Sacrament, of which he would say “Light and experience, the Eucharist is the most complete revelation of himself that Jesus has given us”.  The situation during the 19 th century and at the beginning of the 20 th – the time of Mary of the Passion – was still one of disproportion between the celebration of the Eucharist and the importance given to various aspects of Eucharistic worship. In fact, it is curious to note that, in the text of the FMM Constitutions of 1896, not only is adoration not directly linked to the celebration of the Eucharist, but the latter is mentioned only as a simple exercise: “52. MASS – Holy Mass will take place at half past six, as far as possible.” It is moreover mentioned as what is asked of the Aggregate Sisters, if possible every day, and as a suffrage for the dead… The accent is placed on daily Adoration, and on the grace of the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament which brings it to a close, the care and respect for the consecrated Bread and Wine. Without mention of the Mass, a

53 whole article is dedicated to Communion, to be received according to a rhythm codified by the Canon Law of that period: “68: COMMUNION – The Professed Sisters may receive Communion three times a week, if the prudence of the Confessor does not judge otherwise. They may receive Communion again on the principal feasts of Our Lord and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the feasts of the Apostles and of the Patrons of their Congregation, on the days of their particular Patrons, on the first Friday of each month and on some other days designated by their Superiors on certain extraordinary circumstances, always with the approval of the Confessor. The Sisters must maintain in their souls a great desire for Communion, but always subject to the decision of the Confessor.” The Customs Book I – Way of life1, for its part goes on at length about the practical details for a worthy assistance at Mass, which was all in Latin2; and the Directory proposes various ways of uniting oneself spiritually to the Mass, the first of which was by following the prayers of the celebrant in a missal. The Eucharist was presented above all as a Sacrifice of victimal love (without any mention of the Resurrection or of the Pasch) to which one must unite oneself by offering one’s own sufferings: “Love in suffering and suffer in loving”; - and as the means of having the Real Presence in the tabernacle. There is no mention of the Word of God. It was a normal presentation at that period in the Church… - Doubtless it was to fill in this gap that Mary of the Passion undertook the great task of writing the Liturgical Meditations for every day of the year, basing this work on the renewal undertaken in this domain by the Benedictine Dom Guéranger, and on the Seraphic Aureola for what concerned the Franciscan proper feasts. o It belonged to the Vatican Council II to put things back in order in its Constitution on the Liturgy, as well as in the documents which followed. By this means it invited the Church “ not to diminish, but to complete and enrich the views of Eucharistic theology and piety, by showing above all how even outside of the Mass, the Eucharist keeps its profound sense of sacrifice, Pasch and communion. Thus all the manifestations of Eucharistic worship, which are inseparable from these two aspects, can bring us to encounter the Person of the Saviour in a more profound manner, by showing him to us as the centre of the whole history of salvation, and arousing within us love and gratitude, contemplation and imitation3.” b - This brief historical survey can help us to understand on the one hand all the value of Eucharistic adoration for the Church and for each adorer, but also the deviations that are possible and that are to be avoided. In fact, well understood, this worship has an authentic theological and spiritual richness. In particular, it must always be lived in the wake of the celebration and of communion, since the raison d’être of the Eucharist is to gather the Church together around Christ Word and Bread, and to nourish its members sacramentally, and also spiritually, with his life.

So Eucharistic adoration causes us to find the great dimensions of the celebration: thanksgiving and praise to the Father, - memorial of the Pasch of Christ present in his Word and the power of the Spirit, – union with his sacrifice, - supplication within the Church, for the Church herself and for mankind.

1 Published in September 1904 (2 months before the death of Mary of the Passion), with the approbation of Fr. General, and the laudatory presentation of Fr. Raphael. 2 Note also that the Eucharistic Prayer in the Roman Missal did not include the epiclesis (the invocation of the Holy Spirit over the gifts, and then over the assembly). 3 Translation of the writing of P. Visentin, quoted by D. Gianni Cavagnoli in his article “Lineamenti storici del culto eucaristico” in the review “L’Emanuele n° 1/1997, pp 22-25.

54 By thus adoring the Son who gave himself up for us, we learn to become in his image “beloved” children of God and to give our lives to our brothers and sisters; by adoring him as the Lord of the Church which is the first “sacrament” of his Body growing within humanity, we learn to “venerate” him in the one who is hungry, who is naked, who is sick or in prison, and who is like his living “sacrament”.

3 - THE MEANING OF EUCHARISTIC ADORATION IN THE WRITINGS OF MARY OF THE PASSION Now we are going to question Mary of the Passion about what adoration was for herself, and also for the FMM’s. The sources where we shall seek the principal themes envisaged by her, will be the Spiritual Notes, the Meditations concerning Eucharistic feasts, Customs Book I, and the first Constitutions. We could certainly find much more light in other sources; but it is necessary to limit ourselves. This starting-point can always be enriched afterwards… * By way of introduction, let us first underline how the practice of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is well situated in the spirituality of Incarnation of the Franciscan family, extending itself in an ardent devotion and a profound respect for the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ:

Francis wrote: “And in this way the Lord is always with his faithful, as He Himself says: Behold I am with you until the end of the age” (Admonition 1, v. 22). And in his Paraphrase of the Our Father, he prays: “Give us this day: in remembrance, understanding and reverence of that love which [our Lord Jesus Christ] had for us and of those things that He said and did and suffered for us, our daily bread: Your own beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.” We find very strongly this notion of Presence in the writings of Mary of the Passion: a notion which, moreover, is very biblical. Let us simply recall here the practice prescribed by the Customs Book, to recite each time one entered the chapel or the church, the prayer of Francis which, moreover, calls to mind the Redemption through the Cross: “We adore Thee, most holy Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all Thy churches that are in the whole world, and we bless Thee; because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.”1 This practice helped to situate our life of Eucharistic adoration in the Franciscan and universal perspective, marked by the Presence, under the humble appearances of bread and wine, of the Lord surrendered for the salvation of the world.

3.1 - Eucharistic adoration, a presence to the “Presence” a - Mary of the Passion envisaged adoration as a reciprocal presence, that of love, that of the Covenant: the Presence of the Risen Jesus, and presence to the Risen Jesus, in continuation of the Eucharistic celebration, which is that of the New Covenant.

In her Spiritual Notes, she wrote: “The sacrifice passes but its work remains. Jesus Love remains. The sacrament Love remains […] He nourishes me in mingling his flesh with my flesh and his blood with my blood and he nourishes me again by his presence on

1 Cf. Testament of Saint Francis, v. 5. Mentioned in Latin in the FMM Customs Book I, n° 6, quoting the Manual of Prayers.

55 the altar, in the house where he dwells with me. I feel this so strongly, especially when the sacrament is exposed […]1  Let us notice at once this reference to the sacrament. The presence of Jesus under the appearances of bread and wine is essentially a sacramental presence, that is to say made for man in his earthly condition, to lead him to the knowledge of an invisible reality: that of the Risen Jesus present everywhere invisibly.  As Mary of the Passion notes, the Eucharist is before all else a food: that of faith, hope and love; a food which not only passes through eating, but through vision. Do we not say “Out of sight, out of mind”? Thus the Eucharist – which is for time, and which we shall no longer need in eternity – is a divine pedagogy; and Eucharistic adoration, an invention of love and a response of love to love.  That is why, in an attitude of humble gratitude, we must thank God for having made us “the adorers of the mystery of love” through which he dwells on our altars and in our tabernacles, at all times and in all places, there perpetuating his work of salvation2. He who dwells thus among us under such humble appearances, is the Eternal High Priest “in whom resides the fullness of the divinity”3.  He is also the ever-living Victim whose prayer is unceasing, with the result that “Adoration is Jesus in the Eucharist, praying in our midst, praying with us” and that “the kingdom of God is within us”4. His offering is perpetual “until the end of time. The Eucharist remains as a mystical marriage of the Word, emptied of self, with humanity5.”  He is also the Uncreated Wisdom come down among the little ones of simple hearts whom she calls, who allow themselves to be drawn by her “and who come close to be enriched and to learn love”. Thus “the gap between God and man is filled by love. The creature can truly say to Wisdom: ‘You are my sister, my beloved (Pr 7, 4)’ and to choose her as bride (Ws 8, 2) and this is a source of happiness6.  Source of happiness, this Presence is this when it is welcomed by the constant presence of a loving heart, which draws its nourishment from the Eucharist celebrated, received and contemplated; a presence which remains afterwards without interruption in the midst of the activities of daily life.

o For herself, Mary of the Passion declared: “I do not want any contention that would be mentally upsetting, but I do want a union, or better still, a perpetual communion with my God that nothing can trouble or interrupt. […] Jesus-Sacrament, Jesus-Communion, You will be my strength and my life on this path of love where I no longer desire that I live but that Jesus live in me.7

1 “He speaks to me…” n° 267, 27th January 1888. 2 Meditations, vol. 5 – Feast of Corpus Christi and Saturday within the octave. 3 Ibidem – Saturday in the octave of Corpus Christi. 4 “He speaks to me…” n° 139, 8th May 1891. 5 “He speaks to me...” n° 287, 21st February 1883. 6 Cf. Meditations Vol. 5 – Octave of Corpus Christi. 7 “Where are you leading me?” n°11, 27th January 1888.

56 She sees Jesus praying within her his “tabernacle”1, and enveloping in his prayer, making her his own as on that distant day in January 1861 when, at the foot of the altar, she received her name “Mary Victim of Jesus and of Jesus Crucified”2. o As for the FMM’s, their first Constitutions, which prescribe daily Eucharistic adoration, say in clear words: “Prayer and the presence of God should be the very essence of their lives. They should preserve this union of mind and heart with Our Lord Jesus Christ everywhere and in all their occupations.” (Art.10)  This constant presence is nourished at the foot of the Blessed Sacrament. That is why – and also to cement the profound unity of the community and arouse its missionary radiation – Mary of the Passion desired that before all else the foundresses assured the Eucharistic presence in newly opened houses, whatever might be their material poverty. b - In this Eucharistic life we adore Jesus the son of Mary, together with her and as a continuation of her earthly mission. Mother and model of the Church, she is the one who can best teach the Church the intimacy with Christ which she was the first to live and lived the most perfectly, in faith and love, in fidelity in every trial and in communion of heart. o In this same perspective the first Constitutions present Eucharistic adoration: as an imitation of Mary “in her life of companionship with Our Lord Jesus Christ”. The Customs Book echoes this in stating: “Mary was the inseparable companion of Jesus; from the stable to the cross she had a share in His life and in His sufferings […] Well, to be a Franciscan Missionary of Mary is to continue the mission of Mary, (here on earth) to be the inseparable companion of Jesus”, adoring Him and offering one self as victims with Him “in the name and in the place” of Mary3.

o We could complement this aspect of adoration, by taking other texts into account: if we make adoration “in the name and in the place of Mary”, we do this even more “together with her”, as with the whole Church – of which she is the leader -; and in the name of the whole Church on earth and of all humanity, of which she is and remains the mother. Together with the other adorers, we are like a visible sign of this presence of the Church to Jesus present among us – and a reminder of this duty of presence.

o The continuation of the mission of Mary can have very practical consequences, such as “the care and the love” that they must bring to the maintenance of churches and of the altar, in thinking of the love of Mary in caring in the past for her son and the Son of God4. Francis, in his time, with insistence called his brothers and all Christians to the respect with which the Body and Blood of Christ should be surrounded.

1 “He speaks to me…” n° 7, 9th February 1883. 2 “Where are you leading me?” n° 62, 8th May 1891. 3 First Constitutions, art. 5 – Customs Book I, n° 41. 4 First Constitutions, art. 14.

57 o But we find again in the writings of Mary of the Passion another very Franciscan echo, concerning the Eucharistic presence: it is the memorial, and a continuation throughout the centuries, of the Incarnation of the Word of God: and we owe this to Mary’s disponibility to the Father’s plan. Addressing himself to the entire Order, Francis exhorted: “Listen, my brothers: If the Blessed Virgin is so honoured, as is becoming, because she carried Him in her most holy womb, […] how holy, just and fitting must be he who touches with his hands, receives in his heart and mouth, and offers to others to be received the One Who is not about to die but who is to conquer and be glorified […]”1. For her part, Mary of the Passion wrote: “… Jesus received life from the Immaculate. In them I will always possess life! I cannot separate Mary and Jesus even when I am in adoration before the sacred Host. I do not adore Mary, but I adore Jesus, the Son of Mary, and I come before Him to continue His Mother’s mission, to be with Him a ‘joyful sacrificial offering.2” We can see here an invitation to continue this same mission in the reality, the humility and the intimacy of daily life and of the life of the Church. c - Union with Jesus in the Eucharist, not only links us to Mary and to the Church, but also causes us to enter into the intimacy of God-Trinity For Jesus is “the Way”; He never stops at his own Person, but transmits the Spirit and, together with him, leads us to the Father. His Eucharistic Body, as in the past his earthly body, is the Temple of the Trinity.3

o Mary of the Passion wrote: “Within Himself, infinite Love always possessed the power, the wisdom and the love of the Incarnation and of the Eucharist. […] In these most beautiful works which are the Incarnation and the Eucharist, it is impossible for me not to see the divine movement within itself […] The impossibility of separating the three Persons, of changing their personality and of seeing their existence one without the other, shone brightly in my soul and overwhelmed it with beauty and love. Thence, God seemed to engulf my soul; I saw this eternal love of the Incarnation and of the Eucharist merge as it were, within my soul […] Jesus Incarnate, Jesus in the Eucharist has more than ever my reverential love and the miracle, by which the Blessed Trinity has given me this grace, makes me more than ever the servant of the Incarnate Word4.” o It is through the mystery of the Body of Christ that humanity is “divinised”. The Eternal Wisdom sees that the remedy for the evils of the world is “the Incarnation of the Divinity” and realises this in his Word.

The Incarnation perpetuated by the Eucharist is “the divine essence […] first united to humanity in Jesus and then, through Him to Mary, and finally to all of us […] it is heaven upon earth5”. d - And so we can understand why Mary of the Passion “had such an inclination to adoration and to the contemplation” of the Trinity with a “passion of gratitude” entering into this great concert of praise, glorification, and of thanksgiving of which, according to its name, the Eucharist is the centre6. Francis knew this well for he inserted into the heart of his First Rule, in Chapter 23, a great “Eucharistic” prayer of thanksgiving.

1 A Letter to the entire Order, vv. 21-22. 2 “He speaks to me…” n° 262, 30th May 1883. 3 Cf. Jn 2, 21 4 “He speaks to me…” n° 12, 27th March 1884. 5 Ibidem n° 13, 17th April 1884. 6 “He speaks to me…” n° 95, 29th January 1884.

