Riflessioni ad alta voce

Visto che siamo in cammino verso l'anno della vita consacrata, riporto qui alcune riflessioni prese da una lettera di P. Timothy Radcliffe OP (ex Superiore Generale dei Domenicani) scritta ai tempi in cui era Generale e anche (se non sbaglio) incaricato CISM.  Lettera all’ordine ...... Anche le nostre comunità non devono essere dei luoghi dove ci accontentiamo di sopravvivere, ma dei luoghi dove noi troviamo il nutrimento per il nostro viaggio. ... Come ogni seme e ogni pianta, così anche la vita domenicana richiede un proprio ecosistema, se vogliamo viverla ppienamente e predicare una parola di vita. Non è sufficiente parlarne; noi dobbiamo programmare attivamente e costruire questi ecosistemi domenicani. ... Il progetto comunitario non si realizzerà che se osiamo parlare insieme di ciò che ci tocca più profondamente come esseri umani e come domenicani. ... La vita apostolica. La vita apostolica non è tanto ciò che noi facciamo quanto ciò che noi ...

Fondamentalismo: È la nostra la vera religione? Coloro che osservano i fenomeni religiosi nel mondo d’oggi rilevano che negli ultimi vent’anni si è assistito a un diffondersi di correnti fondamentaliste religiose. Esse coinvolgono un po’ tutte le parti del mondo e rappresentano un problema religioso e politico. Sul fronte islamico si è assistito prima al sorgere al potere degli Ayathollah in Iran, poi dei Talaban in Afghanistan, mentre paesi tendenzialmente laici come Egitto, Iraq e Siria o paesi moderati come la Giordania e il Libano, risentono ora di forti spinte interne, senza contare la solita chiusura dei paesi del golfo (Arabia Saudita in testa). Molti paesi come Pakistan, Nigeria e Sudan stanno forzando l'introduzione della legge islamica come legge dello stato, cosa che priverebbe di libertà i cristiani. Sul fronte Induista abbiamo ora un partito radicale al potere in India e la persecuzione contro i cristiani e i mussulmani si va moltiplicando ogni anno di più. Ma ...

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...

Ideas for creativity The image of the tree a-) The tree could represent our religion. - The roots are the Father; from him everything comes and everything takes energy. Rooted on him we can be strong against winds and floods. We do not see him but benefit from his presence and strength. The trunk is Jesus; he is the one who has built up our religion; the one who made us know the father. The trunk is huge because of all his teachings. If you cut the trunk the whole tree dies and falls. Through the trunk we receive the sap, the food from the roots. The branches represent the Holy Spirit. They spread all around. The leaves live because of the branches and survive only if attached to them. From the branches come also the fruits and the flowers. From the wholeness of the word of God which we find in Christ, the Holy Spirit takes daily the little we need and entrusts it onto the leaves to process it. The sap is the word of God. It comes from the roots (Fa...

Ideas for creativity: The landscape with the horizon. It is beautiful, colorful, green and blue and with a lot of light. I am living now a wonderful moment made of joy, rest where everything seems to be in place. The horizon is far away, well marked, the clear division between the earth and the sky. There is where I want to reach, the idea is clear, there where the earth ends into the sky. It is far but seems near. The sun is bright, we cannot look at it directly, who could possibly look straight at you o God, and bear your gaze? It is better to look at all the beautiful things here around. After all they all live because of you and are beautiful because of your light. Night will come; they will be there, meaningless, dormant, longing to receive your light again. In the sky there are birds flying happily around, as if without any purpose. Where do they go? They are like my ideas, always roaming around, now here, then there, without order: maybe looki...

Some nice suggestion from Don Orione From the writings of Don Orione Authority Here are the 10 Commandments of a good Superior: 1. Be a physician and not an executioner: be a father, and not a master to your brothers, that is, try to find a remedy for their faults with all the gentleness of a father; and if you have to administer punishments they must not be felt like the cruelty of an enemy, nor the coldness of a stranger's heart, but they should rather show that your heart suffers and is distressed at having to punish. 2. Perfection in ruling is contained in these five words: Vigilance, love in the Lord, forbearance, forgiveness and feeding in the Lord: feeding on the sweet and divine food of the Doctrine or Truth of Jesus Christ, of the Charity of Jesus Christ, who is portrayed by the Sacred Scriptures as a Lamb. 3. A good and perfect Superior must be an enemy of vice and a physician to those caught up in vice: he must be vigilant over them, seeking out every method of giv...

The service of Authority This is a small chapter, small in size but not in importance. It is addressed to the superiors rather than the novices. From our personal experience we understand very well how the character of the superior influences the life of the community. A few years ago Vatican issued a document called “Faciem Tuam” on the task of authority today. When we priests speak to families we are very good in giving recommendations and suggestions on how they should understand each other, love the partners even if unfaithful, forgive the children even when rebellious. But if on one side we are good preachers, on the other side we fall often short when we have to apply them to our community life. Superiors are called to guide the community and this is not an easy task. They are called to be fathers but without falling into paternalism; They have to take the final decisions but without falling into authoritarism; they have to listen to all the confreres and mediate am...