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BUILDING FRATERNAL COMMUNION (COMMUNITY) Introduction This circular is the fourth in the series entitled A Pilgrimage of Hope. The preceding one, Brotherhood, Gift of Communion in Love, underscored the importance of establishing genuine fraternal communities based on love, a love born of and nourished by our relationship with God. For without divine help, it is impossible to build Gospel-based communities. “If Yahweh does not build a house, in vain do its builders toil. If Yahweh does not guard a city, in vain does its guard keep watch.” (Ps 127:1) That the Lord is the principal agent of brotherhood should in no way suggest a passive attitude on the part of those who await “heaven’s help.” Quite the contrary; for to achieve real community, members must not be simply spectators but actors, each with his part to play, each contributing his share to the construction of the edifice. Admittedly, our roles are necessarily secondary ones, but our collaboration is no less indispensible. The first four chapters of this circular will develop the concept that, notwithstanding the help we can expect from heaven, each and every one of us is responsible for the creation and underpinning of community. The fifth chapter will seek to highlight the importance of sharing in community building. The sixth will put forward dialogue as the best approach for that sharing, while the seventh will discuss the essential role of authority in the building of community. Brothers, these reflections are by way of sharing with you my desire to love more deeply the Lord who unites us all. It is my earnest wish that our communities become more fraternal through the grace of the Lord who is in our midst and through the welcoming of his gifts.

1 Chapter I: Community, the Responsibility of all “Let the Brothers be united together; they must be saints.” (André Coindre, Writings and Documents, 1, Letters 1821-1826, Letter no. III, p. 61.) In sports it is axiomatic that the best teams have access to the best players---players without whom such teams would never be able to achieve the same degree of success. Likewise the quality of life of a local community depends on the goodness of its members. Personal development among its members, both in the human and in the religious sphere, is, therefore, indispensible if the group is to become a truly Gospel-based community. What each person is has an impact on the others. In the first Book of Chronicles we read that Satan rose up against Israel and lured David into calling a census of the Israelites (cf. 1 Ch 21:1-17). According to the mindset of the era, such an act was a gesture of domination, implying a failure to understand that the Lord Yahweh was the only true King of Israel, the unique Lord of all. David succumbed to the temptation and ordered Joab to effect such a census. David’s decision displeased the Lord Yahweh who decided to strike Israel. But David asked pardon for his sin, and Yahweh set this choice of punishments before the King: three years of famine, three months of losing battles against his enemies or three days of country-wide pestilence. David opted to throw himself upon the mercy of the Lord rather than fall prey to the hands of men, and he chose the scourge of pestilence. Seventy thousand of his people died in three days. The sin of a single man among them had entailed the death of so many others. It would be wrong to conclude from this text that Yahweh desires the death of anyone, for he is eternally the God of life. Rather it is humans who tend to destroy one another. Today, three thousand years later, thousands of people die of hunger or as a result of cruel and fratricidal wars, and all because of the unbridled ambitions of a few for power and wealth. Without wanting to skew this analogy, there are perhaps even in our own local communities brothers who suffer due to their own weaknesses or to the frailties of their brothers. Who we are and what we do can be to the benefit or to the detriment of others. St. Paul attests to this assertion when he says, “We were baptized into one body in a single Spirit, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as free men, and we were all given the same Spirit to drink… As it is, the parts are many but the body is one. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ and nor can the head say to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ … If one part is hurt, all the parts share its pain. And if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.” (1 Co 12:13, 20-21, 26) St. Paul’s teaching is very clear: first, as baptized persons we form one single body with Christ at its head; then, as members of this body we are bonded to one another, and we need one another. Finally the state or condition of one member affects all the others; if the former is in good health, all benefit; while if one member is ailing, all the others suffer. From this Pauline teaching we can infer that our own infidelity toward God is prejudicial to the well-being of the other members of my local community, whereas, my faithfulness to the Lord is beneficial to them. The French writer George Bernanos put it this way: “Our secret sins pollute the air that others breathe.” We are all responsible.

2 Recently during one of my visits to our brothers, a young brother put this question to me during a community meeting: “What is the general council’s program for our province?” My first thought was that the reason for the brother’s question was that he thought perhaps that it was brothers from another part of the world or the major superiors who do all the strategic planning, including those areas which ought to be the responsibility of the brothers of each respective sector. So I replied, “The general council does indeed have a program of animation for the entire institute, but it is up to each province to have its own province animation plan so that their brothers can live out their consecration with greater authenticity, and so that the fruits of their mission can be as abundant as possible. It is also the responsibility of your own local community to have a community plan or project which is in harmony with the provincial plan. The institute is you, the institute is me, it’s all of us, and we all share responsibility for it.” Sometimes, to hear some brothers talk, one might get the impression that their local community is no concern of theirs, as though it consisted only of the others; as though they were connected to it by some kind of umbilical cord by means of which all their needs were provided: food, money, housing, public and private transport, studies, leisure activities, etc.; almost as though they had no responsibility for contributing anything whatever to the upkeep and well-being of the community. We cannot be mere consumers within the local community. Rather it is incumbent upon us to become genuine builders. Just as in his inaugural address, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy challenged the citizens of his country with his now-famous imperative, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country,” we might do well to adopt as our own mantra something like, “Ask not what your community can do for you, but rather what you can do for your local community.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry adds that to be adults is to be responsible. We are responsible for one another. A religious community may be said to be much like a mosaic, made up of a variety of precious little pieces with a range of hues. Each member, by his particular gifts, contributes to the group. Some offer joy, others simplicity, still others a spirit of service, availability, goodness, a great capacity for work and organization, leadership skills, a deep interior life, etc. Perhaps you’ve heard these words once or twice: “In community people tend to hide their talents.” But in order to build community, each of us must place his talents at the service of all: who we are, what we know, the richness of our spiritual and fraternal life, our fidelity in living out our consecration to the Lord, and our selfless dedication to the mission entrusted to us. Holiness, the greatest gift to the local community I endeavored to suggest above that our own spiritual health contributes to the well-being of our local community, of the Body of Christ and of the whole of humanity. Understandably, the greatest beneficiaries would tend to be those with whom we live side by side, that is to say the members of our respective local communities. And consequently, the greatest gift that we can offer to our brothers is the faithful living out of our vocation to holiness, that universal vocation of all the faithful, as described in the documents of Vatican II (cf. Lumen Gentium, ch. V). Heaven in not a pedestal reserved for the best, but rather it is a banqueting hall to which all are invited. It would seem that these days, saints tend to be devalued more and more. Despite the great numbers of men and women that Pope John Paul II beatified, aspiring to holiness hardly seems to be very high on the list of priorities for today’s Catholics. In fact were most Catholics 3 to be asked the question, “Do you want to be a saint?” likely answers would range from, “I prefer to stay an ordinary person,” or “I don’t think I’m quite up to it,” etc. Don’t you agree that such answers are evidence of a depth of ignorance regarding the nature of holiness? The saint is any person whose humanity and faith are in harmony. Aspiring to holiness does not mean forsaking happiness, ambition, pleasure, self-fulfillment or even life itself. Jesus was at one and the same time the most human and divine of persons. As he follows in Jesus’ footsteps, the saint is at one and the same time both profoundly human and intensely united to God. Holiness does not consist so much in doing extraordinary things but in loving God and one’s brothers and sisters with all one’s being. “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Lk 10:27) In other words, the saint is the person who is conscious of his littleness and of his imperfections, but at the same time with the help of God, he grows each day in his intimacy with God and grows in love for Him, for his brothers and sisters, and for himself. The saint is the person who desires to love, who loves with an authentic love, and who suffers for not loving sufficiently. Brother Joseph Gibelin of the province of France used to tell his students at the professional school in Saint-Chély-d'Apcher, “The hotel business can be very rewarding for you and provide you with a very fulfilling career, but with one proviso: you must become good or very good at your profession. There is no room for mediocrity in this trade.”1 I said more or less the same thing to the first-year novices in Lusaka, Zambia toward the end of January of this year: “You are not to become good brothers; you are to become very, very, but really very good! What we need are brothers of integrity who live lives of consecrated chastity, poverty and obedience in self-control, simplicity, and availability. We need brothers devoid of any kind of attitude of superiority or individualism. Just strive always to be a real person, and the rest will follow little by little. Remember Jesus’ words in the Gospel: ‘Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on God's saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well.’ This Kingdom is to be found within the community of those who live Jesus’ values, that is to say, among those who love God and their fellow human beings.” The human and spiritual patrimony of a community is to be found in the personal wealth of its members. Assured of the help of God, we must all strive personally to increase this patrimony through faithfulness to our vocation to holiness. In 2009 we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the death of Venerable Brother Polycarp, whose life was a gift for his brothers, for the institute, and for all those people who had the opportunity of knowing and admiring his outstanding virtues. Let us ask Jesus and Mary to grant us the grace of his beatification. And may we, through a growing faithfulness to the love of the Heart of God, like Brother Polycarp, be gifts for our respective local communities, for our province, for our institute, for the Church and for the world.