58 o For Mary of the Passion “the supreme thanksgiving of a Franciscan Missionary of Mary is Adoration” where, like her, she is called to sing a canticle of thanksgiving, because Jesus Himself, in instituting the Eucharist, “gave thanks to his Father and after the Last Supper, […] addressed to Him a canticle of thanksgiving.” 1 For the Institute, it is a common work which unites us in joy in an unceasing choir, around “the Lamb standing as it were slain (Rv 5, 6)”.2

3.2 - Transforming Adoration . Eucharistic adoration is not passive. It is an action. And a reciprocal action. - For our part, as we have just seen, it is a loving presence and a concert of thanksgiving - As for the Risen Christ of our adorations, he is living more than ever, and, as he promised before going back up to his Father, he does not cease to give us the life-giving and transforming Spirit3. It is for us to receive his action within us, and to receive it for the world. a - In the Eucharist, Mary of the Passion contemplates the total submission of the Incarnate Word and of his Mother to the will of the Father, illustrated by the angel’s words to Joseph: “Take the Child and his Mother”. - She admires therein “Love’s freedom with his creature, unimpeded by the human will because it adores its God. - She wishes to tend towards this, for “To adore is to render love to love”4. b - The condition for attaining this quality of love, is death to all that is not the One we love, and abandonment into his hands. o It is the opposite of “self-love”, which is a misnomer, for it is not a question of love but “self-idolatry”; it is making oneself into an idol. To be healed of this idolatry, of this selfishness which is eating into the world, in order to open oneself to love, is the fundamental spiritual combat; it is that of Mary of the Passion: “I have a great desire that God alone should be the object of my adoration and that the ego should no longer offer any resistance because it no longer adores itself.”5 o If selfishness is the contrary of love, it is because love is essentially the gift of oneself to the beloved. “God gave His Son to all, and He did so through love.” In return “[…] I offer you my feet, that is, all my works; my hands, all my labour; my head, my whole mind; my heart, all my love”6. This gift of self is always an on-going process, and it is only possible because love is reciprocal; God is the one who first gives himself.

1 Meditations, Vol. 5 – Octave of Corpus Christi. 2 Ibidem. 3 Cf. Lk 24, 29. 4 “He speaks to me…” n° 95, 29th January 1884. 5 Ibidem. 6 “He speaks to me …” n° 104, 25th August 1882, and n° 107, 2nd August 1883.

59 “The more [a faithful soul] has received, the more she can give, since she sees God’s will more clearly. His will is nothing other than truth and love7.”

o The light which guides her in this combat is the contemplation of the God who is Love, the Trinity: “I was seized by a passion of gratitude at the thought that love had given me such an inclination to adoration and to the contemplation of my Triune God” Mary of the Passion also said: “That which is precious is love, truth, beauty! That which is vile is the idolatry of human nature, it is the ego. I again see this beautiful Trinity Love, our life, through creation, since we are made in the image of divine love, of God. […] To love oneself selfishly is not true love of self. It is the “false worship of a monstrous idol to the detriment of God’s love, in which are found all true loves. […] In destroying the idol to render worship to the Master […] this is humility […] My resolution is to apply myself to this work2.” And if the combat is a source of suffering, the Holy Spirit is the light and strength to assume it: “‘ Light immortal, light divine, visit thou these hearts of thine and our inmost being fill’ Most blessed Light, enlighten me, make me love as Jesus loves, so that I may know how to suffer as Jesus did. In order to suffer, one must have the strength of love, a strength that takes possession of the heart’s inmost depths… O strength that raises us to plunge us into the supernatural! O blessed light which guides the soul into the joy of truth and charity! Be my strength and my light!3.” o Love goes in search of what pleases the beloved “Speak, Lord, and make your servant hear. I showed Love my desire to please Him and I begged Him to reveal His holy will to me, telling Him that He knew I had only one desire: to accomplish His will4.” “I am firmly resolved to do my very best so that everything I do and think will have a goal and that this goal will always be the love of Jesus5.” When one truly loves, this seeking goes on even when one does not explicitly think about it. “I want to live more and more in my God’s presence6.” o To know this will is again a gift of God to which we aspire: “Give me, Lord, the light to see Your divine will and the love to accomplish it […].When I was making this meditation, I found that I was asking for the truth of charity and the charity of truth. I begged insistently that love would desire only God’s will in me. I besought Him not to listen when I asked for anything else7.” o The Eucharist is the strength which nourishes this love “Jesus in the Sacrament, Jesus in communion, you will be my strength and my life in this path of love where it will no longer be I who live but Jesus who lives in me8.” o The reflection of this love here on earth is the Holy Family, the place of the incarnation of the Word and the model for the Franciscan family9. o “ ‘ Take the child and His Mother: Love’s freedom with His creature, unimpeded by the human will because it adores its God – how I desire to attain it. My resolution is to tend towards this… To adore is to render love to love.”10

7 Ibidem, n° 63, 12th July 1883. 2 “He speaks to me…” n° 95, 29th January 1884 and n° 52, 28th December 1883. 3 Ibidem n° 17, 26th May 1903. 4 Ibidem n° 35, 14th December 1886. 5 Ibidem n° 21, 25th May 1886. 6 Ibidem n° 144, 23rd February 1885. 7 Ibidem n° 62, 9th May 1883. 8 Ibidem n° 267, 27th January 1888. 9 Ibidem n°284, 19th December 1885. 10 He Speaks to me... n° 95, 29th January 1884.

60 c - To love in this way is to become for one’s whole life: adoration, communion, thanksgiving. o It is to assert a heritage that we share with others: “The truth is that we are called to Love, and that He is always with us and all that He has is given to us. Everything is there. – I see God within me in an irresistible way. How I would like to make this presence ever greater; this depends on me. – I will also try to see that my daughters have a large share in this paternal heritage and for that I will be the mother of souls whose heavenly Father is my heavenly Father. I will do all I can so that even the most miserable will understand and will return the love of their divine Father. I will remember that love makes itself understood only by love1”. o It is a gift of God, and the fruit of our love, not of our efforts: “ I do not want any contention that would be mentally upsetting, but I do want a union, or better still, a perpetual communion with my God that nothing can trouble or interrupt2”. - Here we come back to the prayer of Francis, who said to his brothers in a text mostly devoted to the humble presence of Christ in the consecrated Bread and Wine: “The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself that for our salvation He hides himself under an ordinary piece of bread. Brothers, look at the humility of God and pour out your hearts before Him! (Ps 62, 9). Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him! Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally3 “. (Let us note in passing how clearly these lines show that, for Francis, humility and poverty make one unity, and so give their true meaning) - We also connect up with the great tradition of oriental prayer: The Jesus Prayer, the Philokalia of the heart, which leads to harmonizing one’s whole being, even one’s breathing, with the Being of God. His Presence underlies all that we do and becomes like one’s second nature. o Mary of the Passion expresses this in a prayer which bears the mark of her profound Eucharistic orientation: “Communion, this word fills me: Jesus consumed in me and for me, consume me in Yourself and for Yourself and may my whole life be a Eucharistic communion4.”

They are the beginnings of eternal communion with God, the bliss of Heaven already begun here on earth5.

d - We should not look elsewhere for the signification of what we used to call: “victimhood” If we understand well what is abandonment into the hands of God, Mary of the Passion tells us, we shall arrive at Eucharistic union, which will “allow [us] to say: ‘I have within me the prayer to the God of my life’” because we shall be his tabernacle6.

1 “Where are you leading me?” n° 18, 29th January 1888. 2 Ibidem n° 11, 27th January 1888 (text already quoted in 3.1. a.) 3 A letter to the Entire Order, n° 27-29. 4 “Where are you leading me?” n° 64, 9th May 1891. 5 Cf. Meditations Vol. 5 – Octave of Corpus Christi. 6 Cf. “He speaks to me…” n° 139, 8h May 1891.

61 e - Thus, Eucharistic Presence and adoration are a force for the transformation of the world, of efficacious struggle against the Evil which seeks to invade it. - Those who, continuing the mission of Mary, offer their life together with Jesus in his Eucharist and adore him wherever they go, could not therefore be surprised to encounter struggles and trials on the part of those forces of Evil from which they themselves have had to suffer. They “make up in their body all that has still to be undergone by Christ1”. - But they know that he has already “conquered the world,” “seeking their strength in faith, hope and charity, the Sacraments and particularly in Holy Communion”, the bread of the strong2.

3.3 - Missionary adoration In union with Jesus offering himself to the Father for the Church and for the world, it is especially at the key-moments of Mass and adoration that we, too, shall offer our lives – together with Mary, and in the name of all our Sisters, within the Church3 – especially for those who have most need of our intercession4. a - For Mother Foundress, there is no gap between Eucharistic adoration and apostolic activity “They have no wine” Jn 2, 3 She wrote in Article 7 of the Constitutions (manner of life): “As the Blessed Virgin divided her life between prayer and work, so the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary embrace like her the mixed life. At the same time contemplative and active, they seek in prayer a blessing on the apostolate, and in the apostolate the objective of their prayer.” o At Adoration, Mary of the Passion sees us “in the chief glory of our vocation” 5 (in today’s language we would say “a key moment”). We are there as “another Esther” – figure of Mary and of the Church – interceding for our people before the King and able to obtain much for them, if we are “loving and faithful”.6 o But at the same time, in her words, the constant presence to the Presence of the Lord becomes itinerancy: ‘to carry Nazareth with us everywhere’: “and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage.” Mt 2, 11 “After they had left, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said ‘Get up take the child and his mother with you […] So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, left that night for Egypt.” Mt 2, 13-14 As once Mary had to leave her own town to bring Jesus into the world far from her own home, and to present him for the adoration of the Magi, and then carry him into exile, in the same way adoration “sends us to our brothers and sisters”: “To be full of charity for my neighbour, since the God of charity is always in my heart. I want to live in Nazareth and carry my treasure with me no matter what happens or where I go”.7

1 Cf. Col 1, 24. 2 First Constitutions, Art. 5 – Adoration – Customs Book 1 – Feast of Corpus Christi, Directory. 3 Cf. “Where are you leading me?” n° 11, 27th January 1888. – “He speaks to me…” n° 266, 5th December 1886. 4 Cf, First Constitutions Art. 5 – Adoration. 5 Cf. Customs Book 1 – Adoration. 6 Ibidem 7 “He speaks to me” 273, 7th August 1883.

62 “I cannot tell you how I felt the breath of the Incarnation passing over me. It was love desiring to become incarnate in my look, in my words, in my actions, in my whole being. Yes, God wishes to breathe forth himself through us!”1 b - Then we no longer look at the world with the same superficial look o We discover God present there, as in ourselves, and we love it with the love with which He loves it: “If I possess, if I see, and if I love God within me, I will be consumed by the desire that He be, that I see Him and that I love Him in all creatures. After all, this is the desire for heaven, and it is in us by grace”.2 o We desire that all may participate in this “heaven on earth” “Love is always truth, truth is always love […] On earth, to separate oneself from charity is to separate oneself from truth, to separate oneself from truth is to separate oneself from charity. It is also to be separated from the knowledge of Jesus who is truth and charity on earth. The Gospel! Francis! Truth and Charity! O, that I could invite the whole world to understand you!3” “God gave His Son to all, and He did so through love. In return, I would like to give Him the love of all. He shall have mine, cost what it may, and my desires will pursue souls, even though I must suffer the Passion. – The Passion is love driven to its uttermost limits”.4 c - Bringing adoration of the Eucharist everywhere is a mission of peace o It is in fact to prepare oneself for “war”, that of the “warriors of Mary, the woman of true power, that of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit, that of the Gospel of Truth and of Charity. For “their war is a war of love , and their mission a mission of peace, like that of Mary Immaculate their Mother”.5 They are called to “carry the adoration of peace to all the nations of the earth”.6 o But it is not sufficient to carry Eucharistic adoration to the four corners of the earth. Still more we must glorify the Father and raise up adorers for him. This is indeed the aim of the mission of the Church, as of that of Jesus. “You direct and You judge everything on earth; may all hearts understand and bow before You, adore and serve You”.7 o Not all will go as far as entering the door of the Church to adore the Eucharist there; but numerous are those who will profit from his radiation in us and through us, and who will glorify the Lord in an upright and peaceful heart. “The great missionary of the Institute is Jesus exposed and adored. We have not sufficiently understood the power of the Eucharist and of prayer joined to action for the conversion of people […]. We will do the missions in Mary’s way: through Jesus”8, the perfect adorer of the Father.

Conclusion

1 Ibidem n° 4, 9th November 1884. 2 Ibidem, n° 28, 1st September 1882. 3 Ibidem n° 14, 8th February 1883. 4 Ibidem n° 104, 25th August 1882. 5 “Where are you leading me?” n° 20, 30th January 1888. 6 Ibidem n° 52, 17th December 1888. 7 Ibidem 8 Ibidem n° 55, 18th December 1888.

63 Rapidly, we have tried to evoke the richness of the different aspects of Eucharistic adoration, in the vision of Mary of the Passion. In a few words, brought together here are the main lines of the discoveries we have made: - We have seen the great importance which she attached to the sacramental presence among us of the Incarnate Word; - And to the “Marian” presence which on our part, should respond to this in a spirit of loving offering and of adoration. - What makes this possible for us, is the transformation worked within us by the very Presence of Jesus Eucharist; - A presence radiating his Spirit, which purifies us, leads us into deep communion and draws us into their common mission, at the service of the return of the world towards the Father. We shall end this part on the meaning, in the writings of Mary of the Passion, ‘of contemplative, transforming and missionary Eucharistic adoration, by making some prayers our own. First, the one which, meditating on Psalm 28, she addressed to God after having invited her daughters to go throughout the world to adore Jesus present in the Eucharist and to call the peoples to glorify the Lord: “Make my heart and the Institute a flame of fire enkindling the earth”.1

As for Francis, he, in the concluding prayer of his “Letter to the Entire Order”, almost totally consecrated to the Eucharist, states precisely what this fire is and what is its action within us: “Almighty, eternal, just and merciful God, give us miserable ones the grace to do for You alone what we know You want us to do and always to desire what pleases You. Inwardly cleansed, interiorly enlightened and inflamed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, may we be able to follow in the footsteps of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ and, by Your grace alone, may we make our way to You, Most High, Who live and rule in perfect Trinity and simple Unity, and are glorified God almighty, for ever and ever. Amen” (vv 50-52). - Finally, we could unite ourselves to the prayer of Mary of the Passion, in which she asks to become with Christ, by her whole life, a contagious praise of thanksgiving to the glory of the Father: “ My hidden God, I adore You. You are there in the Eucharist, man and God, and if I corresponded at last to your grace, I would unite my humanity to yours, I would even unite it to your divinity and I would share in all your attributes. O, overwhelming mystery of love! United to the All-Powerful, how great would be my power for your glory, O my God, for the Church, the Order, and souls! I feel You want me to have this power of which I catch a glimpse. United to the Eternal, how constant I would be in my love, my resolutions, my affections, my enterprises, in everything. United to Infinite Immensity, what greatness, what magnitude would take possession of all that I am and of all that I do. United to God All-Holy, I will make holiness bear fruit in me and I will throw off everything contrary to it. United to Infinite Wisdom, It will trace out my paths and I will cease intermingling my human thoughts with this Wisdom. United to Infinite Goodness, I will be gentle and good towards God, towards all, towards myself, with a goodness that will be His. United to Infinite Patience, my abandonment to love will be perfect. 1 “Where are you leading me?” n° 55, 18th December 1888.

