1. Renewal of our Xaverian Institute
In 2017, the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CIVCSVA) published the document New Wine in New Wineskins. The consecrated life and its ongoing challenges since Vatican II[1]. This document was released on the 50 years anniversary of the Lumen Gentium and Perfectae Caritatis[2]. It gives some guidelines for the renewal of the Religious Institutes and highlights the ongoing challenges of the consecrated people in this present age. The ongoing challenges mentioned in this document are also true to our missionary Family which is invited to look and identify these challenges and to be ready for renewal and continuous commitment to diakonia[3], in a special way, to the service of mission ad gentes.
Among the challenges enumerated in the chapter II of the above-mentioned document, conflicts of ideas and feelings, lack of fraternal relationship because of our human frailty[4] have to do also with our Institute. Other challenges enlisted are:
- high number of religious abandoning their consecration and leaving the Institute.
- System of Formation and formative choices. “Many Institutes lack individuals who have the adequate amount of preparation to take on the formative task.”[5]
- Gap among elderly confreres tied up to the “classic styles” and the large number of young members from different cultures who feel marginalized.
- Difficulty in enculturation.
- Service of Authority: the role of the Superiors, insufficient co-responsibility in government practices or even the absence of proper authority; the government may not be centralized in the hands of only one person, thereby circumventing canonical banns (CIC 636).[6]
- Superiors are to exercise their power in a spirit of service … govern their subjects as sons/daughters of God and promoting the voluntary obedience with reverence for the human person … or to strive to build a community of bothers in Christ in which God is sought, loved before all things.[7]
Our Institute as well, is called to face and answer to these present challenges, for a sincere renewal and updating. We are brothers not by blood but by common aspiration so to follow the vision of our Founder and give our life to the Mission. Moreover, we all live in community and agree on the fundamentals of what we aspire to.
Without a regular reflections and recognition of our Institute`s continuing challenges then, it becomes difficult to discover our Identity and to be able to accommodate holistic, healthy and authentic fraternal intercultural living.
2. Weakness of our Xaverian Identity
Internationality, Interculturality and Multiculturality in this context is not just a sociological explanation but a theological understanding of the Church in Mission through Missionary Institutes. Two SVD fathers, (Lazar T. Stanislaus and Fr. Martin Ueffing) in their book, “Intercultural Living[8]”, write about the life of missionaries living in a community with respect to their cultures and nationalities. It also showcases their mission endeavors and richness in living an intercultural life.[9]
Intercultural living is now a trend in many missionary congregations` life. Missionaries are coming from different nationalities and cultural backgrounds, living together to carry out their mission assignment. Nowadays, we, the Xaverians are more challenged by this intercultural living hence our congregation is growing up in interculturality.
Our missionary Institute has made already some in-depth study and reflection on Interculturality. We can read them in our normative documents – RMX, RFX, General Chapters, Cosuma and the like. An ongoing reflection has been made on this subject because of the nature of our charism and the challenges that we face inside our communities.
Our 17th General Chapter (GC) talks about the fragilities of our Xaverian life in the area of human maturity and interculturality. The GC documents state that, “Inter-culturality is sometimes not lived as richness and source of witness in the face of a world that struggles to accept alterity”[10]. Furthermore, “in our congregation’s journey, interculturality is ‘the’ most visible characteristics especially in the formation reality. Our being consecrated to Christ through the Charism of our Founder show us the direction through which we must head if we are to grow in mutual acceptance as bearers of different cultures. Intercultural Xaverian fraternity, therefore, is not something incidental, but a Christian and charismatic choice (RMX 92-96).