1 Translation of an extract from a talk by Frère Joseph Gibelin cited on page 81 of his biography written by Frère Jean Hermet. 4 Chapter II: Building Community through a Growing Love Growing in Love As we read in the Gospel according to St. Matthew (cf. 25:14-30), we have all received our share of talents: some of us five, others two, and yet others one, and each according to our respective aptitudes. The “good and faithful servant” invested his talents wisely and they bore fruit. The faint-hearted and lazy servant merely dug a hole in the ground and hid his talent. This parable teaches us that a person is not “good and faithful” by the mere fact of having received a few gifts, but rather as a result of his commitment to furthering and making known the Kingdom. Christians are called to an ongoing pilgrimage, committed to the values of the Kingdom and striving to maintain their friendship with God and their fellow men and women through a devoted and selfless service. We know that life offers us the best of days, as well as days that are less pleasant. Sometimes we make headway, sometimes we lose ground. But the net result must necessarily be one of ongoing advancement toward the summit. Merely being content with whatever successes may come our way, and washing our hands of the rest, is not a Christian attitude. Christian masters would tell their disciples that in the spiritual life if you do not advance you regress. And today, there are those thinkers who maintain that every person is “a project,” launched, toward the future and in a constant and life-long state of becoming. The tendency of Christians toward growth is not merely a question of will. We know that the will alone is not sufficient for spiritual growth; God’s grace is indispensable: “Cut off from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5) Nor must Christian growth be seen as some kind of self- applied spiritual “make-over,” endured in an effort to correct one or two flaws which we think others might consider ugly. Rather this Christian tendency toward growth is the fruit of the Spirit who inspires in us a deep love for the Father and which leads us to identify with Jesus. The Christian and the religious aspire to the fullness of life for the sake of the Father, who rejoices to see his sons and daughters always seeking both after their own welfare and the welfare of their brothers and sisters. There was a brother who said to another brother whom he admired, “As I see it, your behavior isn’t good; it’s not at all in keeping with the many fine qualities which you possess; to me you’re risking tarnishing the image of generous and selfless service by which you’re known.” The reaction of the brother, who was somewhat older and more experienced, was, “Well, I wasn’t exactly born yesterday. I am just too old to change.” Yet another brother who had received a similar fraternal correction reacted this way: “I’m still young; I’ve got lots of time ahead of me to correct my faults. I’ll deal with all of that when I’m older.” At no time on the road of life dare we allow ourselves to forgo our duty to love, which consists in seeking the best for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters. Throughout our lives, genuine love will be a stimulus for growth. This is the sentiment suggested by the old proverb: “Today I love you even more than yesterday, but less than tomorrow.” To grow in love means to go beyond oneself in order to create more room in one’s life for God and for our brothers and sisters. This implies a gradual mastery over self-seeking, individualism, conceit, antagonism, and intolerance, which in turn implies growth in patience, availability, generosity, friendliness, joy, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

5 One of the greatest problems in religious life today is individualism, which can be defined as a negation of dialogue or of communication with others, but including with God. The good Christian and good religious has a far greater tendency to use the pronoun “us” than the pronoun “I.” It is rarely a matter of “my” parish, but “our” parish; it is not solely “my” local community, but “our” local community; it is never exclusively “my” mission, but “our” mission; it is never so much a matter of “my” school but “our” school; I am not so much engaged in “my” project but in “our” project. It’s all about equilibrium: balance between respect for the individual and for the common good. The objective must always be for the “I” to yield to the “we.” This is precisely what the Church maintains in its text on community life: “Religious community is the place where the daily and patient passage from ‘me’ to ‘us’ takes place, from my commitment to a commitment entrusted to the community, from seeking ‘my things’ to seeking ‘the things of Christ’."(Fraternal Life in Community, § 39) While visiting one local community, I met a brother whom I came to greatly esteem. During our interview, I remarked that he seemed to experience a great deal of satisfaction in speaking of his ministry in one of our most successful and well-respected schools. He explained to me that his provincial had asked him to take over the leadership of a far smaller but no less important community work. Unfortunately the brother was not on the same wave- length as his provincial in that matter. Turning to things more edifying, I met another brother, one fairly advanced in years. Here is what he told me straight-out: “I’m very happy in religious life as a Brother of the Sacred Heart. I give thanks to God every day for having called me to this life.” When he had been in his initial formation period, this brother had been well suited for studies, but his superiors had asked him to direct his talents to manual work, at the service of the community. He had willingly accepted and had dedicated long years of service to his brothers, always a model religious, much admired by his confreres and by the people around him, and always living his religious consecration with great joy. Brothers, the ideal of the Christian and the religious life is not to find self-fulfillment in the realization of an individual project, in isolation from others. The ideal is to be and to do among brothers, in a real and concrete way. The ideal is to succeed in reconciling our own aspirations with those of a community project, which in the normal way of things, implies preferring what contributes to the growth and fruitfulness of the community and its mission to what is solely oriented toward personal fulfillment. A love ever new Building community requires a long and exhausting journey, over that rough road that leads to self-liberation. This implies the death of the “old man” who has a tendency to close himself off to others, making way for the birth of the “new man,” who like Christ, dedicates himself selflessly to the service of God and to his brothers and sisters, even to the expense of his own life (cf. Fraternal Life in Community, § 21). Many people are quite capable of making great sacrifices for their own sakes---to be famous, to be successful in life---or for the sake of another. Consider, if you will, the young man who dreams of becoming a sporting champion and who trains five hours a day: two hours in the morning before classes and three in the afternoon at the end of the school day. Then there are those who will sacrifice for love of others: the mother who gets up early every morning before going to work, prepares breakfast, and sees to all the needs of her husband and children before they go their separate ways. 6 Only love can spur us on to the gift of self. As we contemplate the open side of Christ and with the help of the Spirit, we can discover for ourselves the great love of the Trinity for us. And with that discovery is born is us the love of God and the desire to serve him totally, in his sons and daughters, even though this will entail struggles, efforts, sacrifices, selflessness, forgoing things that we like, conforming our will to God’s will (cf. R 99). Only the love of Christ, and through Him the love of the Father, through the Spirit, can help us to make our way successfully along the path of gratuitous self-giving (cf. Fraternal Life in Community, §§ 22 & 23). In St. Luke’s Gospel we read, “He went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority. His mother stored up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature and in favor with God and with people.” (Lk 2:51-52) According to the text Jesus grew in every dimension of his person. His growth was in fact human: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, relational, etc. Moreover he made progress in spirituality: he became gradually more aware of the immeasurable love of his Father for him; he grew equally in his conviction of being the brother of all the sons and daughters of God, to every man, woman and child. I said above that Jesus’ growth was both human and spiritual. Likewise we can say that the human person is called to grow both humanly and spiritually. For the sake of clarity, when I speak of human growth, I refer to the growth of the person, himself or herself. It’s a matter of growth in virtue and in human values, all part of the natural maturation process of the human person. Spiritual growth---growth in one’s relationship of loving service to God, growth in the person’s relationship with self, with his or her brothers and sisters, and with all of creation---can only be achieved with the help of grace. The spiritual and the human---two borderless dimensions---are blended into a single, unique human person. Since the spiritual dimension is inseparable from the human dimension, it is impossible to determine where one begins and the other ends. And since the spiritual dimension is indistinguishable from the human dimension, human growth and spiritual progress are consequently simultaneous. It can never, therefore, be a matter of concentrating uniquely on human development in the first instance and saving the spiritual component for later. Once, there was a brother who volunteered his spiritual insight as a possible means of resolving a problem in his local community. The reaction of one brother was, “Brother, your spiritual counsels are all very well and good, but we mustn’t forget human nature. Let’s concern ourselves with being more human; there’ll be plenty of time later to deal with the spiritual side.” There is, in the human person, a spiritual dimension which must be recognized and whose development must not be put off until later. In chapters three and four I will deal respectively with matters relating to actual human and spiritual growth. Even though, for reasons of clarity, I have opted to differentiate between these two dimensions, one must never lose sight of the fact that they are intimately united, and that the spiritual is built up and develops progressively in tandem with the human. In order to achieve holistic growth, both scientific and human techniques can be useful, but we must also have recourse to grace. The undaunted growth of every dimension of our being contributes to the growth and strengthening of our respective local communities. Thus, every local community benefits from the gifts of each of its members. 7 Chapter III: Communities of human persons Human development While visiting the novitiate-postulate community in Lusaka, Zambia, I asked one of the young men there what they were studying. I soon learned that one subject was “Human Development.” Human development is indeed important. Slowly but surely, the spiritual dimension of the human person is built upon a human foundation, until gradually the two are fused into one. Without a sound human grounding, it is very difficult to reach an appropriate spiritual level. To be an authentic religious, one must first be a good person. Grace is then grafted onto nature and complements it, somewhat like a flower does its stem. But just as the flower will not draw our attention without the stem to support it, grace cannot produce all its fruit where human nature is still damaged. God created the world out of nothing, but cannot build it up in a vacuum. To my way of thinking, it is important to reinforce human growth during the period of initial formation, and especially before noviciate. If a novice or even a young professed brother has never settled certain basic human issues it will be difficult for him to manage to live coherently, an intimate, transforming and fulfilling experience of God, within his chosen state of life, be it in terms of his prayer life, his fraternal life or his life in the service of others. Self-knowledge and self-acceptance, formation to human values, and the acquisition of norms and good habits necessary for community living---a sense of occasion, honest and open human relations, common sense, etc.---are all the product sound human development. But here I’ll deal solely with the first point. Self-knowledge and self-acceptance Throughout life self-knowledge, self-acceptance and self-love are indispensable elements for achieving a sense of personal fulfillment and for the empowerment required to establish and maintain harmonious relations with others. But there is no love without knowledge. A person must know and accept his or her qualities as well as flaws. A person must be aware of whether or not he or she is, for example, cordial, sensitive, anxious, impatient, etc. Self- knowledge also involves knowing, to the extent possible, why one is the way he or she is. It implies discovering that certain aspects of one’s personality are hereditary, while others are the fruit of lived experiences. Self-knowledge allows a person to come to grips with his or her strengths and weaknesses, to notice what happens when these facets of themselves are revealed, to accept them in as much as possible, as if to say: “O.K. , these are my character traits; this is the real me.” The fact of knowing and accepting one’s qualities and flaws can help a person to have a better self-esteem, to accept the way he or she is, and to forgive self. In fact, such self- knowledge and self-acceptance allows a person the more easily to appreciate his or her own worth, and that faults and wounds are often the fruit of heredity or of life’s experiences, none of which are either chosen or avoidable. By the same token, self-knowledge and the acceptance of one’s negative side can help a person to be more understanding and tolerant of others and to appreciate the reality that neither are these others totally responsible for their own faults and wounds.