64 United to Infinite Justice, I will be truth in all things. United to Infinite Mercy, I will be Mother, with a supernatural maternity for all souls and for all causes. In union with God, Host of Love, I will be a victim of love. My Lord and my God, I adore You. Say to me also ‘Place your hand in my side’. More than my hand, Lord. May I enter into Your divine Being, through the Eucharist, and never withdraw from there”.1

4 - THE INSTITUTE AND THE EUCHARIST TODAY

The basic orientations are indeed those given by Mary of the Passion; but they have been enriched by the theological and liturgical contribution of Vatican II which in particular, on the one hand re-asserted the active participation of the faithful in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice and linked more closely to this the practice of adoration, and on the other hand insisted on the link between the Word and the Bread in the Eucharist. a - This enrichment can be verified first of all in the Constitutions re-written in 1978 and revised in 2008.

N.B. In the comparison with those of today, we have to remember that, in order to be officially approved, the old Constitutions had to obey a canonical outline consisting principally of rules of outward observance (very accentuated) and only a few general spiritual orientations. The latter were more developed in the Directories of the Customs Books which moreover gave even more details about the outward observances. o 1 st Chapter - ‘Aim and Spirit of the Institute’ – is a bit like a summary of our vocation, the details of which will be developed in the following chapters. – The first article already situates the whole content in the perspective of Franciscan spirituality, rooted in faith in the God of Love who wants all to be saved. – Article 2 gives the unifying sense of our charism (nourished by this spirituality), its “heart”: to commune, in Mary’s way, in the Ecce and the Fiat of the Word for the salvation of the world. – The other articles of this chapter are then going to briefly present its practical realisations in the various aspects of our life, - beginning with that of our relationship with God – or the contemplative aspect – rooted in the Eucharist for this is precisely “the actualisation” of this salvation willed by the Father, and accomplished definitively by the Word the son of Mary, through his life, his death and his Resurrection.

- The Eucharist is the theme of Article 3. Straightaway, it denotes this as the ‘actualisation of the mystery of salvation’ and without separating them it mentions celebration and adoration; together they are ‘the contemplative and missionary dynamism of our whole life’; a dynamism described as ‘a sending out to our brothers and sisters’, ‘the discovery of his hidden presence in them’ who in their turn, ‘send us back to the contemplation of Christ’.2

A little further on, as a reminder, article 6 shows the importance for the unity of fraternal life to be built up “in faith, around Christ, Word and Bread”.

1 “He speaks to me…” n° 134, 28th January 1888. 2 Cf. After the title of IVa this article is quoted in its entirety.

65 N.B. The other chapters – with the exception of the 6th which concerns Government and administration – will take up in detail one or other of these orientations showing how the Eucharist “(the way the Risen Jesus has chosen so that) the Lord is always with His faithful, as He Himself says: Behold I am with you until the end of the age”. (1st Admonition, 22) Chapter II, concerning prayer life, speaks at length about the Eucharist; Chapters III to V, obviously speak much less. But the allusions to it, which they do not fail to make, show the influence which it has on all the aspects of our existence. o Chapter II, (article 8) presents our ‘Prayer Life’ as the work “in the depths of our being [of] the Spirit of the Son [who] continually cries Abba, Father! (Ga 4, 6) as he does in Jesus. That is why the chapter closes with a very Franciscan desire: “Like Francis, we desire above all else to possess the Spirit of the Lord” (article 11). This life of God-Trinity within us, brings us out of our egocentricism, and “invites us to enter into communion with him, and in him, with our brothers and sisters. In welcoming his presence our life becomes prayer”, something very different from simply a devotion. It is a question of a life, of an interpersonal encounter in faith and love. Offered freely to us to welcome, it however goes beyond our human weakness. And it is again the Spirit of the Lord who, in his Church gives us the efficacious means, particularly the sacraments at the head of which is the encounter with the Risen Lord in the Word, the Bread and the Wine: “The Eucharist is the centre of our life” article 9 tells us and it adds: “Our participation in Christ’s sacrifice, prolonged in Eucharistic adoration, permeates our whole existence with praise, offering and intercession.” - She who, as ‘the first disciple’ lived this life of intimacy with the Lord, is our shining example: “Mary, marvelling at God’s gratuitous gift, attentive to listen to the Word and keep it, open to the needs of others so as to bring them to her Son, is the inspiration for our life of prayer”1(article 10) - An existence vowed to Mission through “contemplation in action” has need for intensive times of prayer to be fixed. This is what the same chapter does in the norms of articles 14 and 16 which indicate their rhythm while taking into account the realities of commitment: “Participate daily in the Eucharist; in the case of impossibility, substitute liturgical celebrations centred on the Word and the Bread.” Set aside one and a half hours each day for personal prayer and Eucharistic adoration

- Three articles of the Complementary Code add a few practical precisions, to the chapter on Prayer Life: c. 1 - Today very often, for various reasons, we participate daily in the Eucharist outside our house. In order to be able to build up and maintain our unity, each community is to put into its programme celebrations of the Eucharist at home, with a regular rhythm: “The community fixes the days when all come together for the celebration of the Eucharist which is an intensive moment of our life in fraternity (cf. Art. 14).”

1 Cf. Constitutions of 1896, 8, 4.

66 c. 2 - Does Eucharistic adoration necessitate the Exposition of the Consecrated Bread, or can it be made just as validly before the Tabernacle, as is the practice of other congregations? – Here again, the answer is both clear and flexible: “ Eucharistic adoration is made before the Blessed Sacrament exposed. For sufficient reasons it is permitted not to expose the Blessed Sacrament (cf. Art. 16).” It is evident that each of the two practices is as valid as the other from the spiritual point of view. Exposition is a help, a graphic visible support to “call to mind”, to maintain attention and prayer, to manifest faith, love and respect towards the Real Presence, to cement the unity of the community around it, etc. Since the beginning it has been one of our distinctive signs and a sign of our fraternal community throughout the world. The “sufficient reasons”, to be discerned, depend on situations. c. 3 - The spiritual richness of a Eucharistic life is not to be kept to ourselves, even as a community; and that is why: “In taking part in the prayer of the Christian community, we seek to intensify its Eucharistic life”.

o In Chapter III on ‘Community Life’, Article 23 of the Norms retains among the “characteristics that are essential” permitting our FMM communities to be identified, notwithstanding the “diversity of our life-styles”: “Eucharistic presence”

o Chapter IV dedicated to ‘Mission’, presents - On the one hand (Article 35) “the Eucharist” as the source from which we draw “our apostolic dynamism” - And on the other (Article 38) “the Eucharistic presence” as one of the principal aspects of the silent witness of our fraternities: “our first form of evangelisation and, at times, the only one that is possible”.

o Chapter V, dealing with Religious Profession, shows the importance (Article 78) that “our free response is rooted in our personal relationship with God1 which is deepened by an intense contemplative and Eucharistic life”. And at the time of our perpetual profession (Article 88) each of us “dedicates (herself) to Eucharistic adoration”. b - The successive messages of the General Chapters from 1978 to 2008 are each time the fruit of a review of life of the whole Institute on one or other aspect of our charism, accompanied by a reflection to draw out orientations in view of the following period and the choices to be made.

N.B. Let us note in passing that these Chapters at every level, inviting a fraternal participation from which no-one is excluded, are a distant inheritance from Francis. Returning from Rome with his first companions where the Pope had approved his first Rule made up of passages from the Gospel (1209), they spoke among themselves about the best means of applying it; and thereafter 2, he instituted the annual meeting of the Provincial Ministers at St. Mary of the Angels at Pentecost, and he recommended that of all the Brothers around their own Provincial Minister, for each one is the bearer of the Holy Spirit who inspires whoever he wishes.

1 Cf. Constitutions of 1896, Art. 46. 2 Cf. 1st Rule.

67 As for our own General Chapters, those which followed the re-writing of our Constitutions, we shall now pause a little to consider what they have to say to us about our Eucharistic vocation. But to begin with, it is perhaps useful to recall their principal themes:

- “Let us continue our journey – Our mission as F.M.M. today and tomorrow” : “as an evangelising community dedicated to universal mission in a specific way in the Church” (1984). - “Eucharist source of a new impetus”, “for our prophetic response in the world journeying towards the year 2000” (1990) - “Universal Mission: an adventure in communion at the service of life and hope” (1996) - “Disciples sent in universal mission in the world of today” , “rekindling the gift of God” (2002) - “Return to the Franciscan sources”, “discover again how to see from a lowly place” (2008)

- We can note that on the whole it is a question of a continuous “progression” as a Franciscan evangelising fraternity, dedicated within the Church to universal mission, - a fraternity tending towards a constant updating in space and time, of a response which it would always wish to see better, to the common call more clearly perceived. o The first general chapter following the re-writing of the Constitutions (1984), after six years of experience, explains this aspiration at length. A number of its orientations and its choices, which are still valid today, will be explored in depth and given greater precision by the following chapters, with the advances necessitated by the passage of time. But we inevitably notice that the lucid description of the state of the world then, with its lights and shadows, has not fundamentally changed either, but only the contrasts have become more accentuated.

The goal to which the evangelising community tends is found in the Conclusion: “In a world thirsting for life and searching for its meaning, […] which struggles to save life […and] where life has already triumphed in Christ’s victory over death, we wish to witness to the hope that is within us, by offering our lives joyfully, like Mary, in praise and service, and looking at the universe in the light of the Kingdom already among us and still to come.”  But the community will only become evangelising, in conformity to Christ present in the Eucharist: “EVANGELISING COMMUNITY. Authentic community is in itself an evangeliser, and sign of the Kingdom. It calls us to contemplate Christ in the Eucharist anew each day; He is the source of our communion and missionary dynamism. […]”  The whole message concludes with an invitation to continue on the way in the paschal joy of Jesus in the Eucharist:

“Let us continue our journey with faith, as we celebrate life in the Eucharist, today and tomorrow”.

o The message of 1990, born of a review of the life of the Institute, and noticing a too frequent incoherence between what we promise and what we live, on meditating on the episode of the disciples of Emmaus (Lk 24, 13-35) proposes to us to take up a new impetus beginning from the Eucharist. It is on this condition that our presence in the world can have a prophetic impact (which is the distinguishing feature of religious commitment).  Four needs of improvement then make themselves particularly felt: those of unity of life, of radicality, of communion and of minority. In order to respond to this need:

68 “we must invent new ways of once more situating the Eucharist at the centre of our life”: - In order that “our whole life [may] become Eucharist celebrated, adored, lived, […] commit ourselves personally and as community to an ongoing process of growth centred on the Eucharist […]” - In order that “our ‘passion for the Eucharist’ [may] commit us to a radical offering of ourselves, and in order to give ourselves totally to the Father, following the example of Jesus, allow the Eucharist to affect deeply our options as consecrated women, our lifestyle and commitments.” - In order that “our community, gathered around Christ, Word and Bread, [may] become authentic communion, a joyful, and credible sign of the Kingdom […] allow ourselves to be seized by the power of love which Christ gives us in the Eucharist.” - In order that “our missionary service [may] draw from the Eucharist a new dynamism for the transformation of the world in a Franciscan spirit, […] renew our Eucharistic life by an ongoing process of deepening our Franciscan vision of life.”

 This last orientation is supported by the account of the Last Supper in Jn 13, 14: “If I, then, the Lord and Master have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet” a text not often quoted; but intimately linking the theme of the self-emptying of the Word in the Eucharist with those of minority, of service and of fraternity, it was to come back in 2008 as the basis for reflection on the deepening of our Franciscan vocation. o The Chapter members of 1996, basing themselves on elements of the replies sent by all the provinces, stated precisely what the “universal mission” is for us today, within a Church where this notion has much evolved.

 Article 2 of the final message, presenting our vocation as a “gift from God”, showed very clearly to what Marian following of Christ fundamentally committed us, and what were the missionary, contemplative and oblative consequences: “[…] This gift invites each one to participate in the offering of Christ. We live this offering, like Mary, in a complete and joyous disponibility, ready to go wherever we are sent, with Eucharistic contemplation at the heart of our mission”.

 One of the fruits of this Eucharistic contemplation, is to help us to live “communion” among ourselves and to work to spread it throughout the world (this was one of the practical orientations of the Chapter); - Another of its fruits is “living justice as artisans of peace”, which “is [...] committing us with Christ, bread broken and shared, to the transformation of the world […and] its unjust structures”.

o The message of 2002 did not include any allusion to the Eucharist. We can however sense it as underlying, when it asked of us as “Gospel women […] disciples of Christ sent in universal mission in the world of today” to “revitalise our encounter with Jesus Christ” or again, to “announce communion” through our fraternal life in the diversity of our cultures.

o The Chapter of 2008 – the year in which began preparation for the whole Franciscan Family for the celebrations of the 8th Centenary of its birth – asked us to commit ourselves more resolutely in the way of minority, rooted in the humility of God manifested in the mystery of the Incarnation, and illustrated very specially during the Last Supper by the Washing of the feet: “ This minority gives a special Franciscan colour and flavour to our following of Christ; it is our way of living mission with the One who washes other’s feet, offering himself that all may know the fullness of life.” (Introduction)

69 - The words of conclusion are left to Francis, in his “Letter to the Entire Order” (n° 27- 29) “O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the Universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles himself that for our salvation He hides himself under an ordinary piece of bread! Look, brothers, at the humility of God and pour out your hearts before Him. (cf. Ps 61, 9). Humble yourselves, as well, that you may be exalted by Him. Therefore, hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves so that He who gives himself totally to you may receive you totally.”

 POINTS FOR REFLECTION At the end of this section consecrated to the celebration of the Eucharist, continued in adoration, we could ask ourselves: - What does this effectively mean for us in our religious lives dedicated to universal mission? - What means do we take to deepen our understanding of this mystery so as to live it better? - How do we ensure, personally and as a community, the essential but difficult balance between our life of prayer and our active missionary life, which leads to choices and renunciations?

70 IV b – SENDING to universal MISSION in international and intercultural fraternal communities

“Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so am I sending you. After saying this he breathed on them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.” Jn 20, 21-22

“As missionaries1, ready to go anywhere and to anyone to announce the Good News of salvation, we are sent in priority to those to whom Christ has not yet been revealed2 and to those among whom the Church is least present, giving preference to the poorest.” Const. Ch 1, Art. 4 We realize our vocation within the Franciscan way3, living the Gospel in the midst of the world and following in the steps of the poor and humble Christ4, in simplicity, peace and joy.” Const. Ch 1, Art. 5 

- The General Chapter of 2002 had asked Sr. Christiane and her Council to have a Mission Handbook prepared, specially destined to serve as formation for universal mission according to our charism. A team was given this responsibility and the handbook, which was presented to the following Chapter (2008), is now at the disposition of all the provinces. It is very complete, it sets out the foundations of mission which are still valid today, its practice in the Church and its evolution in time; the statement of what it is today; its varied realizations according to the continents. Then it presents our essentially missionary charism, dedicated to universal mission, with its particular spirituality and its practical demands, especially that of complete disponibility. Finally, it gives orientations for formation to universal mission. We could not over recommend its study.

- Here we would simply like to pursue the reflection on our charism under its particular missionary aspect, and try to see how, in its place, it is among others a gift to the Church for mission. We shall follow the following path: 1 - Mission and particular charism: what the Church says about this. 2 - Our particular way of witnessing to Christ. 3 - Our missionary choices today. 4 -Two of these priorities merit that we pause over them.