On the other hand, the ‘intercultural problem’ must is some way to be relativized. The central nucleus of our missionary consecration is Jesus Christ and the proclamation of His Gospel. The most profound causes of self-reference, intolerance, spirit of independence, the use of cultural categories as a shield to protect one`s personal individualism, as the weak love for others, lie in the weakness of our identity as Xaverians. It follows from this that, ultimately, interculturality is not the real problem of our Congregation, but, rather, the rediscovery of our charism and our identification with it”.[11]
In the beginning, our Congregation was monocultural. It was founded in Italy, by an Italian Founder, with the Italian students and soon Italian confreres sent to mission. Then, little by little, it became multi-cultural. The founder sent his missionaries to China. Later on, up to the present century, the Congregation moved towards internationality, multiculturality and interculturality. Confreres from Spain, UK, United States, México, Brazil, Cameroon and Democratic Republic of Congo have emerged in the second half part of the 20th century. Then other Circumscriptions followed, and our Family grew in number, more in terms of non-Italian membership.
The increase in the number of missionary vocations attracted by the Xaverian charism, and from different cultures within the congregation was part of the Founder`s dream. However, living in fraternal community has meant to experience some ongoing challenges. It is because of the different persons with unlike mindsets, attitude, characters and cultures that came together and live in community. Because of these ‘mixed up’ of cultures and people, with different patterns of behavior and experiences, we may expect unforeseen conflicts, disagreements, discomfort arise in our consecrated life living[12].
I raise this concern as part of my Xaverian experience in the mission. I notice that not all confreres can work together in the same local community. There are friction and fights caused by some. This is not because the confreres hate each other but because of the insensitivity of each one toward the other. Some aspects of our human maturity are missing together with a mix of trust and untruthful expressions of real feelings. Each confrere has his own style of doing the ministry which, apparently, is not suitable for the other. To sustain the community and the mission, the Superior need to put together confreres that can work with each other.
Other concern which I want to point out is the ‘low quality’ value of human relationship and communication. Often in our communities, there is lack of informal talks and formative quality time spent together; lack of appreciation, affirmation, and recognition to each other. There is much insecurity with the performances and achievements of each one. ‘Appreciation’ is wrongly expressed in denial and negative comments. There are many ‘secret gossips’ that hurts and disappoint, hurtful feelings and prejudices. We should encourage healthy criticisms, good communications, discussions and constructive fraternal relationship. In fact, respect, understanding and acceptance, despite one’s mistake and weakness, are lacking.
When we read the circumscriptions reports of the General Direction after their visits, there are always concerns on the area of working together, community life, community project of life and the like. Our congregation will have to address these unresolved issues so that we can work healthily and lived together as brothers among brothers as we professed during our Profession of Vows.
Conclusion and Recommendation
We have already our Xaverian Identity. However, based on our Congregation`s ongoing assessments and reflections of our fraternal life relationship as confreres, stated in our documents, there are weaknesses going on. The existing weaknesses have to be taken cared of.
To rediscover our identification with our charism and spirituality, we need to go back to our Founder`s teachings: his letters and writings, exhortations and messages to us. In the same way, we are to give more attention to our Family’s purpose, to the Constitutions and to our numerous congregation`s documents and teachings. It is a must to read, study and reflect on them.
Finally, it is also important to review the system of our Initial Formation. Formation is the foundation of our Xaverian life. The fecundity of all our Family’s endeavors and future undertakings begins with a serious work in Formation.
Vivinio “Joeven” Matugas, Jr. sx
Kabala (Sierra L.)
[1] New Wine in New Wineskins. The Consecrated life and Its Ongoing Challenges since Vatican II. Libreria Editrice Vaticana: 2017
[2] Ibid. 7-9
[3] Ibid. 15-16
[4] Ibid. 26
[5] Ibid. 39
[6] Ibid. 47
[7] Ibid. 56
[8] Stanislaus, Lazar T. and Ueffing, Martin. Intercultural Living. Steyler Missiionswissenschaftliches Institut: Germany 2015, Vol 1.
[9] Ibid. Introduction, xvi
[10] 17th General Chapter, 2017 No. 30
[11] 17th General Chapter, “Charismatic Identity and Interculturality”, No. 39
[12] Intercultural Living. Introduction, xv-xxvii
