To all Brothers and Sisters Hospitallers To the Hospitaller Family of Saint John of God To the Hospitaller Community To friends, benefactors and volunteers To the guests for whom we care in our Centres Dear Brothers, Sisters and Friends in Hospitality: On April 24, 2014, the Congregation of the Sisters Hospitallers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Hospitaller Order of St John of God will begin the celebrations of the centenary year of the death of St Benedict Menni, a Hospitaller Brother, and the Restorer of the Hospitaller Order of St John of God in Spain, Portugal and Mexico, and the Founder of the Congregation of the Sisters Hospitallers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. By celebrating the Centenary year we all have before our eyes the personality and the work of this saint of Hospitality who succeeded in welcoming in and embodying the Samaritan love of God, and making that love present in the lives of so many people stricken by sickness, suffering and poverty. The example of his life enlightens us and encourages us to continue along the pathways of reaching to welcome people in, and of practising hospitality,1 following the example of Jesus our Master who passed through the world doing good and healing the sick (cf. Acts 10,38). This year, under the motto “ST BENEDICT MENNI: A HEART WITHOUT BORDERS”, will provide us all with a very special opportunity to become more intimately familiar with this great Hospitaller, who, driven by “a love that knows no borders, was unable to say ‘enough!’“,2 and devoted himself tirelessly to lovingly serve the sick and needy, in whom he unveiled the presence of Jesus who considers all we do to our fellow men and women as being done to Him: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Mt 25,40). It should also be a time for showing creativity and courage, responding prophetically to the needs of a radically changing global society, where the numbers of vulnerable people are rising all the time. Following the example of St Benedict Menni, we want our institutions to continue to be the presence of the merciful face of our Lord through the practice of Hospitality by renewing the ways and means we use to make a better response to the needs of contemporary men and women. Like him we also feel sent out to jointly perform the mission of a Samaritan Church which comes down on the side of the most vulnerable, the excluded and needy people.3 1 In this letter, after a brief account of the main events in the life of this “prophet of Hospitality”, we shall be reflecting on certain aspects of his life based on the motto for the Centenary, which will help and challenge us to embody in our own hospitality the style of St Benedict Menni who, following the example of Saint John of God, considered that no sacrifice was too much to do good to the poor for the love of Jesus.4 1. Short biographical fact and events St Benedict Menni was born in 1841 in Milan, Italy, into a family imbued with profound human and Christian values. It was his experience of his voluntary service nursing the battlefield casualties in the Italian war of unification, and seeing the edifying example of self-sacrificing devotion to them by the Hospitaller Brothers, which revealed the Lord’s calling to devote his life to serving the suffering. In 1816 he entered the Order of St John of God and underwent his formation in the religious and Hospitaller life followed by his philosophical and theological studies in preparation for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1866 and the following year, with the blessing of Pope Pius IX, he was sent to restore the Hospitaller Order in Spain, Portugal and Mexico. He was an outstanding witness to hospitality and his distinguishing feature was his commitment to the reality of his age. Like the Good Samaritan, he did not pass by on the other side, but set about establishing asylums, general hospitals and psychiatric centres (22 large centres in all) to take in “the fallen by the wayside” who, in those days, were completely abandoned and were left without any proper care : children suffering from scrofula and poliomyelitis, the old and the mentally ill. He performed his restoration mission by providing formation to the renewed communities in the radical practice of religious consecration, with a spiritual life centred on the experience of God’s goodness and mercy, caring for community life and on providing a Hospitaller service to the sick and needy. Animated by Christ’s love and his own compassionate understanding of social demands, St Benedict Menni saw himself as a tool in the hands of God, not only for his mission as the Restorer of the Order, but also as the founder of a new Congregation of women dedicated specifically to serving mentally ill women. After many ups and downs and with the help of María Josefa Recio and María Angustias Giménez, a new fruit grew on the tree of Hospitality at Ciempozuelos (Spain) on May 31, 1881. As a pioneer of psychiatric care in late 19th-century Spain, St Benedict Menni stood out as a result of his comprehensive view of the human being and a method of care combining science and love; he ensured efficient management centring around the good of individuals, and he worked with the health care and welfare policy-makers of his age. With creative and innovative generosity, he fostered greater social justice, creating what we would call today a mental health care ‘network’.5 A man of outstanding human and spiritual qualities with a unique capacity to govern and manage, he served the Order with great humility and extreme devotion; he particularly identified with Jesus’ Paschal Mystery as the source of his understanding of human suffering and the path to resurrection,6 and he died at Dinan (France) on April 24, 1914. His remains lie in the Mother House of the Congregation at Ciempozuelos. He was 2 beatified on June 23, 1985 and canonised on November 21, 1999 by John Paul II, who is to be canonised by Pope Francis on May 27 this year, together with John XXIII. 2. A HEART WITHOUT BORDERS… IN PASSION FOR JESUS… “Nothing fills my heart except love for my Jesus”.7 One of the ways in which the Congregation and the Order are revitalising themselves in order to respond creatively to the call to bear witness to God’s hospitality in the world today, is to look to St Benedict Menni, following in the footsteps of Saint John of God, as an unambiguous demonstration of the fact that the consecrated life filled with passion for Christ and for suffering humanity is a source of renewal, hope and happiness.8 It is a heart without borders … With passion for Jesus … It was his powerful experience of God’s goodness and mercy that underlay this passion. Recognising his unworthiness, he opened himself up to receive the embrace of the Father, with the certitude that He “preferred to favour those who experienced poverty and to seek out the wretched souls who acknowledged that they were sick”. There are no bounds to God’s mercy revealed to us in Jesus as the “physician, medicine, balsam and remedy” for [our] infidelities however great and manifold they may be.9 It was on the basis of this experience which so intensely marked his life that St Benedict Menni joyfully embraced the calling of Jesus who, in his loving compassion, “has favoured us, lovingly attracting us to His beloved home” to perform, with us, “wonders of mercy”. His realisation that this call was freely given, and of the need to respond to it with generosity, generating good works in the service of others, led him to live “thinking of Jesus, loving Jesus and making all sacrifices for Jesus, working for Jesus and with Jesus.”10 This is only possible if it is grounded on an intimate union with Jesus, as branches on the same trunk and united at the roots, from which we receive the sap of life. Following the example of Saint John of God, even in the midst of his busy life, “he continuously and gently turned to the Lord, invoking him and casting that interior glance towards his Divine Master Jesus, from whose Divine Heart he had received that spirit of self-denial and heroic charity which enabled him to bear all things in peace, tranquillity and remaining completely calm when facing all sufferings, and pain, working for the love of God and the good of his neighbour”.11 The example set by St Benedict Menni, a heart without borders… in his passion for Jesus, is a clear invitation to us today, to live our Hospitaller vocation as a pathway of joy, happiness and hope. The radical and bold way he dedicated himself totally to Christ and to the poor and the sick, urges us to renew our hearts and to root our lives in a profound and nurtured spiritual experience, in a fraternal and Samaritan community life and in an apostolic life in which we all feel that we are active players in hospitality. The difficulties we experience in our Institutions and even in our own communities can “rob us” of the joy of living “enamoured” of our vocation and of heightening our passion for Jesus. Following the example of St Benedict Menni we must constantly and continuously renew our personal encounter with Jesus Christ, in the certainty that “Jesus, full of love and goodness, finds his delight in being with us” and that without Him, we are “dry and arid ground”.