1 - MISSION AND PARTICULAR CHARISM: WHAT THE CHURCH SAYS ABOUT THIS

We now come to the 3rd domain of the incarnation of the Gospel message entrusted to our charism, and which with the two others identifies us within the Franciscan family: that of the apostolate. Fundamentally, and right from the beginning, our apostolic aim is universal mission. Let us begin by calling to mind what we heard several times from Pope John Paul II, especially on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Year 2000: the whole Church is missionary; each person baptized into the death and Resurrection of Christ, bears with all other Christians

1 Cf. 1st Constitutions, Art. 2. 2 Idem Art. 86. 3 Idem Art. 2, 3. 4 I Reg. 9.

71 the responsibility for the mission of the Church: to witness in the world to the God of Jesus Christ. And every consecrated life is called to this in a more particular way.

And so, when we are asked about the apostolic specificity of our Institute, and we respond “Mission”, even if this is exact, we feel ourselves a bit lost… Today mission is everywhere, and all are missionaries. Yet, if we were to have some fixed activity, or a geographical area to evangelise! But no: we are for “universal mission”… a - We are going to begin by revisiting what was said about it in “Vita Consecrata”, the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation following the Ordinary Synod of Bishops (1994). This will no doubt allow us to see a little more clearly.

o From Chapter III: “Consecrated Life: manifestation of God’s love in the world” “Consecrated for mission” n° 72:  “In the image of Jesus, the beloved Son ‘whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world’ (Jn 10, 36) , those whom God calls to follow him are also consecrated and sent into the world to imitate his example and to continue his mission. Fundamentally, this is true of every disciple.  In a special way, however, it is true of those who, in the manner that characterizes the consecrated life, are called to follow Christ ‘more closely’, and to make him the ‘all’ of their lives. The task of devoting themselves wholly to ‘mission’ is therefore included in their call; indeed by the action of the Holy Spirit who is at the origin of every vocation and charism, consecrated life itself is a mission, as was the whole of Jesus’ life. […]  Indeed, more than in external works, the mission consists in making Christ present to the world through personal witness. This is the challenge, this is the primary task of the consecrated life! The more consecrated persons allow themselves to be conformed to Christ, the more Christ is made present and active in the world for the salvation of all. Thus it can be said that consecrated persons are ‘in mission’ by virtue of their very consecration, to which they bear witness in accordance with the ideal of their Institute. […]  Religious life, moreover, continues the mission of Christ with another feature specifically its own: fraternal life in community for the sake of the mission. Thus, men and women religious will be all the more committed to the apostolate the more personal their dedication to the Lord Jesus is, the more fraternal their community life, and the more ardent their involvement in the Institute’s specific mission.”

o Let us rapidly analyse what is said to us, over and above this text, by those which follow and which may be of interest to us or throw light for us on:

 All Institutes

It seems that here the term “mission” is used in the general sense of “apostolate”. In fact, these two words originally had the same signification, that of “sending”. The “apostle”, the “missionary” are sent as Jesus was sent into the world by the Father, to bring it the Good News of his Love. These terms can in fact be applied to every baptized person.

However, a little further on (cf. n° 76-83) this same document invites religious Institutes as such to go to non-Christian countries, and to participate in the mission of the Church called “ad gentes”; or to young local Churches to help them in their development; or again to Christians of other denominations, in view of ecumenical dialogue; to groups of non- believers, or those who are no longer living their Christian faith (“new evangelization”); etc.

 The missionary Institutes

72 All congregations are invited to come out from inside their walls – whether it be in their own country or elsewhere - to go and exercise their ministry “also” among “others”, those whose faith in Christ is recent or inexistent; however, it remains clear that missionary institutes like ours, have as their specific vocation to work in these fields of apostolate. There they may have to commit themselves in various forms of activity, at the service of evangelization or of simple Christian witness, among other believers or non-believers. That is why, as Institutes, they are not specialized in one or other form of activities, but they must have a preparation for “mission” understood in this more precise sense which in some ways is broader.  Specificity: “Universal Mission” Among these “missionary Institutes” and according to the respective charisms of their congregation, many have as their field of mission a country, a continent or a particular social group. Like some other founders and foundresses, from the beginning Mary of the Passion firmly rooted the Institute in “universal mission”, without specifying any country or human group. As we know by experience this has numerous practical consequences for the life of the Institute as a whole, and for our personal lives. This is not the place to spell them out or to debate them. But we can already find there a first response to our question at the beginning: “How can we say that ‘mission’ is our apostolic specificity, if every baptized person and every religious Institute is missionary?”: mission is not for us an extra apostolic aim or one that is beside another, but “the” specific aim: and our field of action is “universal mission”. b - However, we must give further precision, if we wish to be clearer about our particular identity among the other missionary congregations, to better accomplish what the Church has the right to expect from us, and, as an Institute, be for her “a specific gift in view of mission”, in complementarity with others. In n° 72 of “Vita Consecrata” we have just now read: “consecrated persons are “in mission” by virtue of their very consecration, to which they bear witness in accordance with the ideal of their Institute”. This “ideal” is what we call its charism.

2 - OUR PARTICULAR WAY OF WITNESSING TO CHRIST

This reminder of what is the essential of mission for all the baptized, of the particular contribution of religious life to mission, and of the importance of the charism – a particular way of witnessing to Christ and making him present – refers us back to our charism “a specific gift to the Church for mission”.

This again invites us to meditate on our name. What we bring that is special is synthetised in the two people to which it refers.

- Following the spiritual vision of Francis and in the evangelical way traced out by him, - we are the “Missionaries of Mary”. a - Following the spiritual vision of Francis and in the evangelical way traced out by him..

73 “They handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written: The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour. He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down […]. Then he began to speak to them, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen’.” Lk 4. 17-21

o Mission springs from contemplation, and not the contrary. What is important is the message that passes through the missionary activity; the latter is at the service of the message, transmitted by the Gospel. “And after the Lord gave me some brothers, no one showed me what I had to do, but the Most High Himself revealed to me that I should live according to the pattern of the Gospel. And I had this written down simply and in a few words and the Lord Pope confirmed it for me.” (Testament of St. Francis 14-15) With the whole family of Francis, our first contribution to the mission is called to be that of a life of contemplation and of personal relationship with a God who is Trinity, a communion of Love, who creates and saves the world through love.

Francis’ vision of faith is therefore before all else that of God Trinity – Love: the Most High Father, the Totally Other, who became at the same time the Totally near through his Son, who, lowering himself, made himself one of us, the son of Mary, and espoused the poverty of our human nature (“kenosis” of the Incarnation); who went as far as to die for us – who remains among us in the Eucharist, - and gave us the gift of his Holy Spirit, so that, drawn into his resurrection, we should become with him children of the Father.

The Franciscan mission in its original springing to birth, consists above all in revealing this Face of God-Love who loves us and wishes to communicate his life to us. In the same movement, it reveals the true face of the human being, “reborn” in the Spirit in the likeness of Christ: living the Gospel “without gloss”, - being and possessing nothing, but receiving oneself and receiving all from the Father, and rendering him all praise and all glory (humility, poverty, minority) – ready to sacrifice oneself for love of one’s brothers and sisters, - reconciled with God, with oneself, with “the other” and with all creation – as universal brother or sister.

“Let us refer all good to the Lord, God Almighty and Most High, acknowledge that every good is His, and thank Him, ‘from Whom all good comes for everything.’” (The 1st Rule XVII, 17)

o With that of the whole Franciscan family, our missionary proclamation is made primarily through life-witness: the Gospel lived, in dialogue, “among” people; and only afterwards, if and when the Spirit inspires this, through the spoken word (teaching or preaching)1.

N.B. This style of mission is very important in our times, where people, especially the young, are more ready to trust witnesses rather than teachers or preachers – at least in a first time. Teaching is necessary later.  This witness will always be given in fidelity to the Church and obedience to the hierarchy: this was a very important point for Francis, who was called to help the Roman Church to renew itself, at a time when other groups were doing so by separating themselves. This does not exclude a healthy and constructive criticism. 1 Cf. 1st Rule XVI, 5-7.

74 N.B. Our times need to find once more this balanced attitude.  An incarnate witness, following Christ, in poverty-detachment, humility- minority, - preference for the poor (Anawim), but without being exclusive: the rich are also children of God, and must be helped to achieve their salvation by sharing their riches, by being brothers and sisters to all and servants. N.B. The Franciscan family can greatly help the Church to truly make an option for the poor, by working for JPIC – cf. the Commission “Franciscans International”. Note the reflection of Fr. Giacomo Bini1: to speak of poverty today as a value cannot be comprehended; it is a misfortune! It is better to speak rather of “freedom” with regard to created goods: non-attachment – detachment, no slavery.  A witness which draws inspiration from Francis working for reconciliation and peace, even besides the most recalcitrant and those most filled with hatred: ‘the wolf of Gubbio’, brigands, - the bishop and the podesta who had fallen out and to whom he sent 2 brothers to sing the Canticle of Brother Sun… N.B. A great field to be cultivated today is that of reconciliation.  Following the model of the brothers being sent 2 by 2, to the 4 corners of the world, mission is always carried out in fraternity, as a witness of fraternal communion “so that the world may believe” (cf. Jn 17). It was thus that the Lord sent out his apostles and disciples. N.B. A call within the Church today to work with each other as a team. – But also, the witness of community life in itself.  The approach to non-Christians is one to which Francis already gave a new form by practising himself what in our days was to become “inter-religious dialogue” – and the witness of a life of friendship “among” them. At the time there predominated on the contrary the model of the Crusades (against the “Saracens”) sometimes with forced conversions. At first he had tried to set off among the Muslims in order to obtain martyrdom like his first brothers (in Morocco), but without succeeding. And then there took place, in contrast with a Crusade, the decisive experience of Damietta…which had its influence on the chapter in the Rule dealing with the mission among the “infidels” (according to the expression in use at that time). N.B. A new way of looking at “the other” is already sketched out there; and the inter- religious encounters to pray for Peace at Assisi and elsewhere – what they call “the spirit of Assisi” find their roots there (cf. vatican.va Research: the Spirit of Assisi). b - … We are the “ Missionaries of Mary” o Within the Franciscan spiritual vision, and of its dynamic contemplation/action, that of Mary of the Passion is inserted with its particular accent: Communing in the Ecce-Fiat of the Word in the attitude of the Ecce-Fiat of Mary so that the world may have life. As we have seen in more detail in Chapter III b:

It is a matter of the initiative of the Word who offers himself freely - out of love not only for his Father, but also for us - to “cross the distance” (Mary of the Passion) in the power of the

1 The then OFM Minister-General – Via Giusti, on the feast of the Epiphany 2002, 125th anniversary of the Institute.

75 Spirit, in becoming man with all the consequences of that Incarnation; and of the free welcoming of this initiative by Mary in the Spirit, in the name of all humanity. It is the “New Covenant” between God and humanity in the person of Christ, “the Salvation…” It is a story of love, on both sides. - In the Covenant between God and humanity, Jesus is at the same time on God’s side and on man’s side; in his person, he is the Covenant, the unique Mediator, the only one capable of drawing his brothers and sisters in humanity into the Life of the Father. Mary is entirely on the side of humanity; but she is that daughter of humanity thanks to whom in her cooperation with the Spirit, the Word of the Father was able to become Covenant, Mediator, “our brother” Francis would say. - Mother of Christ God-and-Man, she became at the same time, in the Spirit. Mother of humanity; on Calvary she received this mission. – To use an image of the Oriental Churches: if Jesus is the “Head”, Mary is the “Neck” – the way within the Way” according to Mary of the Passion. She is the one through whom the Body (the Church but also every human being) accedes to the Head. She remains so after her Assumption. The FMM mission will have as its model and inspiration Mary’s way of being the handmaid of God’s plan of salvation, the cooperator and disciple of Christ, his 1st disciple; the 1st “Gospel woman” (Cf. Chapter Document 2002).

o The FMM witness of life and missionary proclamation are profoundly marked by the Ecce-Fiat of Mary, in her welcoming of the Ecce-Fiat of the Word.  To understand this better, and to live it better, we need to take time to meditate on this mystery of Mary in the Gospel, as Sr. Christiane and her Council previously invited us to do, in preparation for the General Chapter of 2002. At the basis of this approach, there is the essential link which exists between Annunciation and Visitation. The Annunciation immediately projects Mary towards the mission. All her vocation is there in essence. It will be developed throughout the years, it will blossom into its full maturity at Pentecost, and it will be prolonged during the whole time of the Church and of the world.  The international and intercultural aspect of our mission finds its source herein. Mary, ready to cooperate in the divine project of Life for all without restriction, is mother to the whole of humanity. o Consequences for us: mission which abolishes discriminations and crosses “frontiers”; universal fraternity, beginning with the witness of life of our own communities, then through our missionary choices. Our structures themselves bear witness to this, through the interchange between houses and provinces.  She abandons (sacrifices) every other life project to serve that of her Son. She is immediately disponible to the inspiration of the Spirit, and sets off: a model of giving up installation to share – already – with others the graces of the Incarnation. o Consequences for us: detachment from self, from persons, from places, from work, in order to respond to the call of mission, a call mediated to us by the superiors of the Institute.  She is unceasingly attentive to the Holy Spirit and present to the One who through him and through her has made himself present to our humanity and remains so. At the same time she is a “bridge” between mankind and himself, an “epiphany” of the work of the Spirit acting in our history.

76 o Consequences for us: In our lives, the centrality of the Eucharist sacrament of the Covenant: action springing from contemplation; union with the “kenosis” of Christ “the first missionary” and with his filial abandonment to the Father; welcoming of the Spirit and “its holy operation”; adoration and intercession for the Church and for the world, especially for those who are in most need… c - The charism, reference point to enlighten our discernment and orientate our choices

o Thus the “gift” of the FMM charism, inserts us in our own way into the big mission of the Church.  Even if we do not have activities that are particular to us nor limited fields of action, we do have choices to make if we wish to be ourselves and to accomplish our task.  The charism orientates these choices, and indicates to us our priorities in a history that never ceases to evolve.  It also invites us to pick out some demands of life that are indispensable in order for the message to pass through.

o The practice of Mary of the Passion and of the first generation of FMM, in these domains, gives us precious indications for our generation today.  In fact, if the goal pursued, that confided by the Pope to the Institute in the beginning, is simple: in Mary’s way to bring the joy of the Good News of the Gospel to outposts: there where the needs are greatest, and in spite of the risk, the discernment to be made in making foundations or in the activities to be accepted and those to be left aside, is not so simple. The missionary choices made by the foundress can enlighten us. Mary of the Passion sent her sisters in priority:  “ where God was ignored, where Christ was least known, the Church least present, to the poorest or most divided, where the Gospel was less lived;  where in human persons the image of God “Truth – Charity – Unity” was least developed or most disfigured (situations of ignorance, hatred, discord, division);  where the Gospel values of justice, peace, respect for persons – especially women – were unknown, despised or trampled underfoot (situations of underdevelopment, suffering; domination, oppression, marginalization, intolerance);  where frontiers had to be crossed, barriers broken down, the bonds of fraternity in Christ to be made secure (in meeting with social classes, cultures, ethnicities, and the sharing of goods)1.”  The conditions to be observed so that a group living together may be incontestably FMM and can carry, from one end of the world to the other, the message confided to it, are principally the following:  The recognition of the legitimate authority of the superior general over the sisters and the communities;  The acceptance of the internationality/interculturality of the communities as a sign and witness;

1 CF. “A Gift for the world” – album for the centenary 1904 – 2004, p.9.

77  The presence at the centre of these communities of Jesus in the Eucharist, the heart of their unity and the ‘first Missionary’;  The simplicity of the insertions and installations;  The openness to universal mission, through exchanges”1 between one country and another and between one province and another.

