The diversity lived in fraternity

“Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a
wonderful adventure. No one can face life in isolation… We need a community that supports
and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead. How important it is to
dream together” …(FT8)
Living like this means understanding in the heart that each one is a “different self” of the
other, with wealth, gifts, needs, limitations and a whole baggage that makes him/her an
“other”.
Each one shares life in two ways:
• Through the gifts lived and given.
• Through complementarity by sharing the limitations that do not allow life to be lived fully,
achieving support to walk together.
Living diversity in fraternity is a challenge that implies:
• The sincerity of each consecrated person in daily life and in dealing with the
brothers/sisters.
• The acceptance of each one as the gift and gift that they are not perfect, but they are a
presence of life that enriches the life of each brother/sister and of the community.
• Understand that “only the man who approaches others, not to draw them into his own life,
but to help them become ever more fully themselves, can truly be called a father.” (Fratelli
tutti n. 4)
The richness of diversity seen with a clear example: 1 Cor. 12, 12-2
It is a challenge that begins with the call ...
Even if the consecrated person does not realize it, the vocation, by its very nature, carries
within itself the call to fraternity, therefore, one is called with a “for” and a “with whom”.
It is like in marriage, where the bride and groom do not only marry each other but the entire
family is included.
The call makes you "brother" or "sister" of others called like you to the same charism. And
like any call, there is a grace that can be used to live this call. The charism to which one is
called creates fraternity, there is a gift that must be lived and shared with others for “its
edification” (1 Cor. 14, 12): we are not called to enclose it or “put it under the table” (Mt. 5, 15).
This charism carries within itself the seed of living together, of sharing together while being
diverse:
The question that appears here is “how many times, as consecrated people, are we aware of
this seed and how much do we feed it”? Diversity is not only common among the brothers,
but diversity itself has a common point: The charism to which one has been called, which
gives identity and makes the diverse brothers. Even so, the charism is given in different forms
and modes, and it is expressed with as much beauty as the giving of the gift of life to each
brother from his own diversity.
The sense of belonging in diversity
If the call brings brotherhood with it, then even with diversity there is a sense of belonging.
It is one of the basic needs of the human being, according to the psychologist Abraham
Maslow, who proposes that it is essential for the human being to feel part of something,
since it provides them with security, identity and motivation to believe, care for and defend
what they are it is part. The sense of belonging is the awareness that a person can have of
being part of a group or a community that functions as a reference model, it is essential in
healthy human development. It is, in addition to a need, a capacity to feel part of a group of
people, in this case, the capacity of a brother or sister to feel part of a group in which they
share the same roots, values and charisma: what makes him feel like a brother or sister. The
human being has inside, literally, the need to belong to someone, is made to give life and
heart to another. There is no identity without belonging. The question is to whom do we give
ourselves or to whom do we really belong? Do we live according to how we try to define
ourselves as consecrated?
Identity and belonging are two parts of the "I" of each person, structural elements of their
personality, since each brother or sister is defined by what they are and what they recognize,
for what they belong to and what they give themselves to. In a consecrated person, identity
goes hand by hand with the charism and this is where belonging comes from: it is the identity
and the plane or the social-relational dimension of his/her personality. The stronger his/her
identity is based on the Charism, the stronger will be his/her sense of belonging to it and the
more dedication there will be. The sense of belonging is so necessary in the human being
that, when it is not, unpleasant emotions are unleashed inside and behavior is modified. But
if the sense of belonging is given, the feeling of acceptance reinforces the self-esteem of each
brother, the pleasant feelings flourish and the commitment is born to help that community
of which they feel part.
What does it mean then to feel part or the sense of belonging in the consecrated person?
It is the trust in the other and in life together to share material and spiritual goods. It is the
freedom to live with brothers who have not been chosen (and therefore, one was not chosen
by them) and at the same time, allow oneself to be limited by the group and its norms for a
common goal. It is an affection that does not come from the flesh but that is capable of
making one deeply love a brother who is diverse. Deciding to grow old with the people God
has seen fit to put in the way. “Belonging consists (for a consecrated person) in being part,
effectively and affectively, of a religious family in which this charism is concretely expressed
and is even codified as a rule of life, visible in the existence of other people who, for this,
they become brothers or sisters who have also recognized in this charism the project that
God intended for them. " (A. Cencini).
The Belonging, The Identity and The Diversity
Belonging to a family of brothers or sisters by consecration and the very history of that family
must be seen by the consecrated person as part of their own truth and history: “whose ties
are more tenacious and resistant than those originated by the flesh and the blood ”(A.
Cencini) and where the rule, constitutions or statutes is just a“ rule of life ”because it
expresses the life to which one is called in all aspects, it is not a series of precepts or customs
or where One wants to accommodate because "there is no other option or because it is the
last option", it is a call from God to live a life from one's own identity. For this reason, it is
essential that each brother or sister see that story in their calling: it is not accommodating
themselves to feel called, it is because they feel called to that charism because they give a
"yes".
It is a mistake to seek to live a charism or to belong to a charism to avoid loneliness, to avoid
problems, to seek assurances that one does not have or are afraid not to have if he were a
lay person, nor is it to achieve status, to be part of something or simply because it is not
known how else to continue, reducing the call to something so weak when thinking that “it
does not matter” to change from one institute to another (A. Cencini).