8 Some persons who are particularly wounded require professional help in order to come to that essential self-knowledge and self-acceptance. If such brothers are in our ranks, we have a duty to see to it that they receive the support they require.

9 Chapter IV: Communities of people in union with God A few years ago, I was advising two young people who were preparing for marriage. “Married life is a very beautiful thing, but not easy, by any means. It is only with maturity and genuine love that you will manage to overcome the trials of life. You will need to adapt to one another, despite the fact that the two of you are different, and that your life experiences and your tastes are not the same.” “No matter what happens, I promise to always be there for Marta, and I am sure that she will always be there for me,” retorted the confident young fiancé. Neither married life nor community life is easy. And for the latter to be possible, it is essential to nurture our intelligence through self-knowledge, our faith in God, source of all communion, and our hearts (personal conversion). Food for this nurturing is to be found principally in listening to the Word, in the Eucharist, in prayer, in spiritual reading, in meditation, in the sacrament of reconciliation, and in the practice of virtue with the aid of grace. It may also be found in sharing and in dialogue with our brothers, in accompaniment, and in the service of authority. In this Chapter I will emphasize the importance of the spiritual nourishment of fraternity. I will deal with the other themes in subsequent chapters.

Prayer “Praying together and listening together to the Scriptures reinforce our bonds of friendship.” (R 24) In my second circular I developed the theme of prayer, delving into it in some detail. I will not yield to the temptation of repeating myself here. I will be content with explaining why prayer is of such importance to fraternal life. To begin with, prayer is first and foremost an intimate encounter with Brother Jesus, an encounter in which we experience the God who leads us to discover Him and serve Him through his sons and daughters and our brothers. Saint Paul, who was so totally taken up by his love of Christ, loved his spiritual sons to the point of taking God as the witness of his love for them: “For God will testify for me how much I long for you all with the warm longing of Christ Jesus.”(Ph 1:8) In prayer we open our intelligence and our hearts to knowing the Father and to marveling at the vastness of his love. We also experience our littleness and our frailty, all of which help us to become more understanding and more tolerant of the frailty of others. Without prayer we run the risk of trying to prove to our brothers that we are self-sufficient, and little by little we destroy community. Prayer helps us to discover the mercy of God who “loved us and sent his Son to expiate our sins.” (1 Jn 4:10) This leads us to recognize our faults and to ask forgiveness and to know that we are forgiven by Him, especially through the sacrament of reconciliation. Thus, the attitude of willingness to forgive our brothers is strengthened in us. Through prayer the community calls forth the Holy Spirit, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Ac 2:1-13; 4:23-31). The Spirit---the bond of love between the Father and the Son---also unites the hearts of brothers into one single family. It is the Spirit who helps us to understand fraternal life and its demands. At the same time, the Spirit gives us the strength we need to live authentic community. And finally, the Spirit frees our hearts from selfish pride, as we read in Scripture, “I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead.” (Ezk 36:26) With the help of the Spirit we are enabled to grow towards agape- love---pure, unconditional and sacrificial love. In prayer we contemplate and welcome the mystery of the God of Communion, which invites us to actualize it in fraternal community. But if we choose to abandon prayer, fraternal life will gradually lose 10 its meaning in our lives (cf. Fraternal Life in Community, § 12). That is why it is vital that we give time to God, both in community prayer and in personal prayer (cf. Ibidem, §§ 13 and 15), and that these times set aside for prayer be specified in our community formation plan. Time is set aside each day in each local community for community prayer. This is the moment in the day when we celebrate the marvels of being sons of God and brothers called to be of one heart and one soul together. No less inspiring is the sharing of the Word and doing lectio divina in community. Personal prayer is that place of interiorization in our spiritual lives where, through our filial relationship with the Father and our intimacy with Jesus, we deepen what we have celebrated and experienced in community prayer and in the liturgy (cf. Fraternal Life in Community, § 15). But neglecting prayer leads to the loss of the sense of vocation, and in many cases, to the total rejection of religious life. This negligence, the loss of interest which follows, the unexplained absences from the community, the frequent delays, are but external manifestations of the paucity of an individual’s relationship with God. They are also signs of instability in the local community. A local superior who was emphasizing the importance of prayer for perseverance in religious life was told, “I have known brothers who seemed to pray and yet left the institute.” To which the same superior retorted, “Well, I don’t know any who neglected prayer and remained in religious life as good religious!” Another brother who was often absent from morning prayer, tried to justify himself by asking defiantly: “What’s the point of going to chapel for prayer if a person falls asleep all the time?” The reply was, “The simple fact of being present at prayer, with the intention of establishing a dialogue with the Lord and of contributing to community with one’s brothers is already prayer, despite the fact that one might fall asleep once in a while. Just being together in the name of the Lord is already prayer, for it is calling Jesus to the heart of the community, He who intercedes ceaselessly for us and with us to the Father.” To bring closure to this point it seems to me appropriate to say a few words on the Psalms. It is the Psalms, after all, that nourish our daily prayer. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that some of us do not have a sufficient understanding of the Psalms or do not find them all that practical. I believe that we would find the Psalms more meaningful if we saw them as a prayer of God and of man. Sometimes prayer is so human it ceases to be divine, for example when we pray for the destruction of our enemies. Through the Psalms Jesus prays with us, with the Church and with all of humanity. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “This is why praying the Psalms is particularly adapted to community. Even when a verse (or even an entire Psalm) does not set well with me in my personal prayer, the Psalms are nevertheless still being prayed by other members of the community, and thus, without a shadow of doubt, it remains the prayer of the authentic man in Jesus Christ and of his body on earth.”2 When we pray the Psalms we learn to pray in communion and thereby strengthen the bonds that unite us. That is why it is important to proclaim them unhurriedly and aloud, with measured pace. And as we pray we should adopt the same rhythm as the other members of the community, conscious of the others praying around us, for listening to our brothers in prayer is a way of showing concern for them, an acknowledgement of how important our brothers are in our lives. What’s more, that same, harmonious rhythm is a sign of our fraternal union in the Lord. Finally, love for Mary our mother and the image of her in prayer strengthen us in our fidelity to prayer. The supplication of her maternal intercession can transform our local communities into families that increasingly resemble the family of Nazareth, “that lived out the Gospel of communion and fraternity in a wonderful way.” (Fraternal Life in Community, § 18) The Cardinal and Theological Virtues

2 The quotation is translated from the Italian, and drawn from BONHOEFFER, Dietrich. Vita comune, Brescia, Editrice Queriniana, 2003-2004, p. 35. 11 In order to experience a truly satisfying and constructive community life, everyone in general and each brother in particular needs to grow in the human and Christian virtues. We saw earlier that today many people have a certain aversion to the word “holiness.” For the same reasons the word “virtue” has become suspect, as if it implied people who have a propensity for sadness, a love of suffering, people incapable of taking advantage of the good things of life, people without the least bit of personality. Now, there’s a misinterpretation of the word, if ever there was one. In Latin, virtus actually means “strength.” Virtues are the mark of the strong, those who are determined, who love life and who most definitely have a personality. As we all know, there are cardinal virtues and theological virtues. Cardinal virtues are qualities fundamental to each person, independently of his or her background, race or religion. They are human virtues because they have to do with natural abilities, which are nevertheless bolstered by the help of God. The theological virtues are gratuitous gifts to us from God. They are “supernatural,” that is to say, the human person can not acquire them through his or her own efforts alone. I shall briefly present the cardinal and theological virtues and indicate how those who practice them contribute to the growth of community. Cardinal Virtues Prudence Prudence is the virtue that helps us to make well thought-out decisions; it helps us to speak and act with wisdom, always respecting the dignity and integrity of the other. In the Gospel we read, “…be cunning as snakes and yet innocent as doves.” (Mt 10:16) The virtue of prudence helps us to contribute to the building up of community. However, this implies listening to everybody, not asking of others what they cannot give, keeping an appropriate balance between prayer and work, study and recreational activities, commitments and rest, personal time and community time, creative spirit and respect for the rules, fraternal life, and the apostolate, respect for the human person and the common good, personal charism and the community plan (cf. Fraternal Life in Community, § 39). It involves finding appropriate forms and times for sharing, avoiding undue haste, taking time to reflect, avoiding frivolity in expressing one’s opinion, one’s evaluation or judgment; it involves remaining calm, and examining one’s motives as one seeks to attain objectives that one has set for self. Still other forms of prudence are constancy and work. Justice Justice is the virtue that helps us to recognize, respect and promote the rights of others, as well as our own rights, all the while attentive to the dignity and value of each person. Community is built up wherever others are treated without discrimination, wherever sincerity, tolerance, honesty, respect, compassion and mercy are practiced (cf. Lk 6:36), and wherever there is solidarity, generosity, acceptance of the weakest. There is an entire range of ways of promoting growth in community. These include gratitude to God (cf. Ep 5:20) and to our brothers---for everything we have has been given to us---refusal to be influenced by prejudice (cf. Ga 5:26), refusal to engage in destructive criticism and character assassination or slander, and eschewing the seeking of honors for self or for others. 'You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers (cf. Mt 23: 8). Strength Without the virtue of strength it would be impossible to accept, endure, and confront consistently the trials and difficulties of life with steadfastness and courage There is growth in community solidarity when all the members are convinced that it is in God that they find their strength. This helps them to develop patience (cf. 1 Th 5:14), gentleness, and a sense of service. Strength also teaches us to avoid an attitude of routine, to accept criticism, to relativize our usual preferences by orienting them towards the common good, to fight against the inclinations of the