3 - OUR MISSIONARY CHOICES TODAY a - THE EVOLUTION AT TOP SPEED, OF THE CONCEPT AND THE PRACTICE OF “MISSION ” within the Church since Vatican II, an evolution that is always ongoing, that sometimes keeps us in suspense, that makes us a little breathless…; and not just us! In practice, this represents numerous problems and challenges, with a reflection that always has to be pursued. In passing, let us just mention some of them:

o Concerning the life of the Church:  The necessary redefinition of the respective roles of lay people, religious and priests in the mission, as in the Church in general.  The need and the search for structures of communion, more decentralized, more flexible, more collegial.  The not very clear distinction between pastoral and mission.  The problem of proselytism, of which the Catholic Church is accused, either by other religions (Islam, Hindusim…), or by the Orthodox (Russian in particular).

o Concerning the world, religions, religious groups and ideologies in general:  Migrations, the great economic disparities between North and South, the evolution in the field of work (new technologies, etc.), pauperism on the increase.  The rise of violence, attributed to religions,  The danger of confusing religion and fanaticism (terrorist). The danger of dividing the world “good” and “bad”, naturally the good being ‘ourselves’!  The danger of confusing religion and politics, - religion and culture.  Islam’s expansion in the world (often mingled with politics); especially where it takes a fundamentalist form, and where the reflexes of fear give rise to an escalation of violence.  The difficulty in facing up to the indifference linked with consumerism, to the tranquil atheism, - to the proliferation of sects, - to laws which go against the Christian ethic (IVF, divorce, euthanasia…), without going so far as engaging in party politics, - etc.  The challenge of frontiers that are closed to foreigners, especially to “missionaries”. o Concerning the mission strictly speaking: Some questions:  What good is mission, if all can be saved in following other ways?  What should be privileged: Mission in one’s country or mission in a foreign land?

1 CF. “A gift for the world” album for the centenary 1904 – 2004, p. 9.

78  What relationships are there between mission and inter-religious dialogue? - between witness to faith and freedom of conscience.  Do Christians and believers of other religions pray to the same God? Can Christian religious language be understood by “others”?  Up to what point should we evangelize catechumens before baptizing them, or should we baptise them quite quickly (to avoid pressures), and continue their evangelization afterwards?  How to evangelize “the new areopagi” (sciences and technologies, bioethics, biogenetics, internet, etc)? and how to make use of new technologies at the service of evangelization?

o Concerning ongoing missionary formation:  The challenge, as missionaries, to keep up to date with the constant evolution of the world and of the Church, especially in those domains that touch us most closely, and to take part in this evolution in the measure that is appropriate for us (ongoing missionary formation, participation in reflection). Etc… b - THE MISSION OF THE INSTITUTE IS INSERTED IN THIS REALITY, THAT IS DIFFICULT BUT FASCINATING, in fidelity to its charism. In other words: reflection, discernment and choices are becoming more and more necessary and demanding. - Hence the importance of meetings at the general level, bringing sisters from everywhere together, and especially General Chapters, where common orientations and options are taken, with the participation of all the sisters, either during the preparatory consultations, or in the putting into practice; - and the importance of the same work being done at different levels, to provide for adaptation to diverse situations. N.B. It is useful to remember that without a serious basic formation in mutual listening and without familiarity with other languages, life in internationality, either within the community or outside it, remains a superficial juxtaposition or even one full of conflicts…

An overview of the choices of the General Chapters which, after the re-writing of the Constitutions, have marked out the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd millennium, will now give us an idea of that towards which, in practice, we are being led by the Spirit of Jesus who speaks to us today in the deepening of our understanding of our charism and in “the signs of the times”. c - OVERVIEW OF OUR MISSIONARY CHOICES FROM 1986 TO 2008 “In our Institute, as an international fraternity brought together by the Spirit 1, all of us together with the superior general – who is the sign and bond of unity – are responsible for our mission and for our communion in diversity, in fidelity to the Church and to the Pope2. This fraternity announces and prepares for the fullness of the Kingdom when all peoples will be reconciled and gathered into the one People of God3.” Const. Ch. 1, art. 7. c1 - Our mission requires us to be at the same time faithful to the past and inserted into the world and the Church of today.

1 Cf. 1st Constitutions, Art. 16 2 Ibidem, Art. 13 3 Rv 7, 9-10.

79 It is a question of “continuing our journey”, “continuing a long tradition” and at the same time being inserted in the Church, the diversity of continents and the reality of the world of today with all its challenges (1984). - Our missionary identity in fidelity to our charism calls us to keep a watch on the balance between contemplation and action in our lives (1990). - The world to which we are sent as Gospel women is marked: by globalization, “an ambivalent phenomenon capable of helping our world to become more human or to harm it” (2002) by the consumer society always engendering more: poverty, division, violence and the culture of death (2002), xenophobia, terrorism, fundamentalism,… (2008) c2 - Above all, we must begin by converting ourselves We have to recognize beside very beautiful achievements, our life does not always measure up to that towards which we strive (1990). Noted in our lives were some dichotomies or tensions between contemplation and activism, commitment to mission and lack of disponibility, profession of poverty and an “installed” life… (1990) - Three domains of flagging were particularly noted: Weakening of our faith and our lack of radicality in following Christ, Lack of interiority and of balance in our lives, Weakening of our sense of ‘belonging’ and its consequences for community life and universal mission (2002 - 2008). c3 - Our response to the challenges of our time have to be more profoundly rooted in our missionary spirituality – We are invited to: - Return to the essential of our charism (the value of which the Church confirmed through the beatification of Mary of the Passion), to “revitalize our encounter with Jesus Christ” “the One sent by the Father” and to “live as women […] passionately in love with Christ, simple, transformed by the Word”; “Gospel Women – disciples of Christ” humble and poor; following the missionary way of minority, the roots of which are to be found in Francis, Clare and Mary of the Passion; And living our YES like “Mary the first disciple” who walks before us in this way of mission (2002-2008). - “Once more situating the Eucharist at the centre of our life”, so that “our whole life becomes Eucharist, celebrated, adored, lived” and that we may “give ourselves totally to the Father, following the example of Jesus” in a “radical offering of ourselves”: “an offering founded on a solid faith” and based “on the Cross, …the necessary path that leads towards the Resurrection”. The Pasch gives us courage, perseverance and strength “to hold our ground in mission” with its risks. The Eucharist, through the light of the Word and the strength of love of the humble Christ who, in order to be one with us, lowered himself even to “washing our feet” and to making himself our food, will “affect deeply our options as consecrated women, our lifestyle and commitments… for the transformation of the world in a Franciscan spirit” (1990-2008)

80 - In order to be able to live in communion with the “other” according to the particular vocation of the Institute, in community and in missionary encounters: we have to recognize, in Franciscan minority, that “we do not have the whole truth”, and know how to find the hidden presence of God in every person of good will and in creation; all too often, too, we have to heal ourselves of our own ethnocentrism; we need to learn from Francis how to enter into relationship in which we “gratuitously move away from ourselves for the other, move towards the other, are with the other in conversation and solidarity”; we also have to learn from him how to achieve “community-in-mission”, a fundamental value of our life (a community which accompanies, supports and is interested in each one’s personal ministries, so they are included in the mission thrust of the community) (1996- 2008). - The sense of belonging to the Institute as a body with its missionary demands invites us to be co-responsible and disponible in all that concerns sending and receiving; and moreover, to be coherent in the manner we relate with our families (2002). - So that our life may be a prophetic witness in the face of the baneful consequences of globalization, we have to take care not to be influenced by them, and for this: “rediscover the prophetic power of our vows”; “renew our disponibility for being sent in the service of every missionary priority”; (1990); question ourselves about our consumer patterns; fight against our tendencies towards comfort and security. (2002). - Some practical remedies: take time to encounter Christ in prayer; choose a personal and community rhythm of life giving priority to meditation and internalization of the Word of God, so as to confront our lives with it; beginning from the ‘kenosis’ of Christ and “the Washing of the feet”, rediscover the humble God, in whose steps Francis and Mary of the Passion followed, and make this our way of life; practice review of life; recognize ourselves in our “fragile and vulnerable human condition and, like the women disciples in the Gospels, allow ourselves to be healed and sent anew to give life”; begin by living pardon and reconciliation within ourselves and among ourselves; live the “Ethic of Enough”; use the Mass Media with discernment in our own lives and in our mission (2002-2008). c4 - In the face of the needs of the world, our charism dictates to us our priority choices Our FMM mission can only insert itself in the perspectives of that of the Church of the present day: respect for the freedom of each person and of his or her cultural context, interest in all the human milieus, communion among local Churches, preferential option for the poor, dialogue and collaboration among Christian communities throughout the world. We insert ourselves according to our FMM options of: “evangelizing community” (1984), - gathered around “the Eucharist, Word and Bread” (1990), - a multicultural community sent, in communion, to “universal mission”…at the service of Life and Hope (1996), - as “Gospel Women – disciples of Christ” (2002), - in Franciscan minority (2008).

- Dedicated in the Church to universal mission in a specific way, our “evangelizing community” sends us in priority:

81 “to those to whom Christ has not yet been revealed, and to those among whom the Church is least present, giving preference to the poorest” which commits us, in our times, to stress three missionary options: “ the preferential option for the poor, dialogue (particularly ecumenical and inter- religious – 2008), inculturation” (1984). - These options were later looked into more deeply, giving precisions as to the way of putting them into practice: 1 - Living justice as artisans of peace 2 - incarnating the Good News in cultures 3 - and helping to create communion through relationships of dialogue and collaboration” (1996 -2002) Moreover, the Chapter of 2008 insisted on the fact that globalization, but also the diminishment in our numbers, bring with them the need to find new forms of evangelization: a greater closeness to the poor, the excluded and migrants…, solidarity with them, - defence of “our Mother Earth”, the destruction of which impacts on the poorest, - insertions in zones of divisions and conflicts, - the need to work with others. Whence the demands of openness to the universal and of readiness to be sent and to receive those sent beyond all geographical, cultural or social boundaries (1996) – and greater collaboration among ourselves and with others, in fraternal minority (2008). - In the line of these orientations and priority choices, and in order not to disperse our strengths” which are diminishing (average age, financial situation…), priorities have been more clearly targeted every six years, for concrete commitments:  In each of our provinces, persons and groups “in situations of marginalization”, giving “special place to women and young people”. At the general level – with the collaboration of the provinces – requests coming from “post-communist and communist countries” and “emergency situations”. (1996)  For the next six years, choose as priority in all our provinces “projects in favour of displaced persons, especially women, in the most disadvantaged situations”; and at the general level “a special project according to this priority in honour of the 100th anniversary of the death of Blessed Mary of the Passion in 2004”. (2002)  At every level of the Institute, envisage in co-responsibility and solidarity among ourselves and from one level to another, in dialogue and with the agreement of the general level: restructuring, planning and collaboration; find “more flexible and adapted structures” (new forms of sending, inter-provincial cooperation, continental structures, etc) “redirecting our strengths and resources”.

Some lines of action will direct these choices: a life that is more meaningful, fidelity in creativity, a better use of our resources for mission and those in need; fraternal accompaniment in this process; spiritual and professional formation for the service of finance and other services. (2008) c5 - Our charism guides the realization of our practical options 1 - Living justice as artisans of peace In working for justice and peace, “active non-violence and reconciliation, the defense of Life and the denunciation of all that threatens it, respect for Creation, we are committed with

82 Christ in the evangelizing action of the transformation of the world and of its unjust structures.

- In keeping with the spirit of Francis, we seek as a priority to “give a prophetic response in face of the effects of globalization on the poor, the marginalized and the environment” Beginning by choosing “simplicity of life”, that is fraternal, in “international and intercultural communities” in the midst of a “consumer society”; living in solidarity with the poor, the weak, and allowing ourselves to be evangelized by them. - In order to be able concretely to confirm “Mary of the Passion’s strong option for women” and in collaboration with others: We view “the world and its realities from a feminine perspective”, we struggle particularly to eradicate little by little “injustice towards women”, while making an effort “to increase our awareness of the situations of women” where we are, helping them “to be aware of their dignity… and to grow in self-confidence and self-esteem”; and developing within us and around us “feminine values” in order to find “responses to the challenges of globalization”. - We are invited to collaborate and “network among ourselves, with the Franciscan family and other organizations, especially in the area of justice, peace and defense of the environment.

2 - Incarnating the Gospel in cultures Participating in the encounter of the Gospel with cultures is, like Mary, to collaborate in the Incarnation of the Word today. This leads us to discover God already present in diverse cultures. - We have to begin by “incarnating the Gospel where we are”, “integrating” in ourselves and among us the tensions between local inculturation and the universality of the mission. - In order to respond to the present situation of the world, we have to seek and to take “new ways” of incarnating and communicating the Gospel and of participating in its inculturation and the evangelization of cultures. - We must know how to persevere in inculturation, in spite of its difficulties, and in a spirit of offering.

3 - Working at communion through relationships of dialogue and collaboration

As FMM, living as sisters in international and intercultural communities – in a rejection of our ethnocentrism, mutual respect and welcome, mutual accompaniment, integrating each one’s commitments – is a proclamation of the Good News and our first form of evangelization. We are then signs and instruments of communion. And our Eucharistic vocation allows us to meet each person in her deepest self “where one finds universal communion in Christ”.

And our Eucharistic vocation enables us to encounter the heart of each person “where we find the source of universal communion in Christ”. - Our Eucharistic and Franciscan charism invites us:

83 to become through our community gathered “around Christ Word and Bread” “a joyful and credible sign of the Kingdom”, to persevere in dialogue, insertion in the spirit of minority, the offering of our trials, in union with the Paschal Mystery. - In communion at the service of Life and hope, we have to develop the Franciscan community witness of minority and of closeness to the poor in respect, comprehension and reconciliation. - If we wish to work throughout the world for “universal communion” in Christ beyond all “wounds”, we have to favour everywhere “a process of pardon and reconciliation”, beginning with ourselves, - We have to give preference to commitments at the service of dialogue with “others”, this dialogue begins in daily life through very simple and open relations, and also in collaboration with other organizations. - It is important to give special attention to the global reality of Islam today and to “go to meet Muslims in the spirit of Francis, as witnesses of peace and reconciliation”. - Whatever may be our commitments, the specific mark of all our activities must be to “build bridges between different, and at times, opposed groups; and to “develop the universal dimension in the local Church”. Moreover, the exchange of our Sisters between countries will be “a sign of communion between sister Churches”. - We are also invited to collaborate with other Christian churches. - It is recommended that, where possible, we share our spirituality, our charism and our life with the laity and our Associates. c6 - Our sending to Universal Mission requires a complete disponibility on our part.