Father Amedeo Cencini comments that “the sense of belonging is true when it is a reflection
of identity, it becomes credible when it springs up in our hearts as love for the institute or
for the charism… for the community as it is, for people with their limitations and weaknesses,
virtues and gifts ”. There are consecrated people who live this belonging in an unhealthy way,
relying on the charism as compensation or to satisfy wounded psychological needs. This is
notorious because they use the community to defend themselves from their self-perception,
to compensate it or avoid the ghost of loneliness. They are consecrated people who “use”
belonging to a charism looking for it as a way of appearing, of wanting to be in a group
without committing themselves, seeking their own goals and wanting an illusory perfection
of equality between the brothers, attacking those who are different, being rigid and
perfectionists, trying to dominate their brothers.
This sense of belonging is not healthy, excessive and demanding, what it does the least is
reaffirm its identity, but instead loses it and mimics it with something that it is not even, also
ceasing to respond to the call that God makes to be who he is, and always leading to
problems among the brothers and in the community.
Being "me" and "us" in diversity
Each consecrated person belongs to a community: he recognizes his identity, he does not
renounce his own originality or that of others, nor does he want to make equal patterns of
each brother to seek a "utopian unification." It is not possible to seek to homologate the
siblings, to relate only to the similar, or to force to convert all of them into an illusively equal
sewing pattern. “When the other person is warmly welcomed, he is allowed to remain
himself, at the same time that he is given the possibility of a new development” (Fratelli tutti,
n. 134).
The unhealthy desire to seek to homologate the brothers is rooted in the fear of the loss of
one's identity in the face of diversity, the illusion or fantasy that one is only perfect if one is
equal or the false search for holiness under a single pattern. This unhealthy search generates
problems among the brothers in the community, divides and creates “teams and enmities”,
looks for “allies” and not brothers, looks for “who believes it” but not being sincere. "How
much our human family needs to learn to live together in harmony and peace without the
need for everyone to be the same." (Fratelli tutti, n.100).
Indeed, there will be points or characteristics that will distinguish the brothers of one
community from another due to their charism as mentioned a moment ago, but at this point
reference is made to the illusion of the search for an absolute similarity or even, of the
requirement of perfection in the brothers to relate to them and "be happy." You cannot look
for the perfect community or the perfect brothers: you live and walk in a community of
sinners in search of perfection, you live with limited brothers like yourself who seek to
respond in daily life, to a call from whom it is in essence. This is not something that is easily
achieved, but it leads siblings to:
• Live the freedom of being who you are.
• Accept the diversity of others by allowing them to be who they are.
• Do not make diversity a conflict that prevents you from seeing the richness of the
relationship with who you are diverse to oneself.
Hope or illusion? Expectations in diversity
What do we expect from a community of consecrated brothers?
If we asked someone this, perhaps we would get countless answers where holiness, love and
good treatment are expected. However, coexistence brings to light their own inconsistencies
and even their own weaknesses, sometimes unconscious. To be diverse brothers is to learn
to live with the tension between the desire for a holy life and the experience of a human life
with limitations. It is about perceiving life with its limitations but learning to integrate them,
not trying to eliminate and disrupt them. It is necessary to understand that great aspirations
are always accompanied by great temptations. One of them is the incredibly wrong
interpretation of Christian holiness equating it to a totally perfect life. The stories of the
saints remind us of what they learned, suffered, and lived out of the awareness of their
limitations and sins.
The consecrated life is not a city set on the mountain, "out of the reach of sin" as a place
where only "saints and elect" live. Nor is it made up of solid and stable communities that are
ready and prepared to take the first step in mission, in service, and in the sharing of life. To
think this would be to have such a high expectation that the only thing we will get is an
experience of enormous disappointment and frustration: it is not the same to have hope
than to have illusions.
One can have hope, if it is placed on the One who called us, but having illusions creates
expectations, which are usually broken and not attainable. A consecrated person cannot be
deluded that the brothers are holy and perfect (because neither he or she is so) or that by
calling themselves brothers they do not have faults, nor that there is not everything that
"outside" occurs in the coexistence of humans. You do not live among angels, you live among
sinners who seek to achieve holiness in a common path.
Living diversity: In openness to "you"
Openness to the "you" is a human being's own experience and involves concrete faces,
words, gestures, complex and sometimes painful interactions, shocks and tensions, but also
wealth, gifts, life experiences, and therefore, leads to feeling responsible Faced with the
reality of the other, to feel needed in the presence of that "you" and to be recognized by
him. The sense of responsibility when being brothers is not to carry the weakest brother on
the back, it means to notice the need for his presence, to appreciate the personality of
whoever is next to him and to feel it as the place where God awaits me and through whom
God awaits me. speaks.
Exercises for prayer
• Word of God: 1 Cor. 12, 12-27. Read it at least twice and ask yourself:
How do you live your identity and belonging to your community and to the charism? Who
are you and why does this charisma make you “be more yourself”?
• Write the name of each of your sisters and ask yourself: what do you ask of each one? Once
you are clear, check: am I respecting their diversity by asking? Could it be that I am wanting
to do it the way I want? Do I have expectations that are based on the wounds in my story
and that is why I am disappointed when she does not respond to me?