12 “old man,” who might feel himself a victim of incomprehension and injustice, and who allows himself to be convinced that his hell comes from others.

Temperance The virtue of temperance, little sister of strength, is the path that leads to the self-mastery required to tend towards good. The community can only benefit from being made up of persons who are free from all dependency,, liberated from ambition (cf. Lk 14:11) and need for self-aggrandizement, capable of using all things with discernment, and of being content with the necessary. The Theological virtues “The local community is a center of life and love, modeled on the community of the Twelve gathered around the Lord. It becomes stronger as the brothers grow in faith and hope.” (R 23) In my first and third circulars, I dealt with the topics of hope and love. This time my reflections will bear on faith. And after having considered the relationship between faith, hope and love, I shall endeavor to show how these virtues contribute to building up community. As we undertake this journey towards a better understanding of faith, let us consider this anecdote. In a village, there lived a family made up of parents and their several young children. The daily chore of one of the children was to go to one of the neighboring houses and get the milk for breakfast. The child always executed this little responsibility of milking the cows after nightfall. Naturally enough the little one was afraid of the dark. But he knew that his father would be waiting for him at the end of their lane. And that was why he was able to do his chore every day, full of trust, certain that nothing would happen to him thanks to that paternal presence. This little story helps us to understand the nature of human faith, that is to say trust in self and trust in others. It is especially in childhood that a person acquires this security, as he or she experiences the loving and protective parental embrace. Without a sufficiently great trust, the life of the human person would be one of constant anguish, the prey of countless fears, making life intolerable and impossible. There is also supernatural faith. It can be defined as the trust that we place in God, our Father, as we learn about Him, through the gift of the Spirit, thanks to our intimate encounters with Jesus. It may be said that faith is a relationship of trust. In the Old Testament the words “to trust” and “to be in a secure place,” “to feel secure,” “to place one’s trust in” are frequently used to express faith. To live faith is to place our trust in God in the secure knowledge that we are wonderfully welcomed and loved by Him; we believe in Him and in His Word, welcoming Him, and accepting His message, as He reveals himself in Christ as the love agape. We know God especially through Jesus Christ, the perfect image of the Father. Jesus is the face of the Heart of God. That is why faith consists in believing in Jesus, and in believing like Jesus, the model of our faith. Is he not the one “who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection”? (Heb 12:2) In other words it is Jesus who speaks and completes our faith. Jesus’ faith is total openness to the Father in his relationship with Him and his entire availability to doing His will. Jesus is the Yes or the Amen of God (cf. 2 Col 1:19-20). In the Gospel we read, “Anyone who is not with me is against me.” (Lk 11:23) One interpretation of this text might signify that we have but two options in life: to journey with God and with others or to go it alone, to develop within relationships or in loneliness, to save ourselves alone or with the help of the Spirit, accepting God in Jesus as our one and only Savior. 13 This year we are celebrating two thousand years since the birth of Saint Paul. As a young man Paul was utterly convinced that he could save himself, by himself, through good works and by respecting the Law. Having been overwhelmed by Christ, Paul began by recognizing his error. Up until then he had lived as if blind, as judge of his own actions in self-sufficiency and pride, and down-grading others. Guided by the Sprit, he gradually came to discover in God the one whom he was to call Abba, infinitely good and full of compassion, and the only one who saves us through the Christ. In so doing Paul discovered the immensity of God’s love, and at the same time he discovered his own limitations and his miserable state. All of this anchored him in his conviction that salvation is a grace, that is to say a gift of God, and that no one is saved because he or she is good, but only because God is good. Faith means relying totally on God, as Jesus did, eschewing a way of life which relies entirely on self-trust. Paul himself was to exclaim several times, “The upright will live trough faith.” (Ga 3:11, cf. Rm 1:17) The experience of faith is fundamental to our religious life. We run the risk of death itself if little by little we reduce religious life to simple apostolic efficiency or if professional competence becomes the sole reason for being or for living. Faith is the encounter of God with man in Jesus Christ. Faith means following Jesus. The religious is called to believe like Jesus and in Jesus, for it is He who gives meaning to religious life, and so much so that “nothing can come before personal love of Christ and of the poor in whom he lives.” (Vita Consecrata, § 84) Christ must therefore occupy the first place especially in our heart and in the reality of our daily lives. In the preceding paragraphs I have made a brief presentation on faith. Between faith and the other theological virtues there exists a close relationship which may be translated thus: faith, the fruit of an intimate encounter with Jesus in the every day activities of our lives and in Him with God, moves us to love and to serve God and neighbor in the here and now (love) with the certainty of coming to a ultimate encounter with Him (hope). Now let us consider how faith, hope and love constitute the three fundamental pillars of brotherhood. To begin with, without the eyes of faith, living religious brotherhood is impossible. The reality is that having a loving relationship with God and trusting in Him stirs up in our hearts the desire to respond to this love by seeking our own good and that of our brothers and sisters. But if our gaze is not turned toward the Lord, we run the risk of turning that gaze inwards to ourselves, and in consequence, it will be all the more difficult for us to establish and maintain genuine fraternal relationships, the kind that generate life and witness to the coming of the Kingdom. Let us now go on to the virtue of hope. One day I was speaking with a group of parents about the goals of our school, its style of educating, and its emphasis on building up an authentic educational community. One of the parents said, “But brother, things are far from perfect in the school; there are many things that need improving.” I showed him the school’s prospectus and quoted from our mission statement, and I countered, “You’re quite right. What is printed here does, in great measure, correspond to what we are, but not entirely, for we are not perfect, we will always be on the road to perfection.” As in the educational community, fraternal community is very much a “work in progress;” it will never be perfect. Community life is made up of bright areas and dark areas; it has its riches and its difficulties. The Acts of the Apostles do not reveal a perfect Christian community, but a community which, in order to grow, had to continually overcome numerous tensions such as putting all their goods in common, balancing preaching and the service of charity, and discerning whether the “Good News” was to be preached to Jews only or to gentiles as well. In our local communities we have our own multiple tensions to overcome: tensions linked to a lack of harmony between personal and communal projects, to the challenges of different persons living together, to the difficulty of an appropriate distribution of responsibilities, to intransigent and rigid