Through our “FMM missionary specificity”, “we are all sent on universal mission” to which we commit ourselves in a radical way, ready to remain in our province of origin or to leave it. - This presupposes that our FMM specificity of being sent on universal mission has been clarified from the first contacts. - The welcome of a sister who has been sent concerns the whole community, with respect for her person and all that constitutes her personal identity, in fraternal accompaniment and support, and in mutual enrichment of differences and complementarity. - “The proclamation of the Good News throughout the whole world” concerns all of us “in communion with the whole Institute”. - Consequently all our provinces have to be ready to send and to receive sisters. - A “greater collaboration between the provinces and the general level” is desirable, including for “temporary service”. - A study of sending and receiving “at the level of the Institute and the province” is foreseen, with evaluation of experiences.

84 c7 - Every commitment to mission presupposes an appropriate formation - A solid formation in the FMM charism is necessary; and means of ongoing formation are to be proposed for its deepening. There is insistence on: - “the importance and urgency of ongoing formation” at every age of life, particularly in the domains: of prayer - and internalization of the Word, interpersonal encounter and mutual accompaniment – and of dialogue with the “other” in whom the “hidden God” is present, of the non-violent struggle against exploitation and exclusion; - and of a specialized formation for specific activities; it is required particularly for: the sisters responsible for the service of finance and that of formation in the Institute; the sisters involved in the domains of justice, peace and the defense of the environment, so that they can practice advocacy with the organizations concerned.

4 - TWO OF OUR PRIORITY CHOICES MERIT OUR PAUSING TO CONSIDER THEM Each of them presents today a character of urgency given their impact on the world and they call for a preparation. But moreover, it is from Francis that we have received the model and the family tradition of “inter-religious dialogue”. As for “the option for women”, we have seen how already for Mary of the Passion, it was one of the urgencies of her time, for which successive generations of FMM in the world have taken responsibility. a - INTER-RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE The amplitude of the problem which inter-religious encounters throughout the world poses to the Church, is big enough for the Union of Superiors General (USG), to have taken it as the theme of one of its biennial Congresses, (63rd General Assembly, November 2003) to which Superiors General of Feminine Religious Congregations were also invited. On the grounds of the missionary experience of the Institute in this field Sr. Christiane Mégarbané was called upon to make her contribution to it. And as the disciple of the Poverello, a specialist in the encounter of “the other”, Fr. José Rodríguez Carballo, the OFM Minister General also made a vigorous and detailed intervention, on the subject of the formation (initial and on-going) which is indispensable today. As for the Secretary General of the USG, Fr. José Maria Arnaiz, SM, in his presentation of the Acts of the Congress, he had some very strong words to address to all religious congregations. Here are a few of them: “Inter-religious dialogue is not a ‘hobby’: it is an urgent need, on account of its repercussions on the faith of believers and on the social and political life of society. If we add to “culture shock” the “shock of religions”, understanding between peoples would be almost impossible. This dialogue is a priority for consecrated life. […] Immigration, globalization and the reality of inter-culturality have contributed to universalizing inter-religious dialogue. […] it is evident that this dialogue is possible; better still it is desirable and necessary for all religious, no matter where they may come from, or what is their culture, their work, their formation and their spirituality. […] This sharing of faith and life is at the same time a novelty and a great opportunity. It obliges us to go ‘outside our camp’, beyond frontiers, beyond our tent, and to take a new orientation. We can even go further, affirming that it represents an urgency for Consecrated Life today, helping the religious to live disappropriation, to open his/her house, to be welcoming, and to take a new look at his/her identity. It puts all of us in motion and on our way to encounter the same God, even if we arrive by different paths. It confirms that our thirst is shared by many, and that the revelation given to us by Jesus Christ is

85 providential and splendid for others. This dialogue leads us to the Trinity; it is from the Trinity that there comes the great strength of sharing of the Christian believer, which made Pope John Paul II say: ‘The presence and the action of the Holy Spirit are not just for individuals, but also for society and for history, for peoples, cultures and religions”. (Discourse of John Paul II to the Curia, 22nd December 1986). […] This leads us to take concrete decisions to increase, in the majority of Congregations, the number of persons committed to and specially destined to inter-religious dialogue. In the present day a great number of those who work in this field are religious, and many among them are pioneers. The path that they have opened has to be followed.” N.B. There will be an advantage in consulting the conference of Fr. José “The four pillars of inter-religious dialogue”, and that of Sr. Christiane: “The challenges of inter-religious dialogue for the Women’s Consecrated Life”, published in the USG Bulletin together with the Acts of the Assembly1. b - OPTION FOR WOMEN This subject deserves that we give it all our attention, as an echo to the pressing invitation from the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), especially from 2002 onwards, to mobilize ourselves for this cause, in awareness of the importance of this question not only for women themselves, but for the world and for each social group within it; an invitation, at the same time, to realize that this is possible only with the help of an adapted formation, and net- working with others (cf. UISG Bulletin n° 119 and following numbers; also some good articles in n° 141 in 2009). We can say that in concrete action, this option includes three principal and complementary ‘facets’: 1. The fight against the trafficking of women and children, which ceaselessly continues to grow worse under cover of wars and violence of every kind, of migrations, and of the development of pornography on the internet; 2. The awakening of men to their responsibilities, and a better formation for adolescents to those that will be theirs; 3. United and regular action, close to political and economic people of action and those with social responsibility2. - Mgr. Antonio Maria Vegliò, President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, who was invited to give the opening message to the Congress of 2009: “Network of Women Religious Against Trafficking in Persons” gave some precious information and directives on this subject. In particular he said3: “For too long, human trafficking has been hidden under the structures of power and control that cover up the shame and hypocrisy of some elements of society. Let me explain: human trafficking, for the most part, uses the transportation of women and children for sexual, financial, selfish and dishonest purposes through exploitation, force and violence. It is never truly a matter of ‘choice’ and almost invariably this type of life ends with psychological trauma. The majority of countries touched by trafficking do not even acknowledge that it supports local sex industries and vice versa. This is reinforced by the ‘widespread hedonistic and commercial culture which encourages the systematic exploitation of sexuality’4”

Further on Mgr Antonio Maria gives some useful points for reflection for those congregations who wished to be involved in this mission; here are the titles: 1. Knowledge – 2.

1 Articles published in the USG Bulletin, November 2003: Account of the six-monthly Congress on Inter- religious dialogue and religious life. Unofficial translation. 2 Cf. for example the UISG and IOM (International Office for Migrants) 2nd-6th June 2008 and the Declaration of Women Religious against the trafficking of women and children – www.uisg.org and www.iom.int 3 UISG Bulletin n° 141, 2009, p.35. 4 From John Paul II’s Letter to Women, 29th June 1995.

86 Commitment. – 3. Personal and spiritual development – 4. Collaboration and sharing of information – 5. Formation (in order to change hearts and minds, while tackling the underlying causes) – Publicity and advocacy.

- Note, in the same number of the UISG Bulletin, the article by Stella Morra “Listening to the silent cry…” concerning the woundedness of the women subjected to this slavery. - But all of this equally presupposes a more fundamental reflection, not only on the practical realities of the parity, between men and women in society, but also at the level of the Church or of Churches, on the fundamental equality between men and women, created together in the image of God in their diversity, and called together to successfully complete his Creation. Sr. Enrica Rosanna, FMA (a Salesian Sister), a teacher at University level and a Consultant at the Pontifical Congregation for Catholic Education, an expert at three Synods…, wrote in her article “The Gift of Being a Woman”1, that to arrive at an authentic reciprocity between men and women, two major options have to be taken: overcoming a uniquely masculine viewpoint in the vision of the world, taking also into account the point of view of women (mainstreaming or integration) an indispensable condition for recognizing the capacity women have to exercise authority in society, and to give them this possibility (empowerment). In fact, without the full and active participation of women in taking decisions, there can be no lasting social and ecological development. Hence the necessity of a radical transformation of roles and relationships between the two sexes. In spite of some real progress, all too often women have to face numerous obstacles to the full exercise of their rights, as a result of culture, economic and political structures, etc.

“It seems”, she says, “that discrimination based on sex […] is one of the most widely spread forms of human exploitation.”

And in ending, Enrica wishes for the coming of a humanized and humanizing society, thanks to the recognition of the role of women in their rightful place in society: “A society in which the duality man/woman, rather than being a cause of contrast and conflict, lays the base for harmonizing personal relationships and social organization. And if it is true that women have reinforced the social structure of the [various] countries in difficult moments […] by means of sustaining relations of solidarity within the family, is it not also true that today they are called to give an original contribution to the overcoming of conflicts , and collaborate in the growth of a peaceful and united community?”

THE FINAL WORD: AN OPTION WHICH IS AN OBLIGATION… Because in our times, on account of its urgency, it occupies a little all the Medias, and in various ways, all minds, it is useless here to develop another option which is very Franciscan: respect for Creation which we do not injure without injuring humanity, our own and that of Christ; and which must one day have part in his Resurrection.

“Praised be You, my Lord, with all your creatures …

1 UISG Bulletin n° 119,2002, p. 14.

87 Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water, who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom You light the night, and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong. Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs … Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks and serve Him with great humility.”

 POINTS FOR REFLECTION - What would we like to recall from this chapter on Mission, and the FMM Mission? - What would we like to add? to hold on to for our personal or community life? - How, in day-to-day life, do we ensure the balance between contemplation, fraternal life and apostolic activity? - What is the level of our effective disponibility for mission in the Institute? Are our personal and community choices in harmony with those of the Institute? - How do we participate in the preparation of chapters at every level? and afterwards in the application of their decisions and orientations?

88 IV c – OFFERING in complete disponibility Eucharistic offering for universal mission

“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary of Magdala.” (Jn 19, 25) “Remember […] Jesus Christ risen from the dead […] If we have died with him, then we shall live with him. If we hold firm, then we shall reign with him.” (2 Tim 2, 8. 11)

“Contemplating in his Passion, the Christ who gives all suffering its salvific meaning, we enter into God’s mystery: his love runs right through history and saves the world.” Constitutions Art. 11 “Dynamic and demanding, community commits us to conversion of heart. […] Through tensions, failures and progress, we live a mystery of death and resurrection, experience forgiveness and learn from others how to love Christ more.” Art. 21 “For the mission and its risks, Mary of the Passion wanted us to be disponible and strong in faith, ready to leave everything and to go where we are sent.” Art. 40 “… thus we make up in our bodies all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body the Church.” Art. 2

 We come now to the aspect of “asceticism” in our Franciscan following of Christ, “in Mary’s way”. Although it is indissociable from the other aspects, it is important to distinguish it in order to give it its proper place in the harmony of the whole. The expressions used can lead to confusion, particularly those of the time of Mary of the Passion, which have to be re-situated in the theological and mystical thinking of her time, e.g. “victim” or “annihilation”…; expressions such as “offering”, “gift of self” and “sacrifice” also need to be placed in the perspectives of post Vatican II. We are going to pave the way in this direction, before going a little more deeply into this aspect of our charism. We shall see:

1 - Offering in the charism as a whole. 2 - The evangelical and theological perspectives of salvation in Jesus Christ. 3 - Our offering in complete disponibility for mission. 4 - The emphases of our recent General Chapters.

1 - OFFERING IN THE CHARISM AS A WHOLE

We shall begin by re-situating this theme in the diagram FMM Charism presented at the beginning of Chapter II, and in Art. 2 of our Constitutions.

89

ECCE in relation with oneself ECCE in relation to God-Trinity (asceticism) (mysticism)

Self-offering Eucharistic Adoration In total disponibility (of theOne Sent by the Father, (for the Church the Christ who sends us) and its universal mission)

ECCE in relation to others (witness of life - apostolate)

Universal Mission In international and intercultural Fraternal communities

a - The diagram

 Shows “Offering in total

disponibility” situated in the ascetical aspect of our lives; - and by the arrows that link them, the relation existing between the three aspects: apostolic (universal mission), ascetical (offering in total disponibility – or ‘renunciation’ – for the mission…) and mystical (Eucharistic adoration: the Eucharist makes present to our eyes on the altar Christ’s gift of himself to the Father for the Life of the world, and invites us to join ourselves to it).  The diagram also wishes to show that, as for the other two aspects – and perhaps more still – it is important to well situate “the Offering in total disponibility” (renunciation, disappropriation, asceticism) in relation to the ECCE-FIAT, the heart and Gospel message of the charism. - In fact, the two have often been confused, without doubt on account of the close relationship between them. And also because in the 19th century, a certain conception (juridical and mournful) of salvation in Jesus Christ favoured this confusion, particularly in the quite common spiritual practice of “victim offering”. - This confusion is to the detriment of both of them. It is important, in order to understand the charism well and thus to live it well, to situate them reciprocally in a just way, without either separating them or confusing them.

90 - “The Ecce-Fiat (gift of self through love) like Mary, in communion with that of the Word, for the Life of the world” would only be a pious wish without consistence or a hypocrisy, if it did not bring with it the acceptance without reserve and the offering of renunciations and trials (asceticism) that this could lead to. - However, the Ecce-Fiat does not consist only in renunciations, nor renunciations in first place. It consists above all in the joy of the reciprocal gift in love: that of God, and that of brothers and sisters. - The best comparison is without doubt that of fiancés(engaged to be married): their project is not to give themselves to each other in order to suffer as much as possible and to lead a heroic life! but to love each other in joy as well as in sorrow, mutually to help each other and to forgive each other and to go forward together in the same project, over and above all the obstacles. - Thus the renunciations included in the gift of self are a condition, not a goal: they lead to the joy of “communion” in the Ecce and the Fiat. It was thus for Christ in his Pasch (a word which signifies: “passage”). b - Article 2 of our Constitutions does not totally avoid this confusion.

- In fact, it inserts, with insistence on it, the quotation from Colossians 1, 24 between Christ’s gift of self to the Father for the salvation of the world, and that of Mary which is its echo: “thus we make up in our bodies all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body the Church”. By doing this, it makes of “trials” the goal of the offering of Christ: he would have come on earth to suffer them, in obedience to the will of the Father who would be exacting the payment of a ransom…

- Moreover, the first chapter of the Constitutions, which offers an overview of our vocation, which will be spelt out in detail afterwards in the other chapters, dedicates articles respectively to Eucharistic celebration and adoration, and to missionary sending, but none to ascetical renunciation, which is however an important part of Life in the Spirit.

2 - THE EVANGELICAL AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF SALVATION IN JESUS-CHRIST Now we are going to try to go a little more deeply into the mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ, in the perspectives opened up by Vatican II. This will be done briefly, and in order afterwards to better approach and understand the ascetical dimensions of our offering. a - Asceticism, renunciation, sacrifice, are an inherent part of every human life for which reason they have value and meaning, it is good to remind ourselves of this. This is even more true for every Christian life, baptized in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, the conqueror of evil. It must also be a part of our proclamation of the Good News, above all by our life. That is why we are first going to reflect a moment on the value and on the meaning of asceticism for each and everyone, but especially for the disciples of Christ.

