Professional Documents
Culture Documents
No. 67
June, 2015
order to become the increasingly incarnated voice of the One who, on the cross, lifted
up humanity to a renewed alliance with its God. The one and only reason: love!
The Church needs to strengthen its deep conviction that God speaks through his People.
All of us, by virtue of our baptism and no matter what ministry we offer in the Church,
must cultivate the attitudes of being attentive and listening to the God whose word is
incarnate, true, active, and incisive, a word that draws us toward the boundaries of our
spiritual well-being and that sends us forth to those places where our spiritual wellbeing speaks most clearly: to those who are not loved by our world and to those who are
trapped in our systems.
A God Who Challenges through Love
IWe must repeat it unequivocally: God never ceases to call people to follow Him precisely
because it is a question of love. And love is thus constituted. Come and follow me
comes from a fundamental movement generated through Trinitarian love. All biblical
calls bear witness to that fact.
The God who calls through love asks for the allegiance of human persons in all of the
dimensions that define them: their personality, their history, their sensitivity, their
solidarity with the best and the worst aspects of their world, their intelligence, their
judgment, and their immense capacity for relationships. The faith of the human being is
thus woven. It is therefore a question of a come and follow me that frees a person
from being encumbered by useless things (Luke 10:4). Freeing oneself so that the essential
becomes an irresistible passion: to be the bearer, in Jesus Christ, of the reality of ones
world. To be challenged by and to act through love!
We must repeat it unequivocally: God never ceases to call. It is of free and available
people that God asks a definite commitment in the name of the values of his Good
News. Are they better than others? No! But they are chosen to be disciples in a different
way.
A God Who Confirms His People in Their Creative Action
Why is there a Year of Consecrated Life? In order to celebrate the glorious history and
to pursue it in creative faithfulness, as Saint John Paul II challenged us to do in his postsynodal exhortation, Vita Consecrata (No. 110). Look to the future, he implored us,
where the Spirit is sending us in order to do great things with you.
Pope Francis has launched a number of vibrant appeals to not enclose God in safe places:
Examine the horizons of your life and of the present moment in vigilant watchfulness.
The person who keeps vigil is already living in the presence of the person whom he/she
awaits. To keep watch is to permit the universe of the other person to have a place in
ones own universe. And so opens up a new space for life, for relationships, for creation.
Keeping vigil in faith means breaking the bonds of solitude.
1
Apostolic Letter to all consecrated men and women on the occasion of the Year of Consecrated Life.
Pope Francis, 2014.
Speaking specifically to young people but we can believe that this challenge is addressed
to all of us in our desire to maintain the youthfulness of heart that is specific to those
who follow Christ Pope Francis presents a real challenge to us:
This year you will be participants in a dialogue with the generation that stands
before you. In fraternal communion, you will be able to enrich yourselves through
their experience and their wisdom; and, at the same time, you will be able to once
again propose to that generation the ideal that it experienced at the beginning, to
offer the strength and the vigor of your enthusiasm, as well as to work out together
new ways of living the Gospel and new responses that are more and more adapted
to the need to bear witness to and to announce the Gospel.
What does all of that mean? That some people are right and that others are wrong? No!
Dialogue, which is required by the Gospel in order to recognize a God who speaks to his
People, who calls those persons through love, and who confirms them in their creative
action, guides them towards inevitable crossroads. And it is there that a fundamental
question awaits us: Do we love ourselves enough to let ourselves be transformed by the
love that alone dissipates the desire to be winners and frees us from the trap of losers
in order to make place for truth alone, Gods gift offered by his Spirit in action?
Thank you to all of those who collaborated in this edition of VIATOR WEB and spoke to
us about our challenging world of the consecrated life.
Idem.
A Ministry of Accompaniment
In 1865, three Canadian Viatorians immigrated to Bourbonnais Grove in Kankakee County
to minister to and with French-speaking Canadian immigrants. Today, 150 years later,
Viatorians in the Arlington Heights/Chicago region (and beyond) have continued this
ministry by accompanying immigrants, both detained and
released from U.S. federal authorities, by partnering with the
Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants.
Embracing both the Viatorian Charter by devoting themselves
to proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ, especially among
the young and the abandoned in todays world, and to working
in favor of peace and social justice, well over 35 Viatorians
have become involved in a ministry that expands beyond our
traditional roles in innovative, unique, and distinctive ways
(Viatorian Vision Statement of the Province of Chicago).