14 positions, to prejudices, to the seeking after one’s own well-being, to a lack of commitment, to authoritarianism, to a lack of availability of a fraternal and evangelical obedience, etc. Hope helps us to remain serene and constant in our efforts to build community. With the help of the Lord we can hope to progress in fraternal communion and thus to become signs of the ultimate community, where we will all find ourselves before the Lord to remain eternally with Him. Finally, it is obvious that love contributes in a decisive way to the construction of community. Cultivating love means allowing ourselves to be pervaded by the love of God, and to love God with all our hearts, all our minds and all our strength. But as we saw in the third circular, love for God must be translated into love of our brothers, and of all men and women in this world. Article 15 of the Rule of Life affirms: “The Institute is marked by a spirit of love expressed through simplicity, acceptance and brotherhood. As true brothers we share our life and our apostolate. We develop a family spirit which makes each brother feel loved for who he is.” The Eucharist Our celebration of the Eucharist, the efficacious sign of our unity in love, makes us more aware of our presence at the heart of the Christian community. Strengthened by the bread of life, broken and shared, we go out as a team of apostles to those who seek our presence and our help. (R 24) “(Each community) plans the annual rhythm of its life around a calendar of celebrations at the table of the Eucharist and the table of fellowship.” (A Pilgrimage of Hope, p. 23.) The Eucharist is the memorial of the death of Jesus who gives his life for the salvation of all; at each Eucharistic celebration, we re-live the sacramental offering of the Son who, guided by the Spirit, gives his life to unite us with the Father, thus forming the community of the sons and daughters of God. The Eucharist, therefore, builds up our fraternal community and is continued in that community. Saint Paul was so utterly convinced that the Eucharist signifies and consolidates the unity of the community that he severely reproached Christian communities in Corinth for the divisions and the differences that characterized them. He could not allow such divisions to arise during the Eucharist, the celebration par excellence of communion with God and with our brothers and sisters. (1Co 11:17- 34) There was to be no discord during the commemoration of the Lord’s supper, where, through the offering of the bread and wine we symbolize and actualize the offering of Jesus to obtain the unity of all men and women around the same Father. “Do this in remembrance of me.” (1Co 11:24; cf. 1 Co 11:25) These words of Jesus that conclude the blessing and offering of the bread and wine are similar to those that Jesus addresses to his disciples after he washed their feet: “I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” (Jn 13:15). In the light of these texts we can affirm that the practice of charity constitutes in a certain sense the celebration of the memorial of the death of Jesus, who became a humble servant even to giving his life for the salvation of all. Given the close relationship between the service of charity and the Eucharistic celebration, one cannot avoid asserting that the Eucharist does not end with the rite of dismissal; it is prolonged in the lives of so many parents, educators, workers, civil servants, etc. They are all broken and shared daily for the good of their own, that is to say to provide food, clothing, housing worthy of the name, health, education, in brief, everything that humans need. We consecrated religious also prolong the 15 Eucharistic celebration in our daily lives through our positive spirit and our efforts to build Gospel communities. We prolong that celebration through our service to our brothers and sisters, especially the children and young people entrusted to our care. In the light of the above, we can conclude that our fraternal community is strengthened by our participation in the Eucharist. During this celebration we are gathered together as a family, signifying that our vocation is communion. We listen to the Word which calls us to be sons of the Father and brothers to one another. With Jesus we make the offering of ourselves to the glory of the Father. And finally we celebrate the memory of Jesus who, like the bread, is broken and shared that all may be one. Recognizing that the Eucharist strengthens community, the Rule of Life invites us to celebrate it each day together: “The brothers celebrate the Eucharist together each day to deepen their awareness of its power to build brotherhood.” (R 45, cf. R 143) The Rule also reminds us that devotion to the Eucharist is an element of our spirituality: “In their houses the brothers have a chapel where Christ in his sacramental presence accepts their prayer and the offering of their apostolic action.” (R 43, cf. Fraternal Life in Community, § 14).

I shall conclude this brief point with a few words drawn from the document Fraternal Life in Community: “It is around the Eucharist, celebrated or adored, ‘source and summit’ of all activity of the Church, that the communion of souls is built up, which is the starting point of all growth in fraternity. ‘From this all education for community spirit must begin.’"(§ 14, integrating an extract from the Conciliar decree, Presbyterorum ordinis, § 6) The Sacrament of Reconciiation The sacrament of reconciliation helps us to live as children of God and brothers to all. That is why it is such a significant support in and for our fraternal life. This sacrament is, first and foremost, a loving encounter with the God of goodness, compassion and mercy who receives us with open arms whenever, having strayed from Him, we return to his presence with contrite and humble hearts. As a result of these moments of meeting with the Lord, we gradually discover the love of God as we recognize and admit our human weaknesses. This leads us to be more understanding and patient towards our brothers. It is this same encounter with the Lord who has pity on us, which moves us to be more compassionate towards our brothers and always willing to forgive them (cf. Mt 18, 23-35). During the past decades, the Church has emphasized the community dimension of the sacrament of reconciliation. This has been the result of a growing awareness that every human person is intimately united to the ecclesial and human community, and that his or her behavior, whether good or bad, will be to the benefit or to the detriment of the community. And from this perspective the sacrament reconciles us not only with God but also strengthens the bonds of community which our sins have weakened. To sum up, through the sacrament of reconciliation we re-establish and re-enforce our friendship with God, and we strengthen anew the bonds which unite us with the community. The Rule of Life invites us to this loving encounter: “They frequently approach the sacrament of reconciliation, which is an encounter with the merciful love of Christ and which restores them to the Christian community.” (R 145)

16 Chapter V: Living in Communion, Sharing life and Faith “Brother, do you love me enough to share deeply with your brothers your wounds, your deep desires, your hopes and your encounters with me.” (A Pilgrimage of Hope, p. 22.) “ A house where such union reigns, and which is so essential to religious life, is the image of heaven where the most perfect union reigns.” (Circular of Ven. Brother Polycarp, 12 January 1848, in Positio, p. 176.) In community, sharing is an aid to personal development and to the growth of each member in faith; it constantly re-kindles in us the desire seek God, strengthens fraternal life and commitment for the mission of the Institute, and is the source of vocations for the community. This sharing has a theological basis. We have been created in the image and likeness of the God-Family, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is why our vocation is communion. All baptized persons, but especially we religious, live this vocation in daily sharing. We follow Jesus, who gathers around Himself a community that shares his life and his mission (cf. Mk 3:14). Consistent with the Gospel, a disciple of Jesus is any person who lives with Him and serves the Kingdom and helps to build it up. Sharing Life In community, sharing life, and especially the life of faith, involves exchanging knowledge, ideas, feelings; we share who we are, our material and spiritual possessions; we share how we live and what we do, our responsibilities and our ideals. It is equally a matter of sharing our successes and our failures, our strengths and our weaknesses. A community may be said to be healthy when its brothers trust one another sufficiently to share even their weaknesses without fear of rejection. Openness like this requires a fair dose of humility on the part of every member of the community. Community life is not always a bed of roses. It has its difficult moments, with a whole range of varying causes. What is important is to be able to talk openly about such trials and tensions, those linked to internal causes as well as those resulting from external causes. Both offer opportunities for growth in community. The former may place fraternal life in crisis, but all engender the seeking after and implementation of means to improve the situation. As for the tensions that arise from external causes, the brothers agree among themselves how to face them together, and such discussions can foster solidarity. Sharing material goods We share the material goods that the institute makes available to us so that we can live with dignity as we accomplish our mission. All these goods belong to the institute and not to us because we have given up all to our religious congregation. Sometimes the notion that we are owners and the acting as though we were can make things difficult both for our community life and for our mission. This attitude runs counter to the praxis of the early Christian community, a praxis which remains the fundamental reference point for our ideal of fraternal life: “The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common.” (Ac 2:44)

17 Here are a few visible aspects of this material sharing: living community life in a house of the institute (cf. R 55 and Fraternal Life in Community, § 65), accepting to follow a common horarium and guidelines, making available to others the elements which might be useful to the community, dedicating time to people and to the sharing of our condition as pilgrims, all the while remaining available and open to being transferred from one place to another. Why should we be anxious about a change of venue if God is there ahead of us wherever we are sent? As we live out the vocation of service which we freely and joyfully chose, we will find everything that we need. Once during a meeting, a public official asked a brother who was principal of one of our schools, “How much do you earn?” The brother, in an attempt to avoid a direct answer, replied, “We work for nothing because wherever we go, everything is already there for us.” To which the official retorted, “Well, for our part, we must work for everything we get, because wherever we go there is nothing there when we arrive.” Sharing Spiritual Goods In the document The Service of Authority and Obedience we read, “It is not enough to place material goods in common, but still more significant is the communion of goods and personal abilities of endowments and talents, of intuitions and inspirations, and still more fundamental, and to be promoted, is the sharing of spiritual goods, of listening to the Word of God, of faith: “The more we share those things which are central and vital, the more the fraternal bond grows in strength.” (§ 20 c, integrating an extract from Vita Consecrata, § 32) We are therefore called to share our spiritual goods. These goods, “are our talents and our good ideas, our desires for good, the inestimable gift of our faith, revelation and daily experience of God, the Word and our capacity to interpret it, our religious vocation and charism, our institute and our local community, our brothers and our friendships, spiritual wisdom and the happiness of being with God, purity of heart and poverty of spirit. Every gift comes from the Spirit. There is nothing in us that does not come from Him. But it is not only peace, joy, serenity, virtue, interior strength, etc. (cf. Ga 5:22) that come from him, but equally struggles, trials, darkness of soul, doubts, weariness, and everything that triggers in us the desire to seek God, with all the tensions and sufferings that sometimes accompany that search.”3 Authentic Gospel communities are born and grow as they share the gifts of the Spirit, the Word and their personal experience of faith. Whenever a brother shares with his brothers his own experiences of God, using words that everyone can understand, community becomes a school of spirituality. This exchange helps us to make these spiritual goods progressively the goods of all, for they are all given to us for the common good (cf. Ep 4:7-16). In addition, the spirituality of each one is enriched as he shares it with others. Here special mention must be made of the sharing of the bread of the Word proclaimed during celebrations and incarnated by witnesses to the Gospel who, through their lives, speak of what they live and share with us their weaknesses and their hopes. Sharing the Word invites others to take part in the message that God transmits to us today through that Word and through the feelings, affections and good will that the Word awakens in us and which we express in filial and fraternal prayer. This manner of sharing the Word opens the door to sharing prayer which can lead the other towards God and allow ourselves to be carried by him towards the same Father.

3 CENCINI, Amedeo. Com’è bello stare insieme, Milano, Pauline, 2000, 3° edizione, p. 356. Tranlated from the Italian. 18 The Eucharist is the summit of spiritual sharing for it is the memorial of the total gift of Jesus, the supreme symbol of sharing. Participating in the Eucharist implies being disposed to living together amid the realities of our everyday life, and thus it is the total offering of Jesus that we celebrate in unity.

