A SERVICE IN CO-RESPONSIBILITY
THE LOCAL SUPERIOR
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
FOREWORD
I THE COMMUNITY
PLACE OF LIFE AND GROWTH
A sign of the times
The community on its journey
Challenges
The Superior
Il THEOLOGICAL APPROACH Community and co-responsibility Obedience and authority
The community
Gift of the Father
Around Christ, Word and Bread
In the Spirit
The community announces and prepares the Kingdom
Religions obedience
A participation in Christ's offering
... in His Paschal Mystery
The service of authority
A ministry of the Church
A road of obedience
A mediation of obedience
In co-responsibility
III OUR INSPIRATION FOR THIS SERVICE OF AUTHORITY
JESUS, SERVANT AND SHEPHERD
I — The authority of Jesus
A mission received from, above
at the service of God's Plan
not in the manner of the world...
II — Jesus and the community of the Twelve
He knows His disciples
He lives among them
He is their unity
He forms them for mission
HOW FRANCIS SERVED HIS BROTHERS
A service of communion
In mercy
In minority
SOME INSPIRATIONAL TEXTS
I — The Letter to a Minister
to accept what is real
to love the brothers as they are
to contemplate Christ
II - The Note to Brother Leo
Francis supports his brother - like a brother
Francis makes himself close to his brother - like a mother
Francis trusts - like a father
III - The True Friar Minor
HOW MARY OF THE PASSION ANIMATED THE COMMUNITIES
I — Convictions
Gospel service of obedience
...which carries responsibility
calls for collaboration
is concerned about formation
II — Fundamental Attitudes
Charity
Truth
III — Relationships
With the sisters
... with the communities
... in God
Like Mary
IV THE SERVICE OF THE COMMUNITY
I — Specific functions
Promote animation
In view of unity...
... in fidelity to the charism...
... and to the apostolic mission of the Institute
II - Basic attitudes
Welcoming each one
Caring for each one
Dialogue
III — Means to be ensured
Community discernment
Decision-taking
Ongoing formation
The accompaniment of young religious
V ANIMATION AND CO-RESPONSIBILITY
1. Community prayer
2. The community project
3. The local chapter
4. The local council
5. Community meetings
VI FOR AN OPEN COMMUNITY
I - OPENNESS TO THE PROVINCE
1. Relationship of the local superior with the provincial superior
2. Her participation and the participation of her sisters in the life of the province
The provincial chapter
II - OPENNESS TO THE INSTITUTE
1. - Relationship of the local Superior with the Superior General
2.- Relations with the whole Institute
III - OPENNESS TO THE CHURCH
Communion:
IV - OPENNESS TO THE WORLD
CONCLUSION
Behold the handmaid of the Lord
INTRODUCTION
This booklet is born of the need to have some spiritual guidelines and concrete orientations to accomplish, as it is defined in the Constitutions, the service of responsibility in a co-responsible community.
The Constitutions, in fact, trace the post-conciliar ideal:
-a community where sisters search together for the Will of God;
-a community where all take an active part, each in her own place ;
-a community where each one is situated in a spirit of evangelical service ;
-a community where authority is recognised as a service and a mediation of religious obedience.
But the ideal must be materialised. For 15 years we have been searching, with a certain amount of success, to live this new type of relationship. Many small groups have been created and the role of the superior has narrowed down in time. We are so different from one another that it is not astonishing that some (persons/communities/provinces) have clung longer to the old model while others have almost wiped out, for a time, the very role of the local superior. There were successes and failures. Net without suffering, superiors and communities have grown together through this search.
A little bit everywhere, today, there is a felt need to live simply what the Constitutions ask: a community where co-responsibility, obedience freely chosen and authority are lived in a mature, constructive way, in spite of our limitations.
What is proposed in this booklet is addressed first of all to local superiors that they may find therein help, light for their service and concrete orientations to put it into practice. We wish that it may be for them an instrument of formation.
It is addressed also to each of us, F.M.M.: the community is built only in togetherness and it is good for us to become aware once more of our share of personal co-responsibility and of the support that the superior has a right to find in each one.
This booklet is not perfect: it remains open to reflections, reactions, additions, born of daily experience.
Nor can it answer exactly to the diversity of every situation in the Institute:
-diversity of age, culture, community models and models of authority of our society ;
-diversity in the history of our provinces, types of insertion of big and small communities, in individual apostolic insertions or in works, etc...
-diversity of community orientations : formative communities, houses for elderly sisters, active communities, etc...
But we hope that the orientations given may inspire and help each one.
-It is for each local superior to accept what is proposed and see how to put it into practice in her context, according to the needs of her community.
-It is for each community to procure the means of living our F.M.M. life and to search continually for what can help our growth as persons and as groups in the service of the mission of the Church.
