Riflessioni ad alta voce

Are we still relevant in today's society? The first time I heard this question was when the bishop of Delhi asked it to his seminarians and what he meant was, “in this society where we live today, does our presence make any difference? Is it any better because of our presence?” No doubt, in the past, priests and religious were relevant figures in their society. This was not only due to the fact that they owned most of the schools and hospitals, but also the daily life of common people used to rotate around the local churches and their activities. They could rightly call their work “ministry”. Then little by little society developed, private individuals opened their own schools and hospitals which, along with those of governments, became as good (and sometimes better) than those of religious and priests . Many priests and religious started sensing a loss of meaning in their life and blamed this on their lack of professional skills. Today society is widely secularized,...

1st profession of CSST sisters Geddalahalli 24 April 2009 Gen 12,1-4; Ct 2,8-14; Mt 19,16-26 I would like to read today’s Gospel from the perspective of a relationship of love. The young fellow who approaches Jesus expresses a strong desires to enter eternal life. This means he desires a strong, solid, eternal relationship with God. Since childhood ha has done whatever he could to be obedient to that God whom he is seeking, but obedience is not enough for God. He wants more, as a matter of fact he wants everything. Do you want to enter into a relationship with me, seems to say Jesus to the man, then put at risk yourself, surrender whatever makes you feels safe and strong and start a relationship based on love. The whole book of Song of Songs is conceived as a love song or dialogue between two lovers, namely: God and his people Israel. Even Abraham had to give up his family, his land and set off on a journey which would bring him where he would not know, based only on a...

Prophets in the marketplace A youth spirituality for today Saint Luigi Orione used to say: "Young people are the sun or the storm of tomorrow. According to how you educate them you decide the future of our society". Our society is becoming every day more confusing, more demanding and very often our youngsters find themselves disoriented, looking for guidelines but not able to choose when many people cheat them offering easy solutions?. In several occasions, while addressing young catholics, John Paul II invited them to be “prophets among the people of your age, because, he would proceed, young people, more than ever look confused and are misguided while looking for guides on the path of life". Prophets: It is a powerful word the one used by the pope to address our children. Who are the prophets? The Old Testaments is full of them, see for example Elijah Isaiah Jeremiah etc. Even in the christian era, the saints were addressed with the name of prophets. What ma...

Apostolate as it was done in the past Most of the congregations were founded as a concrete answer to a concrete need of their time. A war had created many orphans, nobody was educating girls, the health system was very poor etc. The bishop would gather some young ladies, entrust unto them the work and little by little this small group of ladies transformed into a congregation. Even Don Orione started with the oratory and then with a small seminary because these were the needs of Tortona at his time. Most of the foundations, houses came into being as answers to the local needs. A peculiar aspect is that in all those houses our religious (priests, brothers, sisters) were doing the whole work from teaching to taking care of the handicap or elderly, bathing them, feeding them etc. In the last thirty years a threefold crisis struck all the congregations: Government requires now that all the staff in the institutions, have proper qualifications (which most of us do not have), and de...

THE CHALLENGES OF TODAY Facility of journeys, policy of exchange of personnel among provinces and the vocational crisis in Europe along with new openings and promising developments in Asia and Africa are all factors that contributed to the formation of communities characterized by what we now call “Interculturality”. It is a fact that now it is quite common to have communities where the members come from 3 or even 4 different countries. This fact represents a big challenge with great potentialities for the witness to the gospel, but carries also a few difficulties. First problem we meet is the one of languages. Now religious are called more often than ever to learn new languages, sometimes even strange and difficult ones. No matter how good we are, but when it comes to preach, to teach, to counsel, we will always feel handicapped having to use another language. More than with the language, the problem may arise from the cultural setting of our backgrounds. In Asia we fa...

Obedience as a challenge to the world. Pope John Paul II, in the document Vita Consecrata (nn.91-92), presents us a big challenge present in today’s society. This comes from the wrong use of freedom and power. People understand freedom as “do whatever you like”, and power as “make sure that the others serve you and understand who is in charge”. The vow of obedience teaches us that only in the fulfilling the will of God we can be sure to find happiness. Freedom is a real freedom only if it is under the truth and under the moral norms. Authority, on its part, is true only when is at the service of the will of God. Both freedom and authority should work for a better life and a better society where everybody can grow. Furthermore obedience is exercised in a community environment. Community, in the promise of Christ “When two or more are united in my name I will be among them”, is the place where Jesus lives. Community is also the place where, through dialogue and discernment, t...