Parable and Conscience Meditation January 31

Apostolate  January 31

As part of the universal Church, the Order is especially attentive to needs throughout the world (Const. 22.1).

The Order of the Holy Cross, from the beginning, had a tendency to establish itself with stability somewhere in a local Church.  However, in certain epochs, already from 1248 on and especially after the “second foundation” in the 19^th century, the Order exhibited a more explicit missionary spirit, although limited.  Not missionaries by charism, the Crosiers as Christians, nonetheless, participate in the mission of Christ ad gentes, to the unbelieving nations.  Ordinarily that was expressed by gestures of solidarity from a distance and, by way of exception, through the actual sending of missionaries.  Christ roots himself in a certain place, but he does not remain simply local.   To move in somewhere as a religious community does not mean to close oneself off there.  The inter-provincial solidarity of the Order asks at least the displacement of the confrere's heart, if not finally the displacement of his person.

Although the river is wide, we cross it.  (Bemba)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 30

Apostolate  January 30

Our religious community . . . is in a special way part of the prophetic and dynamic conscience of the Church (Const. 15.2).

The first foundation of the Crosier Order was called “Clairlieu,” or “Place of Light.”  At Clairlieu, the first Crosiers founded their life as a human experiment under the inspiration of the Gospel.  In its organization of life, the experiment took account of all the dimensions of human life:  physical, intellectual, social, moral, emotional and spiritual.  Each dimension in itself, and all of them together, should become authentic in Christ.  The sharing and use of goods in common, study, fraternal interaction, freedom to choose, work and prayer, all demanded a careful discernment.  The great effort maintained by these confreres to put all of the elements of life in serious and deep conversation with the Gospel created a light, illuminating their own space and that of the world around them.  Here was direction for living in search of God;  here were firm criteria for fidelity.  It was thus that the myth of “Clairlieu,” “Place of Light,” was born.  But this myth isn’t unique.  It is but a variation of the great theme of religious life throughout the ages, a striking and bold illumination by which the Church and the world judge themselves in the search for authentic humanity.

The clearing where there is joy is always sunny, even when it rains.  (Burundi)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 29

Apostolate  January 29

A human and pastorally effective presence among the People of God obliges us to assure personal and community study of religious, social, cultural, regional and world questions (Congolese Regional Statutes, 3.1).

The practice of holistic medicine has become the preferred method of healing today.  The body-life of a sick person has its own rules and there is a whole medical approach for responding to physical weakness.  But the health of the body is influenced by other human factors.  That is why the holistic doctor takes into account personal history, living situation, balance in emotional life, stability and quality of relationships, intellectual capacity and spiritual life.  Because what happens in each of these aspects can affect the healing process as seriously as medicine, the doctor tries to get as fully informed about the patient as possible.  Is it otherwise in ministry?  The roots of a pastoral need can be greatly extended.  The pastoral minister must have the capacity to see far and deep to effectively proclaim the Word of God in the concrete situation.  Pastoral activity, done personally or as a team, must be holistic in its preparation and practice.

A single paddle doesn’t move the canoe ahead.  (Ntomba)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 28

Apostolate  January 28

Moreover, living in community is itself a proclamation of the Good News to others. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13, 35) (Const. 21.2).

The baby learns to speak by imitating the sounds its parents make.  The young girl is initiated into cooking by paying attention to her mother.  The boy acquires the skill of a farmer by working with his father.  The young prince becomes capable of ruling by watching the king.  Apprenticeship serves very well as educator.  For this reason, Jesus gave religious life to the world.  Religious are artisans of love.  They practice the art of loving among themselves by mutually responding to daily personal and community needs.  Gestures of listening, collaboration, care, sympathy, counsel and relaxation are the rules of their art that create the masterpiece of fraternal love.  They leave their studios to practice their art outside.  Religious life, then, is a workshop with an open door, a place of learning for Christians and other people of good will, for country folk and government ministers, for poor people and entrepreneurs, for infants and young adults.  The world learns to love by imitating the gestures of loving people.

What is good for the river is good for the alligator.  (Mossi)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 27

Apostolate  January 27

Our life in community forms our most immediate apostolate since we are called there to assist one another in charity and unity, by our prayers and by all our other activities (Const. 21.1).