Sharing a Common Vision “Many opportunities for knowing, accepting, and loving each other arise from our sharing of the same ideal of life and apostolate.” (R 26) In the final analysis authentic sharing in community comes down to the members having a common vision. As far as we as an institute are concerned, this vision must be congruent both in terms of the designs of God and the charism which the Spirit inspired in our founder, André Coindre, a vision that was in turn concretized, set in motion and handed on by Brothers Borgia, Xavier, and Polycarp and our other predecessors. It is that same vision that we are striving to live today. The better we know our roots, the better are we able to live our charism. We truly must discover the how and the why of our coming to birth and why we remain united, etc., reminiscent of the Jewish father’s annual re-telling each Passover the origins of the people of Israel. We enter community in order to live with others, but that means living with others who share a set of common ideals or objectives. Often enough, the tensions that arise in community living are the result of some members harboring unspoken aspirations. When members of a community gradually lose sight of community objectives in favor of their own, they turn in on themselves. Refusal of members to share in the common vision results all too often in an individual’s speaking of himself: his studies, his money, his plans, his school, etc. In order for us Brothers of the Sacred Heart to be able to say that we share a common vision, it is important that we share the same basic model of religious life, a model which must be in harmony with our charism and with a shared vision in terms of our basic values. If each member has his own model, dialogue and authentic relationships, essential to the heart of community, become impossible. The sharing of our views about our common vision helps us to become more aware of the incomparable treasure that is our vocation as religious brothers and of how vitally important it is to strengthen our calling, and through everyone’s faithful commitment to it, thereby to foster vocations to our way of life. Brothers, it is on this very important topic that I next wish to share with you. Sharing the mission “By sharing responsibilities, we contribute to the personal development of each brother.” (R 25)

19 Every local community is missionary; in other words, it does not live for itself alone but for the Institute, for the Church and for the world. Our local communities are missionary, in the first place, by the very fact of what they are and to the degree that, through their own life style, they translate the infinite love of God and his desire to re-unite all his sons and daughters into one single family. The teachings of the Church confirm this assertion: “The intense effort to realize fraternal communities is not simply preparation for the mission but is an integral part of it, from the moment when ‘fraternal communion as such is already an apostolate.’” (Service of Authority and Obedience, § 22, integrating an extract from Fraternal Life in Community, § 54) But our communities are equally missionary because their members, committed to the service of the Kingdom, live in communion in the charism of the institute. This is the theme that I shall be developing in the next two circulars. Privileged moments for sharing “Christ is present among us whenever we gather for community meetings to deepen our faith and our sense of mission. We direct our apostolic effort first of all toward making our own community dynamic. We periodically meet to review our community attitudes and actions. In the presence of God and of one another we are willing to examine our apostolic objectives, projects, and availability.” (R 27) “The brothers hold regular meetings to explore together what can unite them more closely. They share their joys as well as their human and spiritual experiences.” (R 40) Community meetings These two articles of the Rule of Life show us clearly the rationale of and the necessity for fraternal gatherings and regular community meetings, as well as their purpose: giving necessary information, sharing our life’s experiences, renewing our faith, strengthening our commitment to the mission, consolidating our unity, addressing our community problems, seeing to our ongoing formation, consulting adequately, planning and evaluating together our life and our mission, sharing responsibilities, etc. Fraternal gatherings are not always easy, given differences in character, divisions, tensions, the confrontational tendencies of some, the passive nature of others, etc. In order for such gatherings to be successful it is essential that adequate notice and details be given, including an agenda. They must not be cloaked in too formal a character; they should be held in the presence of the Lord who gathers all; they should include a few pleasant details; and everything should provide for creating an atmosphere of relaxed cordiality for all. Discernment The practice of community discernment, by means of which we seek together the will of God so as to be guided by it, deserves special mention. In the document The Service of Authority 20 and Obedience, we read: “…the spirit of discernment ought to characterize every decision- making process that involves the community.” (§ 20 e) In the same section the fundamental conditions for this discernment are clearly set out. I urge you to give a close reading to this section. Moreover, the document Fraternal Life in Community emphasizes the problems involved in discernment and in a very succinct manner sets out the essential prerequisites to this exercise in the following terms: “Community discernment is a rather useful process, even if not easy or automatic, for involving human competence, spiritual wisdom and personal detachment.” (§ 50c) In the strictest sense of the word, discernment is not something which takes place every single day; rather, it is reserved for special circumstances: general or provincial chapters or council meetings, when there are major decisions to be taken pertaining to matters of particular importance, etc. It is important to specify here that in religious life decisions must be taken by the competent persons and teams. The brother in authority, for example, cannot delegate to an entire community, gathered in a meeting, the taking of decisions which are strictly of his competency. A few years ago one particularly democratically-minded local superior would hold regular meetings of the brothers of his community. He would introduce the matter at hand, and then all the brothers were invited to give their opinion and consider together possible solutions. At the end of the meeting, the local superior would always conclude with the words, “And now, let’s take a vote.” Brothers, this is the wrong way of proceeding. While it is important that the local superior inform his brothers as much as possible and that they be consulted regularly, religious life is definitely not a democracy. Celebrating Brotherhood Some think that religion does not allow a person to live joyfully and experience pleasant feelings. In one of his novels, The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco tells the tale of several monks in the Middle Ages who had died under mysterious circumstances in their monastery. They died because someone had spread poison over the pages of a treatise by Aristotle on joy, a text which the monks had been strictly forbidden to read! Those who had secretly read the book were poisoned because they would lick their fingers as they turned the pages. And the wages of their duplicity was a terrible and immediate death. This dark and sad vision of religion is not a fair judgment, for religion and celebration have always gone hand in hand. Religion, correctly understood, invites the celebration of life, respecting its own dignity and the dignity of others. The Old Testament spills over with examples. Here is just one: “This I remember as I pour out my heart, how I used to pass under the roof of the Most High, used to go to the house of God, among cries of joy and praise, the sound of the feast.” (Ps 42:5) And as we page through the Gospel we often encounter an atmosphere of overflowing joy and celebration. Christian celebration is born of the joy of living with God. Today wherever religious feeling is non-existent people are eager to celebrate without God. Sometimes the partying degenerates into reckless and irresponsible behavior, which runs the risk of harming both the individuals and society. Human aspirations may be said to be limitless. Celebrations are a manifestation of the desire which lies hidden within each human heart---a desire which God alone can fill---a desire for the infinite, the universal, the eternal. In other words feasting and celebrating are symbols for the experience of the fullness of communion to which every human heart aspires. Community,

21 sign of the God of communion, celebrates the festival of humanity, a foretaste of the ultimate and eternal festival in God. Celebrations are both the most human and the most divine moments in the life of community. Celebrations are special moments of communion with God and with our brothers. They may be times of prayer, of dialogue, of close harmony, of the conviviality of a good meal, of relaxation and recreation where the joy of being together is celebrated. Celebrations encourage us to pursue our daily pilgrimage despite its difficulties. They remind us that the vocation of community is the vocation to communion in joy. Celebrations nourish our hopes and give us strength to take up once again our day-to-day activities, hearts restored by love. In other words, celebrations are a sign of the Resurrection which give us the strength to bear the crosses of our daily lives. Every celebration is a testimony of a gift received. In community celebrations we give active witness to the gift of our vocation to form a united family: “Ah, how good, how delightful it is for brothers to live together in harmony.” (Ps 133:1) Fundamentally, celebrations strengthen the unity among brothers. The poorer people are, the more they seem to love to celebrate, for celebration constitutes for them a moment of liberation. One day when I was showing a visiting brother around a poor district of a city, I noticed that he was looking at the people there in some amazement. He suddenly turned to me and said, “I can hardly believe that these poor folks appear to be so happy. They always seem to have a smile on their faces.” Brothers, the chapter of 2006 invited us to “deepen our fraternal life through mutual accompaniment and the celebration of our vocation. (A Pilgrimage of Hope, p. 22) Let us take the means that this same chapter recommended to us (cf. Ibid, p. 23) so that our lives may be a great celebration. It is most important for us to live joyfully. A few years ago I met a young priest who was living and working in a very poor district of Juan Rey in Bogota. He told me, “One of the best gifts that we can give to people here is our joy. And what is more, joy is one of the greatest signs of our faith and our hope.” Brothers, Paul gives us excellent advice when he tells us to live in joy: “Rejoice in the Lord; again I tell you, rejoice.” (Ph 4:4) The joy of living together, even in the midst of trials and difficulties, is a sign of the Kingdom; it nourishes our fidelity and awakens in the young the desire to embrace our style of life (cf. Fraternal Life in Community, § 28). Let us share our joy of being brothers to one another so that the world may believe.