The anti-immigrant sentiment that is so prevalent in todays society, both at home and
abroad, adds to the insecurity and fear that many immigrants feel upon their arrival.
Ensuring that they feel accepted is key to this ministry
For many years, professed Viatorians have ministered in schools, parishes, hospitals,
retreat centers, and the Armed Services. Today, qualified and gifted laity has assumed
many of these roles, including many Viatorian associates. Thus, as consecrated
Viatorians, we must ask how we can become more attentive to those beckoning from
the margins of society. While many individual Viatorians in the Province have put
themselves at the service of the marginalized over the years, we must ask how we can
continue to build on this legacy of service.
Pope Francis writes forcefully when he states: I prefer a Church that is bruised, hurting,
and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church that is unhealthy
from being confined and from clinging to its own security (Evangelii Gaudium). In a
recent interview, he encourages the Church to be a church that finds new roads, that is
able to step outside itself (America, September 30, 2013).
Through our accompaniment with immigrants, both lay and consecrated Viatorians have
taken Pope Francis message to heart. Their stories of migration and their reasons for
leaving family and home are nothing short of humbling experiences that motivate and
nourish us to continue to move out of our comfort zone and to find God in those accounted
of little importance in our world.
Based upon these convictions, we aspire to make our house into a Viatorian community
where spirituality-interiority is the moving force behind and the goal of our journey, in
which is lived, is deepened, and is celebrated faith in Jesus in a way that is open,
simple, welcoming, service-oriented, joyful, attractive, creative, alive, and hope-filled.
We want our community to be a house of the interior life, a place where the Word of
God is shared and where it is possible to have an experience of the fact that He shares
our individual and group lives. It is for this reason that:
In our community, we invite in and welcome all those persons who wish to have an
experience of sharing faith, spirituality, community, mission, and formation with us,
for a definite or indefinite period of time, without regard to the persons civil, religious,
or social status, age, or other circumstances. The one and only norm is the individuals
intention to grow as a person.
We wish to help one another, and to help others as well, to have a more intense
experience of the divine in the ecumenical sense, making it possible for those who
are being accompanied to become aware of their own identity.
Guided by a God who loves us, having confidence in his Providence, we attempt to
build on rock by living in freedom of love, service, availability, welcome, and mutual
demands among ourselves, looking always towards the good of our brother or sister,
respecting the personal rhythms, styles, and situations of each person. And all the
while knowing that pardon and reconciliation, the premises of love, must provide
daily nourishment.
Our objective is to live as a mission in all circumstances, and according to the state
of life that each one is called upon to live, with a burning and disinterested zeal,
as Father Querbes wished. We feel that the lives of lay people are also lives
consecrated to God, through their baptismal consecration, even though they do not
profess public or solemn vows.
We wish to show the world why we are hopeful by being, with our style of life, those
who promote peace and joyfulness.
We feel that our mission is to promote, facilitate, animate, orient, and accompany
people on the road to the interior life that all of us have to follow. In that way, we
hope to help people to experience God in every circumstance and breath of our
existence.
We know and we accept the fact that our option for this community will presuppose
that we are constantly in an attitude of on-going conversion, formation, risk-taking,
and service. But we are convinced that this is the path along which God wants us to
travel and we have no doubt that his love will be with us always.
We have decided that, each day, we will be more austere and simple in our personal
and community lives, in order to be brothers and sisters who are closer to the most
disadvantaged people around us. We want to be aware of the difficulties and
discriminations that people suffer because of their gender, race, color, and political
or religious ideas. We support their complaints and demands and collaborate in
doing what we can to alleviate the difficulties of people who are suffering.
Viator Web, No. 67 - p. 7
Over the course of these past twelve years, we have prepared and conducted two oneweek annual retreats for the Viatorian Community and some forty or so other retreats
or meditation sessions. Our retreats are directed both to Viatorians and to other persons
or groups. During this last year, we slightly changed the style and the frequency of
those meditative prayer sessions, responding to the needs and the requests that came
to us. We try to sponsor one such session each month. Rather than prioritizing reflection
and discussion, we opt more for quiet, silence, interiority, admiration, astonishment,
adoration, and thanksgiving.