Perhaps it is easier to see the person at a distance as “neighbor” than the confrere at one’s side.  But the truth is that the one who is part of daily life in the same house, eating at the same table, is the most immediate presence of Christ.  The call of Christ in the person at one’s side cannot be ignored in the name of someone at a distance.  No, it is the same Christ whose cry begins very close and whose echo is heard from far away.  Can husband neglect his wife, parents be disinterested in their children, friend abandon friend, all under the pretext of service to the wife, the child, the friend of someone else?  The connections already established, at least by charity if not by justice, must get preferential attention, but without forgetting others.  Religious profession, and especially in an Augustinian community, creates an incontestable bond with the confrere, such that negligence gives a bad taste with regard to pastoral involvement outside.  How is it possible to offend Christ at hand in order to honor him further away?  No one can trample Christ underfoot in order to reach him.

The clan is not a market where we come to look, only to scatter afterwards.  (Bakongo)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 26

Apostolate  January 26

The Lord grant that you may observe all these precepts in a spirit of charity as lovers of spiritual beauty, giving forth the good odor of Christ in the holiness of your lives (Rule of St. Augustine, 48).

It is said that the custom of using incense in the liturgy began with a need.  It seems that often liturgical processions outside the church had to pass through bad-smelling streets—something which disturbed the spirit of meditation.  To help with the passage, at the head of the procession, an acolyte walked with a pot of fire in which perfumed incense burned, creating clouds of fragrant smoke.  Perhaps this is a useful image for religious in pastoral activity.  Often it is the religious who, in the name of Christ, pass through some of the foulest smelling avenues of the world, through situations of misery defiled by all sorts of human garbage, through societies rotting from corruption and injustice, through places smelling of death and war.  Religious, consecrated by their radical evangelical commitment, pass by as the perfume of Christ that resists the foulness and makes the promise of finally freshening the air of human history.

A house built on the side of the road helps all passersby because they can spend the night there.  (Bamileke)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 25

Apostolate  January 25

(The Crosier) prepares himself well for ministry (Profile of the Congolese Crosier).

All of us are prepared by the Spirit for a mission.  Life in the family, our schooling, our religious education, our participation in the Paschal Mystery in the highs and lows of life--all that becomes a body of formative experiences in view of a personal call from God.  We should reflect, nonetheless, about the seriousness of the commitment to God.  Is it not better to not begin at all than to finish badly?  We expect a lot with regard to the personal life of the ministers of the Church.  They should be persons of faith and high integrity, qualities recognized by everyone.   They need to be proven people.  They should have wide religious and secular knowledge to direct pastoral work well.  In short, they should be worthy and capable representatives of Christ.  That is a great challenge for us.  We do not live any longer for ourselves, but for him who calls and sends us.  We are on mission and every aspect of our life participates in it, whether hidden in the interiority of our spirit or visible in the external world of our behavior.  We must accept responsibility very well for this.

The hen that doesn’t know how to scratch the ground always loses her chicks.  (Shi)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 24

Apostolate  January 24

In choosing his (Augustine’s) rule, the first brethren of the Cross also joined life in community to an apostolic life of prayer and work (Const. 20.3).

Their unhappiness was no secret.  No, the others guessed their discomfort with every intonation of  “O God, come to my assistance.”  A bit rebellious, they often found themselves together to express their anxiety and to share their inspirations.  They lived in a disorder incompatible with the Gospel.  Their witness to the Crucified was no longer credible.  They hungered for more fraternal collaboration.  The formal recitation of the Psalms together was not very satisfying.  Their prayer had lost its vital relationship with those living around the cathedral.  No, at the date agreed upon, they would leave their choir stalls in the cathedral and never return again.  It was better to leave for a calmer place in order to give themselves to truer evangelical living.  Thus it was that Theodore de Celles, founder of the Crosiers, and his companions began the reform of their canonical life under the Rule of St. Augustine.  It was their hope that the anxiety and inspiration, the hunger and determination for a more balanced Gospel life, would characterize the Brethren of the Holy Cross down through the ages.

It’s the elephant’s muscles that get him out of the swamp where he is stuck.  (Shi)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 23

Apostolate  January 23

This consecrated life helps us commit totally to the Kingdom of God.  In the service of others in the Spirit, we consecrate ourselves to the liberation of every person and the whole person through an integrated ministry (Congolese Regional Statutes, Intro. 3.1).

The encyclicals of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II asked for a “new evangelization” that goes further than the mere conversion of persons.  Such an evangelization looks for the birth of a new society comprised of a new humanity.  It invites first to an experience of God in Christ, promoting personal salvation.  But the will of God for “a new heaven and a new earth” promotes also a transformation of society, brought about by the work of justice that liberates from every kind of human misery.  In the end, in order to arrive at the cosmic identity of Christ, the “new evangelization” engages in a dialogue with pluralistic culture.  Religious life is well place to become a new evangelizer.   It follows a style of life centered in the experience of Jesus Christ as Savior.  It has a history and an inspiration of solidarity with the poor.  It lives with wide and diverse cultural horizons that equip it for sensitive and effective conversation with the peoples of the world.