Maura O'Connor fmm, Sup. Gen.
and the general councillors
FOREWORD
The booklet being centred on the local superior, it seems important to us to place the context of the community, first in a general way in the Church, then in a more particular way in our F.M.M. life, as a living body where each one is responsible for fidelity to the aims of the community (Ch. I).
Then, to recall theological foundations which underlie actual situations in our life: obedience and authority, community and co-responsibility (Ch. II).
Then follows a chapter on the sources which inspire the service of authority: a look at Jesus Servant and His relationship with the Twelve; at Francis of Assisi and his first companions; and at Mary of the Passion as a community animator (Ch. III).
We can then, in a concrete and practical way, move on to the specific functions of the local superior, attitudes to which to give importance and the means to be used for the service of the community (Ch. IV), as well as necessary structures for its animation (project, chapter, council, meetings...- (Ch. V).
Finally, the community, not existing for itself but turned towards apostolic service, must be open to something bigger than itself, must express the call that surpasses it and makes it belong to the world of those who do not know God or who do not know salvation in Jesus Christ; to the world of the poor of all kinds; that makes it belong to the Church and the Institute (Ch. VI).
All this can appear an ambitious project - however, we are well aware of our deficiencies and limitations - or too idealistic
but are we not called to receive a gift of God rather than reach an ideal?
So, together, we can try to penetrate this gift, with our poverty and our desires, bringing any contribution that can improve this work; bringing to it our prayer and concrete efforts which will make of it an experience of lire.
I
THE COMMUNITY
PLACE OF LIFE AND GROWTH
A sign of the times
From the beginning of the Church, the Christians gathered together to pray, to perform works of charity, to organise themselves ; and very soon, those who wished to follow Christ more closely, understood that life in common - « mutual communion » - was a support for the Gospel project and the first place for practising mutual love.
Today, in a world that is breaking up, natural groups seem to be disintegrating, but in society as in the Church, communities are spontaneously springing up, places of welcoming and sharing, whose members have the sense of belonging to a group ; they live and work in accordance with a common vision and aspire to communion.
Every real community has a goal and procures the means of realising it. There is a close link between the goal chosen and freely assumed by the community and the union of the members who compose it.
In religious life - and more particularly in the Franciscan tradition _ the community has value in itself. It is a reality given by God, built, not on our own actions, but on the Word and action of Christ Who joins us to one another. It is an essential element of our life, a sign and realisation of the community of the Kingdom.
The community on its journey
A community is never completely built and there is no ideal one. It is constantly necessary to break the dream of human communion, and in a certain way, to go through disappointments without ever losing Hope!
God calls to live together persons who are humanly very different, each one having her riches and her limitations, her history and her culture. The fact of our not choosing but welcoming one another as a gift from God, the internationality of our communities, the diversity of their lifestyle and the inculturation of the mission invite us continually to go beyond ourselves... we are always on our journey towards a greater love and it is a long road of conversion.
The community is a living body in which each one has her place and her role, in which each one is called to use her gifts. Certainly the community reveals our weaknesses to us and this revelation is sometimes difficult to accept; but it also allows us to accept one another as we are; it then becomes for each one a place of interior liberation and growth.
Challenges
In a community, all share in one another's gifts, but a balance has to be found and positive tensions to be assumed at the heart of our vocation:
-between personal and community life:
give each one the space which allows her to be herself and to grow in community in accordance with God's plan ; this calls for the values of respect, welcome and trust, etc., to be developed;
and allow the community the possibility of growing as a body; this calls upon us to interpellate one another, to live the values of solidarity, dialogue, communion.
-between apostolic and community life:
The gifts and responsibilities of each one are directed towards apostolic service, but the community is not a mere work team, it is a community of faith; its Gospel foundation is the commandment of love of neighbour that Christ linked closely with that of love of God.
If the community is fully directed towards mission, mission also makes the community. God reveals Himself to us through others; whence the importance of listening to the Lord, of prayer - personal and community - and interpersonal relationships.
The Superior
Authority is a ministry - among others - which is necessary for the building up of the community.
The Superior searches for the Will of God with her sisters, creating in the community an atmosphere and relationships of trust, at the service of the vocation which gathers us together.
She is situated neither above nor outside, but at the heart of the community; the exercise of her responsibility flows partly from the very dynamism of the community. On the one hand, she grasps the life of the « body » in its entirety, keeps it before the essential and allows it to grow interiorly in accordance with the specific character of our charism; on the other hand, she helps each member of the community to grow in her gift to God and others, to use her own gifts for the good of everyone, to assume her responsibilities. She remains a bond and a reference, the one who encourages, supports and confirms her sisters in the unity of love.
It is true that she « receives » this ministry...
It is true that she is net clone to do this...
It is true that she herself needs to be encouraged and confirmed sometimes...
It remains, however, that the growth of the community depends, to a great extent, on the manner in which authority is exercised.