22 Chapter VI: Dialogue, mode of sharing par excellence From communication to communion During a canonical visit to a local community, a major superior was astonished to see that the brothers virtually took their meals in silence, and hardly anything was said during community meetings. During community prayer there were never any intentions offered aloud. During interviews with their visitor, the brothers spoke at length about their work, their concerns, their successes and their failures, but they carefully avoided bringing up the topic of fraternal relations. Finally one of them said, “Brother, in this community each one of us is fine in his own eyes and perhaps in God’s eyes. We all get on with what we have to do as best we can, but each one of us is an island, an unknown territory to one another. We are a group, but I don’t know if we can say that we are a community.” Brothers, possibly the above does not reflect an actual community situation. During my visits I have come across many communities where there exists a depth of dialogue that bears witness to real communion among the brothers. In fact, a union of hearts may be measured in great part by the quality of communication. Without communication, unity would be impossible. The more human and authentic are the relationships among members of a group, the more we can say that they form a genuine living community. Communication, as we know, can be verbal or non-verbal. Non-verbal communication is expressed by signs, gestures, external attitudes, and acts of consideration: a greeting, a hug, a winning glance, a warm smile, a lending hand, an unsolicited e-mail, etc. But both forms go hand in hand. Words reinforce signs, and signs reinforce words. Communication can be superficial or profound. The latter is difficult, due to differences in age, mentality, personality, formation, life experiences, concepts of religious life, etc. In order to achieve profound communication we need a good dose of both confidence in ourselves and in others, as well as a fair degree of reciprocal friendship. It is easy to speak of what goes on around us, about what others are doing or who they are; but it often proves awkward to talk about what is happening in our lives, what we are doing, who we really are. Neither superficial nor deep communication can be imposed; and this is especially true of profound communication. To try to impose communication upon the community would be a grave error. But it would be equally ill-advised to tolerate the attitude of one who insists on remaining absolutely inaccessible to others. The wiser approach would be to understand the fundamental importance of communication and strive to create conditions necessary for fostering the healthy sharing of the daily life of the community and the gifts of the Spirit given for the benefit of all. But in order to attain this goal, we need to have recourse both to prayer and to those sciences that study interpersonal relationships. Dialogue Given the fact that communication is the sign of communion and that it finds expression in sharing, the triad of communication-communion-sharing is essential for the realization of an authentic fraternal life. And one of the major means for sharing is dialogue. This will be the object of our attention in the following paragraphs. Its importance As we stated in earlier circulars, dialogue is important because it finds its basis in the fullness of communion of the three divine persons and through the perfect dialogue of their relationship ad intra. But more than that, God is in communion with all of creation, especially with humankind; and this dialogue we call relationship ad extra.

23 By the fact of having been created in the image and likeness of the God of communion, our vocation is to communion in love. Dialogue is an extraordinary expression of that love, as we read in the document Vita Consecrata, “Dialogue is the new name for love.” (§ 74) Moreover, we know that love requires knowledge, and that knowledge is impossible without communication, as the document Fraternal Life in Community states: “In order to become brothers and sisters, it is necessary to know one another. To do this, it is rather important to communicate more extensively and more deeply.” (§ 29) As we read in Vita Consecrata and as reflected images of the early Christian communities, we religious are called “to share everything in common: material goods and spiritual experiences, talents and inspirations, apostolic ideals and charitable service." (§ 42) Dialogue is fundamental to a gradual attaining of this objective. Through dialogue with ordinary people as well as with the wise of ages past and those of today, we learn about philosophy, science and life. And interpersonal dialogue is indispensable for discovering truth. The Spanish poet Antonio Machado suggests that nobody has a monopoly on truth: Your truth? No, the Truth! And come with me to seek it. Yours, keep it for yourself. Through trusting and sincere dialogue we can gradually discover together truth in the various and differing situations of life. A few years ago I heard someone say that “dialogue is the meeting point between two friends of truth,” which is to say that truth must be sought together in the conviction that no one possesses more than just a part of the truth. Despite what has been said above, we oftentimes find ourselves in the company of people who always appear to be incontrovertible masters of the truth. They are always right, and the others are always wrong. Usually such an attitude betrays a degree of ignorance or pride or a great deal of insecurity, which the person attempts to cover up by his apparent conviction. Such dogmatic and inflexible persons pose serious problems in community. Any relationship between two persons is doomed to failure if one person always pretends to be right. Love teaches us that in life there are times when you win and other times when you must simply accept losing. In every relationship there will be moments of difficulty, of conflict, of opposing interests, and of crisis---situations which can be resolved only with dialogue. Without dialogue problems in community will remain unresolved and hidden, camouflaged, so to speak, under the cloak of an apparent tranquility. Finally, for us brothers, dialogue is essential, given the fact that the Church has entrusted us with the particular duty of developing the spirituality of communion through dialogue (cf. Vita Consecrata, § 51).

Necessary Attitudes Dialogue is a remarkable expression of humanity and of love. People who want to practice it must possess special dispositions to promote constructive interpersonal relationships. Friendliness remains a key condition. Cordiality and courtesy must be the background music for dialogue with anyone whatsoever and in whatever circumstances. This is all the more true when dealing with family members or with members of our local community. Every person possesses an innate dignity and deserves to be respected and treated with compassion. As Saint Paul tells us, “Be kind and loving to one another.” (Ep 4:32)

24 This same value is found in the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam in which Paul VI deals with ecumenical dialogue: “Our dialogue must be accompanied by that meekness which Christ bade us learn from Himself: ‘Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.’ (Mt 11:29) It would indeed be a disgrace if our dialogue were marked by arrogance, the use of bared words or offensive bitterness. What gives it its authority is the fact that it affirms the truth, shares with others the gifts of charity, is itself an example of virtue, avoids peremptory language, and makes no demands. It is peaceful, has no use for extreme methods, is patient under contradiction and inclines towards generosity.” (§ 81.2) The fact of knowing that the Heart of God is all tenderness towards us is an encouragement to be compassionate in our relationships with others. But, even if we are not motivated by faith, intelligent people know to show due deference in their dealings with others. We all know the proverb, “You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a barrelful of vinegar.” And this truth is translated by deeds. In our educational mission we oftentimes find ourselves having to confront difficult people: a student, a parent, a civil servant, etc. We have all learned through experience that by dealing with such people with patience and cordiality we can eventually win over the most difficult of people. And we know equally that people who are a priori gentle-natured are made ill at ease when confronted with a hostile attitude. In verbal communication, it is not merely a matter of exchanging words but of holding views and opinions worth their salt---views born of reflection and interior silence. Silence should precede words because silence is the most reasonable attitude to adopt when confronting the unknown. The person who is at home with silence is better disposed to listen and to speak in a sensible way. As Bonhoeffer says, “The person who does not know how to be alone must not seek communion.”4 And Ecclesiates tells us, “There is a time to speak and a time to refrain from speaking.” (Qo 3:7) In our local communities, we need times and places of silence. In the morning we remain silent because God should be the first to speak to us; before going to bed we keep silent because God should have the last word. Listening is very important in dialogue. As the Apostle James tells us, “My dear brothers, everyone should be quick to listen but slow to speak and slow to human anger.” (Jm 1:19) It is a matter of listening with the ears of God, that is to say, with the same attitude as God and with the same love. This is not merely a matter of listening to words but especially of trying to understand the entire life of the speaker so as to grasp what he is saying and what he is not saying. When a brother feels that he is not being listened to, he can very quickly lose trust in his brothers, with the risk of his turning to persons “outside” the community. The health of a local community may be reasonably measured by its capacity to listen to all its members and especially to those who seem to have few ideas or talents, the weakest, the shy and retiring. Sometimes we under-estimate or marginalize such brothers or consider them incapable of contributing to the solution of any given problem. In one local community there was a brother of a certain age who spent his time mostly in manual work; he rarely spoke during community meetings. However, during one meeting he wanted to offer a solution to a particular problem and blurted out, “I have an idea!” Another brother retorted caustically, “For sure you must have stolen it!” Attentive listening leads to joyous contemplation. It is pleasant to share in the life of another and to discover the marvels that God has accomplished in him. Each of our brothers is a marvelous cathedral in which God has chosen to dwell.

4 BONHOEFFER, Dietrich. Vita comune, Brescia, Editrice Queriniana, 2003-2004, p. 59. Translated from the Italian. 25 Community does not mean uniformity of thought. The wealth of a local community resides precisely in its diversity. It is vital that every brother should feel free to say what he thinks. That requires an atmosphere of serenity and trust. In the words of Paul VI, “Confidence is also necessary; confidence not only in the power of one's own words but also in the good will of both parties to the dialogue. Hence dialogue promotes intimacy and friendship on both sides. It unites them in a mutual adherence to the Good, and thus excludes all self- seeking. (Ecclesiam Suam, § 81.3) Moreover, serenity and trust are born of self-respect and respect of others. We say that every person is clothed in great dignity, not only for what that person is but equally for what he or she is called to be. Allied to that given, there is another condition to dialogue---one closely linked to cordiality---and that is a positive attitude towards the other. Positive consideration for the speaker will lead us to dedicate whatever time he requires, without hurry, as if we had nothing else to do. Some time ago, I heard one brother tell another, “Whenever you want to talk to me, I will always be available. I’m sure you know that I have lots of things to do, but people are more important to me than things. So I try always to give priority to people.” Prudence, patience and simplicity are also pre-requisites to dialogue. Among other things, prudence conditions us to respect confidentiality; patience, to listen even to those things which we find unpleasant; and simplicity, to be open to everyone, including the most humble. Dialogue requires a pedagogy which motivates the speaker and helps him to understand the message at hand. For that to happen, it is indispensable that communication be expressed in a well-ordered, well-grounded, succinct and clear way, using unambiguous and appropriate language. In the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam we read that dialogue requires “…finally, the prudence of a teacher who is most careful to make allowances for the psychological and moral circumstances of his hearer.” (§ 81.4; cf. Mt 7:6)