A single spark can set fire to a whole mountain.  (Lendu-Hema)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 22

Apostolate  January 22

Since the Lord has called us as part of the Church to serve him in our fellow men and women, we look upon our whole life as a following of Christ, who spent himself, even unto death, for the salvation of others (Const. 20.2).

A missionary bishop who had been a simple religious served many years in the missions.  As an old man he returned to his abbey to retire.  A short time afterwards, he died.  During his wake, some of his confreres, looking at his body, were astonished.  They said, “But he looks so worn out!”  Another confrere standing close by, a bit wiser, remarked, “Why are your so surprised?  Certainly he looks worn out!  What would you expect for a man who gave everything for the Gospel?”  What joy for the good servant to return to his Creator at the end of his earthly life completely empty.  Every gift used, every strength spent, every resource employed, nothing remains but to be embraced as comrade by him who already passed by that way and who lives eternally, Christ, who died and rose.

Fighting with a leopard will mean getting clawed.  (Yaka)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 21

Apostolate  January 21

If our communities are to reflect upon their work and life effectively – to test themselves by the Gospel and contemporary social developments – regular personal and communal study and reflection are necessary (Const. 19.7).

One of the principle objectives of community hospitality is to bring people close in order to guide them to Christ.  In a truly welcoming environment, the community wants to help people review their lives by the light of the Gospel.  By word or example, the confreres invite people to ask themselves about the significance of Christ for all dimensions of their lives.  The hungry person looking for food is welcome, the sinner who has lost heart, the sick person who wants healing, the young person who is searching for good direction, the couple that is struggling for the integrity of their marriage.  Deep inside, all these people, indeed all human beings, are thirsting finally for Christ.  He alone is bread, pardon, healing, life, love.  What a service the community performs to gradually reveal Christ to others and sensitively help them decide for him.  How does one prepare oneself to give this great spiritual news to others, while not neglecting to meet their physical needs also?

It is thanks to the chicken that the lizard finds water in the puddle and drinks  (African proverb)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 20

Apostolate  January 20

(The Crosier) commits himself to the work of the inculturation of the Gospel and Crosier life in Africa, proclaiming the Gospel in the values of the culture and setting aside all cultural elements which do not build up the human person in the image of God (Profile of the Congolese Crosier).

That Christ should become African in the Africans is the dream of inculturation.  It was already the plan of God that Christ should assume the identity of every human person and so come to his full cosmic stature.  That is the reason why Christians are sent to make disciples of all nations.  In some sense, Christ is already “pre-announced” in a culture to which missionary Christians go because Christ’s spirit was poured out on the whole world.  Thus, the words and signs of Christ revealed in the Bible can find authentic cultural expression in the believing Christians there.  The emergence of the image of Christ in a culture requires a dialogue between the members of that young Church and the universal Church.  In such a dialogue, new Christians affirm the values of their culture that are consonant with the Gospel and promote the dignity and vocation of humanity.  They are critical, as well, of the values of their culture that contradict the Gospel, dehumanizing people.  Little by little, the Spirit of Christ works toward the transformation of the whole culture into the Body of Christ.  And that is to be a new epiphany.  That is why you, the African, must express yourself!

You don’t dress a woman:  she dresses herself.  (Burundi)

Parable and Conscience Meditation January 19

Apostolate   January 19

A religious fellowship of life and work is a special sign and instrument in the Church for true unity among people, a unity that is rooted and brought to completion in Christ, in whom, through whom, and for whom all things were created (Const. 15.2).

Crosier life models the Church of the New Testament in a striking way.  Because of their encounter with the Risen Christ, the first Christians immediately knew themselves to be brothers and sisters (community).  This fraternity was strongly characterized by a spirit of gratitude for Jesus, which was regularly expressed in their community prayer (liturgy).  Profoundly touched by their Gospel experience, they felt impelled to share the Good News with others everywhere by word and loving deed (ministry).  So, there we see the three pillars of the Church of the New Testament.  These three pillars form the heart of the charism of Canons Regular.  By their liturgical prayer, their fraternal life and their pastoral service, the Crosiers as Canons Regular attract the attention of the world to Christ and to the reality of his salvation.  But even more, the community advances in the world the Kingdom of Christ, of which its religious life is the sign.  All Christian communities--ecclesial, familial, educational, fraternal and apostolic--conform themselves to this model.  Our charism, shaped by this model, instructs the Church and world in Christ's salvation.

Those with the same roots will drink the same water.  (Luba)