Il
THEOLOGICAL APPROACH
Community and co-responsibility
Obedience and authority
The community
Community life witnesses to the perception we have of God's love and of our response to it.
Because God is Love, His life is, by its very nature, one of relationship, communitarian. Within the Godhead, the Three Persons are caught up in a ceaseless movement of mutual ex- change and gift. Similar yet different, they live in a unity without confusion, a distinction without division.
Gift of the Father
Our love is in relationship to the life we receive from the Father. It is He Who gives us to one another and makes communion possible in this mutual self-giving.
We are called to live relationships founded on the gift where love draws us into its movement, avoiding all power, all hold over others, all closing in on oneself. When the other is received in this way into the reciprocity of love, community life becomes a sign of the Father's tenderness, of His totally gratuitous goodness.
Around Christ, Word and Bread
The specific character of our life together is to be centred on Christ, the One sent by the Father for the salvation of the world. The community becomes and remains what it is only in the measure that its members take part at the table of the Word and the bread shared « for the life of the world ». The Eucharist is the sacrament of mutual love.
In the Spirit
The understanding of community and its animation is seen in the perspective of the mystery of the Church, People of God and Body of Christ, that is to say, in a perspective of communion.
In the community as in the Church, the Spirit is the principle of unity; He distributes His charisms, inviting us to recognise in faith the diversity and the complementarity of His Gifts and to foster their full development in the service of the Kingdom.
In it, the Spirit is the source of communion, enlightening every form of sharing and participation.
The community announces and prepares the Kingdom
A religious community has not in itself the purpose of its existence; it is built and exists to witness to the community of humankind and to universal salvation in Jesus Christ. If we can live together in an already visible community, it is through God's gift, through a sort of merciful anticipation of the Kingdom to come. That is the prophetic character of the community, source of praise and thanksgiving.
And if our community is evangelising in itself, it is not so much because it ensures the tasks of mission, as because it witnesses to our openness and our disponibility to the movement of love: the love of God sending us back to the love of all people and our love for all revealing the love of God (cf. Const., art. 3).
Religions obedience
A participation in Christ's offering
There exists an essential link between Jesus' mission and His obedience to the Father; Jesus, sent by the Father to accomplish His plan of salvation, is entirely obedient to the Father in seeking and accomplishing His Will.
To follow Christ is to prolong, in some way, His mission of announcing and bringing to realisation the coming of the Kingdom: « Behold I come, Father ».
Every Christian, every human being is called to do the Will of God in the footsteps of Jesus, but religious obedience calls us to share in this mission more closely. It is a free entrance into the mystery of the obedience of Jesus to His Father; it invites us to take the road of the servant who « humbled himself becoming obedient » (cf. Phil 2: 8) ; it calls to conversion, to self-oblation.
... in His Paschal Mystery
There is, in fact, an aspect of kenosis in obedience, a profound participation in the Paschal Mystery of Christ who offers Himself in full liberty.
This does not imply that obedience is necessarily an element of mortification, but rather a factor of plenitude it leads us to be what we must be, to find the profound meaning of our life, permitting us to grow in the filial life and in the « paschal » mission of Jesus.
The service of authority
A ministry of the Church
In religious life, the part of authority that we can exercise is a mission confided by God for others, and a service of this mission. The faith dimension distinguishes religious authority from every other form of power and leadership.
This service is not a simple response to a need for organisation or a concern for the common good; it is a ministry for the building-up of the community, « cell of the Church ». It also implies a responsibility before the Church at the service of persons and structures which express the charism and mission of the Institute.
The authority of the superior does not stem from a personal charism, but by virtue of the function for which she has been chosen ; she is the guardian for a time _ a mandate _ just as one is so for a talent to be returned to one's master after having used it as a good steward, to bear fruit : now, all that is asked of stewards is that each one be found faithful » (1 Cor 4 : 2).
A road of obedience
The exercise of authority is « a way of obedience which is lived as a participation in the Paschal Mystery.
In the measure in which the superior also obeys the Will of God and seeks it continually, in the measure in which she listens to what the Spirit says in her and in others, her service has a deep « religious » meaning which is linked to God and ensures unity and cohesion in the community.
A mediation of obedience
Our freedom, offered totally to God in religious consecration, is given and received through mediations. It is thus - through intermediaries - that Jesus «learned obedience» and accomplished our salvation.
It is thus - through the intermediary of a superior, a mediation that is not exclusive but particular to obedience (cf. Const., art. 69) - that we commit ourselves freely to the following of Christ obedient to the Father.
In co-responsibility
Co-responsibility is communion of life. We are given to one another and in faith we accept one another and we allow ourselves to be mutually formed in collaboration for our common mission.
To live in co-responsibility is to answer together and to commit ourselves together in the acceptance of this gift.