… dalla Sierra Leone
Why religious and still religious?!
No, I did not want to become a convent friar when I left my seminary of Cremona for the Xaverian novitiate. I just wanted to be a missionary and go, in Christ’s name, to save poor abandoned souls. This was how we saw the mission in those days and, even if our terminology is different today, the purpose of the mission now is not so different from what is was in the past!
However, as soon as the Xaverian formation started for me, I realized that, if I wanted to be a Xaverian, I had to accept becoming also a friar, someone with the three religious vows and life in a community. I easily accepted that additional element as necessary to my missionary vocation, without protesting much with the Lord or anyone else; however, I did feel the pinch when the novice master asked all of us novices to give him every single penny in the name of our future vow of poverty.
Eventually, I realized that it was the Founder himself who insisted that his missionaries should be religious, something that was so important to him that he was ready to cancel the whole project of our Institute if that virtue was not approved by Rome. He himself was not a religious in the formal sense of the term, but he solemnly professed his religious vows on the very morning of his episcopal ordination in Rome in 1902. What a holy choice!
Why, then, did the Founder plan for his own missionary sons to be also and necessarily religious, a characteristic that seems at odds with the very freedom and boldness an apostle needs to proclaim the Gospel everywhere, at all times, and without the bonds of vows? I believe that the best answer to this question is in the Founder’s Testament Letter, the supreme summary of his holiness and mission for all of us. There we all understand how our missionary vocation exists only if it is combined with the religious or, better, the consecrated life. This unity is the essential charism that we embraced when we made our Xaverian profession, and its value cannot be disputed or changed if we wish to remain Xaverians.
But how is the Founder’s Testament truly understood and practiced by all Xaverians today, by us in the Region of Sierra Leone? In my 50 and more years of Xaverianity, and with a considerable experience of people, places, and roles, I may say that we have sometimes forgotten, both in theory and mostly in practice, the Xaverian religious life the Founder offered us as essential to our vocation.
We know that some Xaverian superiors, in the years immediately after Saint Guido’s death, tried to make us monks. We have not forgotten how one Regional Chapter, almost unanimously, approved that the elderly Xaverian Confreres’ pension could be used as “free” money. We know the disastrous financial deals of several Xaverian bursars over the years in many a Region. Even the Founder, both during and soon after his trip to China, had to endure much suffering over the divisions among his apostles because of money and the financial needs of the mission. He never mentioned them in the diary of his apostolic trip, but, as we came to know later on, it was a truly painful experience for him!
The list could continue. The few readers of this reflection may say that I speak only of religious life for its vow of poverty. Yes, for I truly believe that it is through the use of money, “that tainted thing” of the Gospel, that we can reveal ourselves most clearly as witnesses to Christ’s mission in the world.
The Founder did his utmost to make his missionary Institute religious because, in his holiness, he felt the beauty of living together, but “he left an Institute that stressed the value of personal individuality as no other.”
This quote, and some of the following, are taken from the yet unpublished biography of Mons. Conforti by Fr. Silvestro Volta sx, which was written in 1943. Volta also says, “In the formation of novices and professed, the Founder was careful to preserve their personality even in its smallest manifestations. That’s why almost all the practices of piety are individual: morning prayers while they are getting dressed, personal meditation at their seat, the midday personal examination of conscience, not even in church; the rosary walking up and down … in twos and, finally, night prayers alone. … Furthermore, the Founder encouraged us to pray outside church … without kneeling down, for he wanted to train men who would be on the road most of the time and live by themselves. A specific responsibility was given to everyone and the community was an organism made up of responsible members.”
It is worth remembering here that the first ever school of medicine for missionaries started in Parma in 1927, with summer classes lasting two months over four years! Another novelty encouraged by the Founder was film making, something that was unheard in 1924 in ecclesiastical circles. Over seven years, this project produced three good-quality films, such as Fiamme, which touched the hearts of many people and made them sensitive to the missions!
We now know the life and spirit of our Founder even better than our elderly Confreres, thanks to the many historical studies carried out by Xaverians and non-Xaverians in the last 30 years since the famous Pamplona meeting in 1984. We all know how creative, zealous and holy he was in his life. He was not so much a follower, but a leader, who initiated many activities and wanted us to shape our life and mission in the same way.
So, what does the Founder have to say to us today, above and beyond the many published documents that are now gathering dust on our bookshelves? Allow me to make a few practical suggestions:
- No matter what, we should always remain a loving community, with great respect for our individual differences and without losing our personal gifts in the caldron of anonymity;
- We should live our vow of poverty with consecrated charity for the real poor around us, beginning with our workers;
- We should be missionaries with ever greater zeal for those to whom we are sent, without judging them and without counting the cost. (If we do this, we shall all be free from any unnecessary fears of conditioning those who come after us!)
I believe that these suggestions could help all of us, beginning with myself, to inspire an evaluation of our missionary/religious identity and make us better sons of Saint Guido, more than any words, documents and meetings ever could. It is up to all of us together to decide to live the Founder’s charism here and now at its very best.
In conclusion, I apologize if I have not expressed myself clearly, but I hope and pray that we Xaverians can grow ever more joyful in the blessedness and the mission of our Founder. Amen.
Brioni Luigi sx