In every state of life, renunciation, sacrifice, a certain dying to self exist, but they only have meaning in and for love; a love in which the gift of oneself to the other, or to others, is at the service of life.

91 - We know that we truly love someone, when we are capable of supporting with or for him/her difficulties or sufferings, and in his or her favour renouncing something we are holding on to. And reciprocally, we know that we are loved by someone, not because of beautiful words, but on the same conditions. - As for the baptized person, he or she has entered into the New Covenant with God, by responding with the gift of oneself to that of Jesus: it is a reciprocal covenant of Love in which it is He who loves first. - Like every gift of self in love, this leads to renunciations and what our Christian vocabulary calls “crosses”, in other words: sufferings and trials; but well beyond this, it is an inexhaustible source of peace and joy. - This is well illustrated by the Gospel of the Beatitudes as proposed to us in Mt 5, 1-19, which in some way is the Charter of the Kingdom of God. – The ‘Beatitudes’ are particularly concerned with the three principal aspects of life in relationship: with God, with Creation and other human beings, making us go beyond our tendency to egocentrism. According to the Christian tradition, evangelical poverty, chastity and obedience, lived by each one according to his/her state in life, are not a refusal to taste the joys of human realities which, by belonging to Creation, are good. But they signify the liberation from all that could lead to slavery in relation to the goods we possess, to our affections, and to power.

 In religious life, the choice of living the radicality of this triple commitment by adopting the way of life of Christ is for everyone a prophetic reminder of the basic evangelical commitment. According to the religious families, it adopts various forms and carries complementary messages, thanks to the different charisms and spiritualities1. b - “Carrying one’s cross” : a condition for the following of Christ In his Message for the 16th World Youth Day in 2001, Pope John Paul II gave young people some powerful teaching on the following of Christ and to what this commits them: “For this occasion, I invite you to reflect on the conditions that Jesus asked of those who wanted to be his disciples: ‘If anyone wishes to come after me […] he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’ Lk 9, 23.

Jesus walks ahead of his followers and asks each one to do as he himself has done […] be the servant of everyone, […] accept rejection […] accept denial and opposition from wherever it comes. -‘He must deny himself’. Jesus does not ask us to give up living, but to accept a newness and a fullness of life that only He can give. To give up one’s own plans that are often small and petty in order to accept God’s plan; […] avoid being wrapped up in self […] look on life in terms of gift and gratuitousness, not in terms of conquest and possession. -‘Take up his cross daily’ [this expression] does not imply the pre-eminence of mortification and denial […] or even less the exaltation of pain as a means of pleasing God. It is not suffering for its own sake that a Christian seeks, but love. When the cross is embraced it becomes a sign of love and total self-giving. -‘Follow me’ […] Take me as your model, but also: share my life and my choices, and stake your life for love of God and neighbour together with me. This is how Jesus opens up before us ‘the way of life. It is sin that brings about divisions. […] So it is a way of conversion [and] the way to salvation in a society often

1 If anyone wishes to pursue this theme a little further, she can refer to the leaflets: “Totally given for the Kingdom – For a study of the Constitutions in the Noviciate”, Leaflet III (Religious profession), particularly the first part, dealing with commitment for the Kingdom on reaching adulthood.

92 divided, confused and contradictory. It is the path of peace, self-control and a joyful heart.” (cf. Vatican.va, Papal Archives) - This “way of salvation”, fights against the forces of evil, Christ was the first to follow it, when he ‘set out on the road”, as Messiah1 : after his Baptism in the Jordan, sent out on mission by the Father, he was driven by the Spirit into the desert; and there, in order to be faithful to that mission, he resolutely made some costly choices: the Gospels tell us that he was “tempted” by power and by human glory (cf. Mt 4, 1-11 and Lk 4, 1-13). These choices, those of a Messiah who would reveal the justice2 and the love of a Father-God, he maintained all his life, against all opposition, even to accepting from the hands of men, his brothers, the ignominious death on the cross, and dying while imploring the Father’s mercy for them, for “they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23, 34). In doing this, he has shown us the path of a fulfilled human life; as is indicated by the title of a passage that it would be good to look at in depth in the booklet “To lead lives given away in love”3, through his life, Jesus tells us “A word about man and woman” (cf. p.25-28). c - Redemption, payment of a debt to the Father, and the Cross of Christ? -“The great Franciscan theologian Bl. Duns Scotus, asked himself the question: ‘Why was it necessary that Christ should endure the Cross in order to save us?’ His response is clear: Man was so stuck in sin that he was no longer capable of grasping the merciful love of the Father who wished to save him, nor the explicit testimony of the Incarnate Son whose very presence amongst us sanctified humanity. Now redemption from sin had to encounter mankind’s free adhesion. So it was necessary that Christ should give us an indubitable proof of his love so that we may be led to accept it freely. ‘It was to appeal to us through his love, that Christ gave his life for us’.4” - To conclude, let us listen once more to John Paul II speaking to us, in a more elaborate fashion, about the Redemption, in his Encyclical “Redemptor Hominis”5. Far removed from the image that prevailed before Vatican II, he presents it as “a new Creation”: “ 8 […] In its penetrating analysis of ‘the modern world’, the Second Vatican Council reached the most important point of the visible world that is man, by penetrating like Christ the depth of human consciousness and by making contact with the inward mystery of man, which in Biblical and non-Biblical language is expressed by the word ‘heart’. Christ, the Redeemer of the world, is the one who penetrated in a unique unrepeatable way into the mystery of man, and entered his ‘heart’. Rightly therefore does the Second Vatican Council teach: ‘The truth is that only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man come to light. For Adam, the first man, was a type of him who was to come (cf. Rm 5, 14), Christ the Lord. Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling’. And the Council continues: ‘He who is the image of the invisible God (Col 1, 15) is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a

1 30 years was the age of maturity, when the young Jew was entitled to take up a commitment in public life. 2 The word “justice” is to be understood, not in its human, juridical sense of distributive justice or of strict application of a positive law; but in its biblical sense of uprightness and moral perfection in relation to every precise and single situation (cf. for example, the attitude of Joseph in Mt 1, 18-19). 3 By Sr. Bernadette Savey, fmm. . The booklet takes up the title of a General Letter of Sr. Maura O’Connor dated 23rd January 1988; it was published by the FMM printing press in Grottaferrata in the same year. – In it we find a short but valuable study of what we should understand today by “the victim offering” in the context of Vatican II. 4 Cf. The reply of Fr. Luc Mathieu ofm to a question about suffering: http://ofs-de-sherbrooke.overblog.com/ (Canada) – unofficial translation. 5 1979 Chapter II The Mystery of the Redemption, art. 8-9.

93 human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things but sin, he, the Redeemer of man.

9. The Divine dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. As we reflect again on this stupendous text from the Council’s teaching, we do not forget even for a moment that Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, became our reconciliation with the Father. He it was, and he alone, who satisfied the Father’s eternal love, that fatherhood that from the beginning found expression in creating the world, giving man all the riches of creation, and making him ‘little less than God’, in that he was created ‘in the image and after the likeness of God’. He and he alone also satisfied that fatherhood of God and that love which man in a way rejected by breaking the first Covenant and the later covenants that God ‘again and again offered to man’ The Redemption of the world – this tremendous mystery of love in which creation is renewed – is, at its deepest root, the fullness of justice in a human Heart – the Heart of the First-born Son – in order that it may become justice in the hearts of many human beings, predestined from eternity in the First-born Son to be children of God and called to grace, called to love. The Cross on Calvary, through which Jesus Christ – a Man, the son of the Virgin Mary, thought to be the son of Joseph of Nazareth – ‘leaves’ this world, is also a fresh manifestation of the eternal fatherhood of God, who in him draws near again to humanity, to each human being, giving him the thrice holy ‘Spirit of Truth’. This revelation of the Father and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which stamp an indelible seal on the mystery of the Redemption, explain the meaning of the Cross and death of Christ. The God of creation is revealed as the God of redemption, as the God who is ‘faithful to himself’, and faithful to his love for man and the world, which he revealed on the day of creation. His is a love that does not draw back before anything that justice requires in him. Therefore ‘for our sake (God) made him (the Son) to be sin who knew no sin’1. If he ‘made to be sin’ him who was without any sin whatever, it was to reveal the love that is always greater than the whole of creation, the love that is he himself, since ‘God is love’. Above all, love is greater than sin, than weakness, than the ‘futility of creation’, it is stronger than death; it is a love always ready to raise up and forgive, always ready to go to meet the prodigal son, always looking for ‘the revealing of the sons of God’ who are called to the glory that is to be revealed. This revelation of love is also described as mercy; and in man’s history this revelation of love and mercy has taken a form and a name: that of Jesus Christ. […]”

3 - OUR OFFERING IN COMPLETE DISPONIBILITY FOR THE MISSION

Now we are going to approach more directly the reality of the asceticism and of renunciation in our lives offered “in complete disponibility for the mission”. Along the way, we shall be able to notice, in our FMM charism, how much this aspect is linked to the Eucharistic aspect and the missionary aspect. Each gives a particular colour to the other. a - Romans 12 is one of the main texts which Mary of the Passion relied on to express what was then called our “victim offering”.  It is a question of a Eucharistic offering. In fact, this text invites us straightaway to offer our living bodies “as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God”: this will be our spiritual worship. Now, in the time of Mary of the Passion this would have been translated: “as a living host, holy and pleasing to God”. - V 2 immediately explains in what this consists: “Do not model yourselves on the behaviour of the world around you, but let your behaviour change, modeled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do”.

1 To be placed once more in the biblical context of “justice”. – Cf. Mk 15, 24.29. – Ga 3, 6-14, making reference to Dt 21, 22-23. “… God made the sinless one into sin” 2 Corinthians 5, 21 – meaning “He identified him with sin” or: a member of sinful humanity.

94 This is what is developed afterwards in the rest of the chapter, inviting each one to accomplish that to which he has been called so as to become “one body” in union with Christ. In other words, what it is about is allowing oneself to be transformed interiorly by the Holy Spirit, so as to arrive at being one with the Lord and to build up the Church in unity and fraternal charity. Now, every transformation calls for a dying to oneself, in order to be reborn differently. Particularly in the Franciscan perspective, it calls for renouncing one’s own advantages and prerogatives in order to draw near to the other as the Word of God did in lowering himself to our level, according to the description which Paul the apostle gives in Philippians 2, 5-9: “In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus: His state was divine yet he did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are; and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross. But God raised him high and gave him the name which is above all other names…” - So our offering is lived in union with the Eucharistic offering of Christ, in thanksgiving to the Father who saves, liberates, shows mercy, and gives us his Spirit. The latter transforms us interiorly, makes us grow in love for others, makes us bear witness by our lives, and little by little associates us with his transforming action in the world.

 The Gospel shows us that, although she was without sin, Mary, too, in the course of her journey of faith, lived this aspect of love which, through trial, leads to a dying and a new birth, openness to others to accomplish close to them the mission confided by God. Let us think, for example, of those texts where it is said that she did not understand, but trusted and meditated in her heart, - at the first vague impulses of separation from Jesus in the Temple at the age of 12 years, - at the refusal of her Son to respond to her appeal, so as to open her to an extended family: “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers”…, at the trial of the crucifixion and at that of remaining on earth to begin a new stage in her mission. b - Colossians 1, 24 is another of these texts Speaking of our “victim offering”, Mary of the Passion referred just as readily to this other text of the New Testament: “Make up in our bodies all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body the Church1”. Even if it is not the only one, this passage of Scripture, made clearer by its context, appears to be completely adapted to our offering in complete disponibility for universal mission.  However, in the use made of it by Mother Foundress, it happened that there was a shift of meaning (at least that of taking one part for the whole), a shift from which it is not sure that we ourselves are exempt. This is on account of translations that are not sufficiently faithful to the original text, as we shall try to see. This is important, for there can ensue a theology of salvation closer to that of the 19th century than to that of the Church at its beginning or after Vatican II.

1 This is the text that has been retained in our present Constitutions, in Article 2, as we have seen above.

95 - The key-expression is here the Greek word “tôn thilpseôn” whose primary meaning is: oppression, tribulations, then as consequences: distress, difficulty, and finally sufferings. Now often, and in particular in the 19th century, only this last expression has been retained in the translations, the one known to Mary of the Passion. From there, there is just one step to associate it with the Passion. It is thus that, in the theological line of her times, she could write in her Spiritual Notes, concerning the vocation as “victims” this prayer to Mary: “Blessed Light that gives to Your faithful the strength to follow You to Calvary, like the Queen of Martyrs. […] when I glance at the world, I see creatures stirred almost to a general revolt against the divine power. O Immaculate Queen, you wanted to have followers, to have victims who would ‘fill up what was wanting in the Passion of Our Lord.’ You made a most blessed light shine and penetrate our inmost hearts; you chose your Franciscan Missionaries of Mary to be victims of fragrant odour1 spreading God’s divine power on earth.”2 - Concerning this text, we have several questions to ask ourselves:  Did God ask his Son to pay the price of our sin?  Must this price be paid by the most sufferings possible?  Is there some suffering missing from the Passion of Christ in order for the world to be saved?  Is Mary the “Co-Redemptrix” by partially filling this gap by the sufferings of her compassion? And “do we continue her mission” by continuing to fill this gap through the most sufferings possible, offered as a “sacrifice of fragrant odour”?... - The booklet “To lead lives given away in love” clearly shows us the “motivation” for the offering of our lives in complete disponibility, “in the impetus given by Vatican II.”3 “ The following of Jesus (‘companionship with Jesus’) who made his whole existence, life- death-resurrection, an offering in filial obedience to the Father so that His plan for the salvation of all people be realised: radical offering of His whole being in love, through a life given for others, no matter what the consequences, even at the risk of death.” It is not the suffering that saves, but love. And a trusting love, even in suffering. - Let us call to mind the Pope’s words to young people: “It is not suffering for its own sake that a Christian seeks, but love. When the cross is embraced it becomes a sign of love and of total self-giving”, even in sickness, inactivity, natural catastrophes… lived in trust and faith against all opposition (Cf. Job and the question of pain suffered by the just person). Now, when in certain translations, our Constitutions still carry the expressions: “what is wanting to the sufferings (or even: to the Passion) of Christ”, here there is equally found reference only to the Passion of the Lord in its aspect of suffering. This translation is too restricted in its meaning, and can even be equivocal (suggesting to have to pay a ransom to the Father, a stern creditor!...).  And now, how can the baptized person, how can we ourselves “make up in our bodies all that has still to be undergone by Christ”? - It is in a re-orientation of the interpretation of Col 1, 24 – 2, 5 replaced in its context, that we can find the answer by asking ourselves: What were the “distresses” or the

1 An expression taken from the Bible, concerning ancient forms of worship: the sweet fragrance of sacrifices rising up towards the gods, were understood to calm their anger against mankind. 2 “Where are you leading me?” n° 101, 26th May 1903. 3 “To lead lives…” p.30; - for the whole of this theme see pages 35-41 “Vocabulary” and pages 42-44.

96 “trials” for Paul. In whose favour did he live through them? For what purpose? In what sense could he say that in this way he was “making up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church”?