In addition to the retreats that we direct, some eighty people come through this house
twice a week (for three hours) to assist with sessions that, employing oriental techniques,
lead people toward reflection, self-knowledge, and interiorization. Three times per year,
we organize meditation sessions, lasting three or four hours, that are available to all
those persons who wish to participate. We are accompanying a group of persons who
come together each week in our house to meditate. A free psychological counseling
service is available to those who are in need of such.
The people who come to us are asking us to listen to them, not in order to give them
advice, but rather to provide orientations based upon the experiences of our own lives.
They approach us so that we can accompany them as they advance in their interior
lives.
For this reason, spirituality, for us, means making room for God in our lives and translating
that in our human relations. All of that requires that we be very attentive to discovering
how our brothers and sisters are living, what is happening in their lives, how we can
help them, and what we can learn from them. Living based upon our interior lives makes
it possible for us, as Thomas Merton used to say, to be aware of the love that, in spite
of real differences and emotional frictions, brings us together. Superficial things are
nothing; what is real is what is found deep within ourselves. We are creatures of love.
Oh God, we are one with you. You have made us one with you. You have taught us that,
if we remain open to one another, you dwell within us. Help us to maintain that openness
and to strive to attain it with all our heart. Help us to understand that, if there is rejection,
there can be no mutual understanding. Love has conquered. Love is victorious. Amen1
Prayer with which Thomas Merton closed the First Spiritual Encounter of Eastern and Western Monks
in Calcutta in 1968
Our faith in Christ, enlivened by a hope for eternity, is nourished through the re-reading
of the Word and leads us towards all of those who are accounted of little or no importance
in our world today those children, those women, and those men who await a taste of
the freshness of Gospel values,
of the values of respect, freedom,
and mercy. Blessed, says the
Evangelist Saint Matthew. Joy,
affirms the new translation of the
Bible. Yes, that joy of the
Beatitudes nourishes our way of
being and of living. Our witness
of life becomes an unconditional
welcome, a journey with ordinary
people, a struggle for life.
That joy of the Beatitudes is
colored by our commitment to
serve the poor, those men and
women recognized in Saint
Matthews Gospel (25). Yes, our heart was on fire when it came into contact with the
little ones, those loved by God, for, like the disciples of Emmaus, we recognized therein
our Lord, who waves to us on our daily travels. Our action tries to be a delicate presence
to those persons having difficulty, feeling rejected, excluded, diminished. But it is also
an action that is committed and dedicated to demanding living conditions that are human
and socially acceptable for
everyone. All members are
deeply involved in those places
where they live and work.
Several times each year, as a
community, we welcome persons
who are alone and in need to
share in a meal. We are also
present to serve at the Camps
of the Future (at Lake Ouimet)
and we support the activities of
the Service of Preparation for
Life. Through those two organizations, we are also in contact
with many people, including
Viatorians, in those countries
where the Service of Preparation
for Life is present: Haiti, Peru, Madagascar, and Africa (Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Togo).
Viator Web, No. 67 - p. 10
As a result of what we have just said in complete truth, we believe that our community
experience bears witness to our willingness to live our mission and the Viatorian
Community. To go even further, we owe it to ourselves to keep our windows and our
doors open to the wind of the Spirit, to the cry of the little ones, to the clamor of our
people.
We owe it to ourselves to believe deeply that the future of the Gospel takes place
through the creation of community places wherein all women and men participate in
maintaining and developing a truly loving communion. It then becomes no longer a
question of associates or of religious, of brothers or of priests, but of loving women and
men, committed Christians, persons who invest the best of themselves in the journey
towards a land that reflects the Gospel of peace, joy, and tenderness desired by the
Father, announced by the Son, vitalized by the Spirit. It is there that many women and
men who are excluded from communion, who have lost hope in life, who have been
impoverished by our political and economic systems will find reasons to hope, to believe,
and to love.
Our baptism, the foundation of our unity, is also the guarantee of our desire to live
uprightly and to dare to be joyful. With patience and tolerance, in a quest for peace, we
continue to cultivate communion in the ordinary circumstances of our daily lives. See
how they love one another! That is the urgent challenge for our times!