26 Chapter VII: Authority at the Service of Fraternal Communion Without stretching things out too much, in this chapter I wish to deal with the role of local directors in fostering communion among the brothers. From the outset, I think it is important to call to mind that this task is the responsibility of everyone and not solely that of those who exercise the service of authority. Article 28 of our Rule of Life makes this very clear when it states that we all help the local director, “to create the religious atmosphere and the human conditions conducive to seeking and doing the will of God.” It sometimes happens that a brother systematically opposes the local director. Here is an anecdote to illustrate that kind of attitude. During the course of a community meeting, views were being sought from the brothers on a particular matter. When one brother’s turn came, he had fallen asleep. Someone poked him and said, “Hey! What do you think?” Waking with a start and without thinking, the brother blurted out, “Me? Well, just the opposite of what the director said!” Poor guy! The director had not even given his opinion yet! Fortunately this kind of antagonism is not the norm in our local communities. With few exceptions, we consider ourselves called to assume our share of responsibilities in our local community with a genuinely Evangelical and fraternal spirit. We are all on the same side, after all. This is so because we are conscious that in listening to one another we are sincerely seeking the will of the Father and trying to accomplish it, after the example of Christ, the servant “obedient even unto death,” (Ph 2:8) and of Mary, “the servant of the Lord.” (Lk 1:38) Whether in a role of authority or not, each of us has the duty to obey. This means that authority and obedience are not in opposition but rather represent two dimensions of the same Gospel reality, “two complementary ways of participating in the same oblation of Christ.” (The Service of Authority and Obedience, § 12) The Special Responsibility of Brothers in Authority If is true that building religious community is the concern of each member, it must nevertheless be underscored that the brother in authority has a particular responsibility regarding this task. In fact it is to the brother in authority that befalls in a distinctive way the triple service of helping all members of the community to grow in their life of intimacy with God (consecration), to strengthen fraternal communion (brotherhood), and to spread the love of God for the building up of the Kingdom (community mission). Regarding their particular service in the building of fraternal community, “directors, in solidarity with the persons entrusted to them, are called to build a fraternal community in Christ in which God is sought and loved above things, in order to fulfill God's redemptive plan. Therefore, persons in authority are at the service of the community as was the Lord Jesus who washed the feet of his disciples, in order that the community in its turn be at the service of the Reign of God (Cf. Jn 13:1-17).” (The Service of Authority and Obedience, § 17) Also, the Rule of Life sees the director as the “artisan” and guardian of unity: “He is the promoter of unity, of the common good, and of an apostolic spirit.”(R 102, cf. R 213). Underscoring the same idea in other terms, the Rule of Life adds elsewhere that the local director “works at maintaining unity of thought and action;” (R 28) and in another article of the Rule, the provincial is described as a “dynamic bond of brotherhood among the members of the province and among the local communities.” (R 240)

27 The second paragraph of article 20 of the instruction The Service of Authority and Obedience summarizes in a few lines the role of the person in authority in assuring the growth of fraternal community. I quote from it, integrating pertinent references from our Rule of Life. “…persons in authority promote the growth of fraternal life through the service of listening and dialogue (cf. R 103 and 213), creation of a favorable atmosphere for sharing and co-responsibility (cf. R 103), mutual concern among all the brothers, service balanced between the individual and the community (cf. R 209) and discernment and the development of fraternal obedience.” In addition to what has been said above, the local director helps to build community and to live spirituality of communion whenever he places himself at the service of his brothers, is accessible to them and humble, is a brother among his brothers through his love and his concern, gives witness of the love of God for his own, is patient and quick to forgive, avoids paternalism, trusts his brothers, gives them responsibility, and succeeds in prompting an active and responsible obedience (cf. R 103). By fulfilling as best they can their role as described in the Rule, Brothers in authority also contribute to the growth of communion among their brothers: “After reasonable consultation, authority sets common objectives, encourages and coordinates initiatives, makes necessary decisions, and promptly intervenes to prevent abuses and to correct errors.” (R 211) Interviews with the local director “Be full of good courage, my fine and dear Brother Director. If you are faithful and a role model for your brothers you will always feel the presence of our loving God. It is on my behalf that you are acting in Dubuque and on the farm, and thereby acting for God. Therefore, yours it is to act in consequence in everything regarding the mission which has been given to you.” (Letter of Ven. Brother. Polycarp to the director of Dubuque, USA, 04-10-1853, in Positio, p. 465.) Interviews with the local director are yet another effective means of promoting fraternal communion. There are two very good reasons why I have chosen to make particular reference here to the interview with the local director; first, because this practice appears to have almost completely disappeared, and second, because the general chapter of 2006 advocated it in such emphatic terms: “Each local director, with the support of the provincial, gives renewed importance to regular interviews; he will consider interviews as the privileged form of animation for these six years. By welcoming and listening to his brothers he will be a sign that the Lord loves them with their limits and failings (R 81).” (A Pilgrimage of Hope, p. 23) Might one explanation for “scrapping” the interview be that too often local directors made of it an occasion to upbraid brothers for behavior considered inappropriate, so much so that going for an interview was almost like going to trial? Or perhaps another reason is that directors simply did not feel up to taking on this responsibility, either through a lack of understanding of its nature or how to use it. A word on its nature. The interview is not spiritual direction or accompaniment. If such were the case, then imposing it on the brother would call into question his freedom to choose the person best able to orient him on the daily path of life that leads to God. 28 Rather, the interview with the director is a meeting between two brothers; it helps each one to feel regarded and valued. In this face-to-face meeting, the director endeavors to show his brother that he is important, that he has value in God’s eyes, in the eyes of the director himself, and in the eyes of the local community. What’s more, this time together is an opportunity for the director to recognize the brother for who he is and to express his thanks for what the brother has done, to say what he considers appropriate and opportune, to listen, to get the brother’s views on various matters, to know what his needs are, to provide him with whatever support he requires, and to share on life in general and on religious life in particular. Finally, let us apply to the meeting with the local director what article 109 of the Rule of Life says about interviews with the provincial. Interviews ought to be on a regular basis, which means within a recognized time frame. Interviews should take place in a climate of trust which requires mutually recognized respect and confidentiality; they ought to be conducted in an atmosphere of relaxation so as to avoid awkward formality; and lastly, they must allow for absolute respect for the freedom of the brother to speak his mind on whatever point he thinks appropriate. In order to create such a climate of trust and candor, it is a good idea to begin by speaking a little about everything but especially about topics of interest to the brother. At the same time it is important that the brother feel relaxed and comfortable. If conducted in this manner, I am convinced, Brothers, that interviews with the director will be a mutually appreciated and effective tool for fostering a better fraternal life and will contribute overall to a more committed religious life.

29 Conclusion Everything in this world has its purpose. The sun was created to produce light and warmth; air provides oxygen for plants and animals; water maintains life and slakes thirst. Men and women are created to love and be loved. Every human being strives through various means to slake his or her thirst for love. Most opt for marriage; others choose to remain single in order to dedicate themselves to scientific research or to some other ideal for which they are passionate and which totally absorbs them. Still others---as is our case---respond to a particular call which opens them up to a universal love and which consecrates them totally to building up the Kingdom through service of God and neighbor. Fraternal community is the space in which we are initiated to and progressively open ourselves to the love of God, expressed primarily through authentic brotherhood and friendship among one another. Then, from this home which is community love becomes service of men and women of our world, particularly of the poorest. In this way, we religious become agents for the love we receive from God who wishes it to be placed at the service of all. Fraternal life is an essential dimension of religious life. We are especially called to live it for two good reasons: first, because we are religious, and more so, because we are religious brothers. I hope that these reflections will motivate each of us to be agents of fraternal communion in our respective sectors as we seek always to increase our intimacy with God, to invest all our gifts and talents to that end, and to remain available to share at an ever-deeper level our life and faith as true brothers and friends. May Mary, the mother of the family of Nazareth, draw us ever nearer to the Heart of her Son, so that, united with Him, we may form an increasingly more fraternal family and be a sign of that ultimate communion of the sons and daughters of God in the Kingdom of the Father.

30 Chapter I: Community, the Responsibility of all What each person is has an impact on the others. We are all responsible. Holiness, the greatest gift to the local community Chapter II: Building Community through a Growing Love Growing in Love A love ever new Chapter III: Communities of human persons Human development Self-knowledge and self-acceptance Chapter IV: Communities of people in union with God Prayer Cardinal Virtues Justice Strength The Theological virtues The Eucharist Chapter V: Living in Communion, Sharing life and Faith Sharing Life Sharing material goods Sharing Spiritual Goods Sharing a Common Vision Sharing the mission Privileged moments for sharing Community meetings Discernment Celebrating Brotherhood Chapter VI: Dialogue, mode of sharing par excellence From communication to communion Dialogue Chapter VII: Authority at the Service of Fraternal Communion The Special Responsibility of Brothers in Authority Interviews with the local director

31 Questions for personal and community reflection (Please feel free to adapt any questions or add your own.) 1. What can I to promote fraternal life in my local community? 2. What can I do on a province level to promote fraternal community? 3. Do I believe that each member of my local community, beginning with myself, feels accountable to the community? 4. What means can we use to strengthen fraternal life in our respective local communities? 5. How can we manage to share more deeply our life and our faith in our local community? 6. What is your thought on the message of the circular as regards the importance of dialogue and the necessary attitudes to achieving genuine dialogue? 7. What can we do in our local community to strengthen the congruence between authority and obedience, and thus achieve greater solidarity.

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