- In re-situating these words in their context, we notice that for Paul it is a question of all that he has to endure in order to be able to make the Gospel message reach all those who have been entrusted to him, and who are continually tempted to turn back after having chosen to follow Christ. For Paul this was a matter of “struggling hard”, which brought with it “sufferings” joyfully accepted in favour of the Church.

- (See also 2 Co 11, 16-33: for the detailed trials and sufferings of the missionary life).

 N.B. – This broader understanding of the offering of “trials” linked to the missionary life, was truly present in the writings of Mary of the Passion; it even became a dominant factor at the end of her life and of her lived experience in the Institute. We can find traces of this in the 1st Constitutions and in the Customs Book when there is question of the penances according to the Rule. The traditional monastic penances, when they cannot be practised because of the labours and fatigues linked to the mission, are made up for by the offering made of the latter: Constitutions Art. 6 “SPIRIT OF SELF-SACRIFICE – By very reason of their offering as victims, and especially because as Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, they are called to contribute to the apostolate among pagan peoples, they must expect opposition […] great combats and trials, both exterior and interior. They should try to bear them in peace, seeking their strength in faith, hope and charity, the Sacraments and particularly in Holy Communion.” Constitutions Art. 69 : “On account of the labours of the Institute they are dispensed from the Advent Lent prescribed by the Rule.” Constitutions Art. 70 “Nothing is prescribed as exterior penances, over and above the discipline once a week, “on account of the fatigues of the missions”. Customs Book I n° 63, DIRECTORY: “[…] With regard to [exterior] penances, I desire that my daughters avoid at the same time that indiscreet ardour, all too often inspired by a secret pride, seeking penances in time and out of time […]; and also that weak indifference that we must all the more avoid as we are often obliged to take precautions to conserve health. – I specially recommend to them to observe all they can of our Rules, reminding themselves that ’the greatest penance must be our life in common’; they will have the grace for this. If they do so with continuity even in the midst of the toils proper to their vocation, […] I guarantee that our Seraphic Father, the mortified one par excellence, will recognise them as his daughters […].”

- We have just seen Eucharistic offering in complete disponibility for universal mission under its two basic aspects: allow oneself to be interiorly transformed by the Spirit into the image of Christ, a host that is pure and holy and pleasing to God (witness of life in the Spirit); and: make up in our bodies all that has still to be undergone by Christ, in the toils and trials of the missionary life itself. We can still take into account other complementary aspects: c - Let us also point out: expiation, this word appears quite often in the writings of Mary of the Passion. It is found more in the beginnings of her life as foundress, than at the end: this expression is linked to that of reparation, inherited from the Sisters of Marie Reparatrice. This evolution is due in large part, to that of the Institute towards a form of life that is more apostolic and less monastic; the penances of the Rule become blurred in the face of the toils and trials of the missionary life. But for Mary of the Passion there remained a kind of regret: so that the salvation of the world may be accomplished, is it not necessary to expiate, together with Christ, all its numerous

97 faults?...She re-assured herself: the missionary life includes enough “sufferings, sorrows, shades of crucifixion” to respond to the need for expiation1 and “to pay to God for the offence” caused by the sin of the world.

 We cannot hold on to this aspect as it is presented, and which no longer responds to the theology of salvation according to Vatican II. What saves, let us repeat, is not the suffering or the trial in themselves, but the love with which they are united to those of Jesus in trust shown to the Father. In this perspective, all the penances “provoked” in the past had their full meaning of salvation and of intercession offered to God for mankind, when they were intended to be an expression of love. - However, this expression of expiation belongs to the New Testament: cf. for example 1 Jn 2, 2: Jesus “he is the sacrifice that takes our sins away”. Rooted in the Old Testament, this expression has a much broader meaning than that given to it later. Cf. The Letter to the Hebrews, where the Yom Kippour, or Day of Expiations is the one where God “covers (kipper) with his mercy the sins” of his people; and where the people humbly accept this mercy, by fasting and confessing their sins. Here, too, there has been a shift of meaning, which has given rise to practices that are not very “orthodox”. And when we read this expression (expiation) in Scripture, we must be attentive to restore its true meaning, which is always up to date. - It invites us to implore for all, and first of all for ourselves, the mercy of God; this constitutes a part of our life of missionary asceticism. As Moses remained in solidarity with his sinful people (cf. Ex 32, 30-32) so do we with ours; and even more, like Jesus on the Cross: “Father, forgive them…”. But also like Mary accepting from him as her sons, those who had abandoned her only Son in the hour of trial. And in this thrust, we are invited to “revitalize” our practice of the Sacrament of Reconciliation – and to live it! d - In the line of our Marian charism, let us finally add compassion… …the accompaniment of those who are suffering, being in communion with them through empathy, when it is not possible to do anything more. St. Paul says in Rm 12, 15: “Be sad with those in sorrow” as Jesus was at the death of Lazarus, on seeing the distress of his sisters. And like Mary at the foot of the Cross of Jesus, in communion with the Spirit, the Comforter, be for his suffering members: a ‘sacrament’ of the loving presence of the Father and a sign of hope and of resurrection.

4 - THE PARTICULAR EMPHASES OF OUR RECENT GENERAL CHAPTERS This part will take the form of an invitation to undertake research, followed by points for reflection.

Invitation to undertake research

1 Cf. her words to the participants in the General Congregation of 1903.

98 As we have been able to notice, Saint Paul had unceasingly to exhort the new Christian communities not to let themselves go into leading an easier life, so letting themselves wander more or less from the following of Christ. The successive Messages of our General Chapters show that a similar exhortation to call to mind in a concrete way our commitment of ‘Offering in complete disponibility’ is not unnecessary. It would be good for us to clarify for ourselves, that to which the Lord is calling us through their mediation, in the situation which is that of the Institute at this beginning of the 3rd Millennium. Here is the proposed process: - We shall start out from the “Overview of our missionary choices” as presented to us in the Messages of our General Chapters from 1978 to 2008 (see above: IV b, 3 –c). - We shall draw out the appeals, which invite us (as an Institute, as provinces, communities or individuals) to involve ourselves more in the Offering in complete disponibility – and the meaning of these appeals: what is their aim, their reason. - We shall search for what may be the various causes that are liable to reduce the generosity of our commitment (those coming from within ourselves, and those that influence us from the outside), - and the means for remedying them.

 POINTS FOR REFLECTION - How have we become aware little by little of the necessity of asceticism in our lives? And of the particular form that it takes on for us as FMM on account of our special vocation? - In what domains do we have need to implicate ourselves more at this time (collectively and individually) in the place and the moment where we are? - What can help us in a practical way?

99 APPENDIX for those who would like to go a little more deeply into the Mystery of salvation, in the wake of Vatican II, based on the booklet : “To lead lives given away in love”: - Read in the chapter entitled: “The mystery of salvation in the theological context of Vatican II” parts I and II (pages 15-24) finding help in the following grid: o Do these pages confirm me, or provide me with something new, in my knowledge of God and of salvation in Jesus Christ? o Does my proclamation of the Good News correspond with this approach of Vatican II? o At what point are the Christians around me on this subject? Do they still have progress to make? Note:  What seems important to me for my life as a FMM.  What seems important to me for my proclamation of the Good News.  Questions or problems.

- In this same chapter read part III (pages 25-33) and, with the help of the following grid note:  What seems important to me for every baptized person.  What seems important to me for my life as a FMM.  What seems important to me for my proclamation of the Good News.  Questions or problems.

______

“Let all of us, brothers, consider the Good Shepherd Who bore the suffering of the Cross to save his sheep. The Lord’s sheep followed him in tribulation and persecution, in shame and hunger, in weakness and temptation, and in other ways; and for these things they received eternal life from the Lord. […]” St. Francis, Admonition 6

100 Transition from Part I to Part II

FMM CHARISM and Franciscan SPIRITUALITY

Before tackling the Spirituality which envelops and nourishes our Charism and of which the latter is one of its manifestations, it is perhaps good to call to mind what we briefly saw in the Foreword concerning what we put under these words: our Identity, our Spirituality and our Charism – and the close relationship that exists between these three aspects of our life but yet are not to be confused with one another, as the diagram below tried to show.

We have now ended Part I of our journey: our particular calling within the Franciscan Family, in which we are ‘The Missionaries of Mary’ (as Fr. Bernardine of Portogruaro called us, our “Grandfather”). A calling that we have tried to go into more deeply in the preceding pages and which can be synthesized in a few words: we shall write them on the diagram under the title: ‘Our Charism’.

101 Communion with

ECCE - FIAT of the WORD for the Life of the world like MARY by *Eucharistic adoration * commitment to universal mission in international and inter-cultural communities * self-offering in complete disponibility

In the course of Part I, we have often had the occasion to encounter Francis, his spirit, his teachings and what our charism owed to him. In Part II: “Franciscans”, one should not look for a detailed presentation of Franciscan Spirituality, which can be found elsewhere in many forms. Our intention, in the context of this study, is to see: - how the FMM Charism is integrated into the “way of living according to the Holy Gospel” inaugurated by Francis, by nourishing itself with the great spiritual orientations (Spirituality); - and what is our form of belonging to the Franciscan Family, with which it would no doubt be good to become better acquainted… 

102 TABLE OF CONTENTS File 1

LIVING OUR NAME OUR SPIRITUAL FAMILY THE INSTITUTE OF “SISTERS FRANCISCAN MISSSIONARIES OF MARY”

Presentation...... How I worked on the document...... i

FOREWORD

The name...... 1 The charism……………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Identity – Spirituality – Charism……………………………………………………………… 1 A FIRST DIAGRAM…………………………………………………………………………………… 2 The main lines of our process:………………………………………………………………… 3 - Introduction – A project from God - Part I - “Missionaries of Mary” - Part II – “Franciscan” - Part III – “Sisters Franciscan Missionaries of Mary”

INTRODUCTION – A PROJECT FROM GOD

Genesis of a Charism

1. THE CALL AND THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT RELIGIOUS LIFE WITH THE POOR CLARES……………………………………………………………….. 5 2. WITH THE MARIE REPARATRICE SISTERS…………………………………………... 6 3. SEPARATION AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE SISTERS MISSIONARIES OF MARY………………………………………….. 8 4. FRESH DIFFICULTIES – AND FRANCISCAN ADOPTION OF THE INSTITUTE….... 7 5. THE RAPID EXPANSION AND ORGANIZATION OF THE INSTITUTE – THE WORDS OF THE TESTAMENT OF MARY OF THE PASSION………………… 8  POINTS FOR REFLECTION………………………………………………………. . 10 ***

PART I - In the Franciscan family: MISSIONARIES OF MARY

Chapter I Clarification – “Charism” – What do we include under this word?...... 12

1. WHERE MIGHT THE CONFUSION COME FROM………………………………………. 12 2. ORIGIN, HISTORY AND MEANING OF THE WORD “CHARISM”…………………… 12 3. WHAT USE SHALL WE MAKE OF IT?...... 13 4. CHARISM OF THE CONGREGATION…………………………………………………… 14  POINTS FOR REFLECTION……………………………………………………….. 14

Chapter II Overview of the FMM charism………………………………………………………… 15

1. QUESTIONS WHICH STIMULATE US…………………………………………………… 15 2. A PRELIMINARY CLARIFICATION……………………………………………………… 15

103 3. DIAGRAM OF THE “FMM CHARISM”…………………………………………………… 16 4. BRIEF COMMENTARY ON THE DIAGRAM…………………………………………….. 18  POINTS FOR REFLECTION

Chapter III ECCE-Fiat “heart” of the FMM Charism 20

III a The ECCE and the Fiat of the Word Trinitarian Communion – Ecce and Fiat of the Word – Covenant and Mission… 20

1. ONE ONLY GOD TRINITY OF PERSONS IN COMMUNION, LOVE…………………….. 22 2. TRINITY FULLNESS OF LOVE FROM WHICH ALL OF US HAVE RECEIVED ALL…. 24 Illustration: The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt…………………………………. 27 3. THE “ECCE-FIAT” OF THE WORD, EXPRESSION OF HIS BEING AS SON…………… 28 4. HUMANITY REVEALED TO ITSELF………………………………………………………. 29  POINTS FOR REFLECTION……………………………………………………… … 33

III b – The ECCE and the FIAT of Mary 34 Eve – Mary – and the Covenant

1. WHAT THE TEXTS OF THE LITURGY TELL US………………………………………….. 35 2. WHAT OUR SOURCES TELL US…………………………………………………………… 36 3. WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES FOR US TODAY?...... 38 4. WHEN JESUS CALLS HIS MOTHER “WOMAN”…………………………………………. 40  POINTS FOR REFLECTION………………………………………………………… 45

CONCLUSION With Mary at the service of the New Covenant 45  POINTS FOR REFLECTION………………………………………………………………….. 46

Chapter IV 47 The three domains of the INCARNATION OF THE MESSAGE in our lives…… 47 Eucharistic ADORATION - at the service of UNIVERSAL MISSION – OFFERING in complete disponibility

1 – FROM THE ANNUNCIATION TO PENTECOST, MARY ……………………………. 47 2 - CALLED TO “CONTINUE THE MISSION OF MARY” ……………………………….. 47 - IV a – Eucharistic ADORATION Contemplation and sending 1. THE EUCHARIST IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH…………………………………….. 50 2. EUCHARISTIC ADORATION: ITS HISTORY AND ECCLESIAL PRACTICE...... 51 3. THE MEANING OF EUCHARISTIC ADORATION IN THE WRITINGS OF MARY OF THE PASSION...... 54 3.1. Eucharistic Adoration, presence to the Presence...... 54 3.2. Transforming Adoration...... 58 3.3. Missionary Adoration...... 61 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………... 63

4 THE INSTITUTE AND THE EUCHARIST TODAY………………………………………… 64

o POINTS FOR REFLECTION………………………………………………………. 69

IV b SENDING to universal MISSION in international and intercultural fraternal communities

104 1. MISSION AND PARTICULAR CHARISM: WHAT THE CHURCH SAYS ABOUT THIS……………………………………………… 70 2. OUR PARTICULAR WAY OF WITNESSING TO CHRIST……………………………… 72 3. OUR MISSIONARY CHOICES TODAY…………………………………………………… 77 4. TWO OF OUR PRIORITY CHOICES MERIT OUR PAUSING TO CONSIDER THEM… 84  POINTS FOR REFLECTION………………………………………………………... 87

IV c OFFERING IN COMPLETE DISPONIBILITY Eucharistic offering for universal mission 1. OFFERING IN THE CHARISM AS A WHOLE…………………………………………….. 88 2. THE EVANGELICAL AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF SALVATION IN JESUS CHRIST……………………………………………………….. 90 3. OUR OFFERING IN COMPLETE DISPONIBILITY FOR THE MISSION……………….. 93 4. THE PARTICULAR EMPHASES OF OUR RECENT GENERAL CHAPTERS………….. 97  POINTS FOR REFLECTION……………………………………………………….. 98 APPENDIX………………………………………………………………………..………………………. 99

Transition from Part I to Part II FMM CHARISM and Franciscan SPIRITUALITY…………………………………. 100

TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………… 102

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