Our Reality:
The house of formation of the Province of Chile, which serves as the present location of
the C.L.A.C. novitiate, is found in the town of Puente Alto, which, with its 800,000
inhabitants, has the largest population of all the towns in Chile. We are situated in a
zone that, some years back, was dedicated to farming. Today, such rural areas are being
replaced by condominiums for middle-class families, the majority of which are younger.
Our original plot is one of the
few remaining in our sector.
Over the course of recent years,
the Chilean Church has suffered
scandals because of certain
bishops and priests, some of
whom are well known. This situation, besides giving rise to
questions and criticisms about
the way in which a small number
of members of the hierarchy
proceeded in facing this
problem, has also produced a
lack of confidence in the Church,
which, as an institution, has lost
a great deal of credibility. The
charism, the goodness, the
Puente Alto Community
simplicity, and the transparency
First Row: Erick Gaona, Eduardo Milln, Toms V illalobos.
of Pope Francis are helping to Second Row: Jorge Arancibia, Gabriela Ibarra, Vctor Arnguiz, Gloria
Arriagada, Ivn Azolas
overcome those difficulties.
In Chile, just as in other parts of the world, corporate directors, political parties, and
those who are leaders have lost much credibility.
Insofar as our community dimensin is concerned, we are very much aware that we are
part of a formation community. We believe that the best service that we can render to
the Congregation, to the Church, and to society is to acquire a solid integral formation
Viator Web, No. 67 - p. 12
that will promote communion with the Lord and that will help us to encounter those for
whom our mission is intended.
A Needy Word is waiting for us
In this social and ecclesial setting, we Viatorians strive to live out our vocation with joy
and to be credible witnesses to Jesus of Nazareth.
We must be experts in the art of looking for signs of God in the realities of our world and
of finding in those signs the challenges being addressed to us by the Lord of history. It
is there that we find life!
Before writing these lines, we spent time reflecting as a community. On the occasion of
our vocation week, we asked the adults and young people who attend Mass in our
chapel to tell us how they see us and what they expect of us. There were many similiar
responses. They ask of us:
Openness, closeness, and an ability to listen. They want us to accompany different
pastoral and community groups and to help them in their reflections. They need
us to listen to their problems. They want us to learn to look at things with the heart
of God, which will make us more human. They ask that we be open, welcoming,
and communicative and that we become familiar with the reality of people who
need a friendly hand. They tell us in many different ways, some of which are
rather direct, that they not only want us to be seen in church, but also to come
closer to the community, to their homes. They want us to get out of our particular
environment and to draw closer to those whom we have alienated and those who
feel excluded from the Church.
Faithfulness, coherency, and transparency. People want us to do what we have
promised, to be faithful to our vows, and to give them good example by living out
Gospel values. They ask that we be authentic and that we always promote the
truth. People want us to be credible!
Humility and simplicity. We are no different from the rest of the brothers and
sisters who make up the Church. People want us to dedcate ourselves to serving
the community in a humble and total way. And people remind us that, like Jesus,
we must have a preference for the very poor and must continue being committed
to the most disadvantaged.
Accompaniment in the path of faith. Very much along the lines of our mission,
people ask us to accompany everyone children, young people, and adults in
their lives of faith and to help them to get to know Jesus in order to love him more
and to follow him more closely. People want us to teach them how to read the
Word and how to pray. People ask that we guide their children along the right
path. People need to have us continue educating them in their faith so that they
can better serve God and their neighbor. People also desire that we help them to
Viator Web, No. 67 - p. 13
form communities where Gospel values are lived out and eventually shared by
them with those around them.
In order to respond adequately to those requirements, we need to live deeply rooted in
Jesus and to have a solid formation. The Aparecida document goes into specifics by
saying that, in order to be good missionary disciples, we must:
give absolute primacy to God and his Kingdom, be attentive to the Word of the
Master, and participate with devotion in the Eucharist (219);
live in profound intimacy with Jesus, who has called us, and become experts in
communion (218);
attain a high degree of pastoral charity and live out the radicalness of the Gospel
in our apostolic mission (360).
All of that is a demanding, but exciting, task. In order to accomplish it, we are counting
on the strength of the Holy Spirit. With the Holy Spirit, all things are posible!
A Gospel that creates community bonds that proclaim Gods project for
everyone: Hope is born!
Consecrated, persons whom faith brings together
in the name of beauty, goodness, and truth.