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Let me start with a couple of quotes from people I admire:

Fr Peter Brocardo SDB, my rector when I was studying in Rome, had a knack of putting things simply and in appealing ways. Talking of obedience, he told us, “The Salesian with the greatest degree of initiative is the most obedient Salesian.”

Is that how you and I understand obedience—as a passion for doing good, an eagerness to reach out and help, a holy restlessness to do as much good as we can? Don’t we often reduce obedience to saying Yes to the superior or following the time-table?

Where on earth did we get pious-sounding phrases like, “The bell is the voice of God”? Did Jesus ever say that? He insisted on deep and genuine love, right to the point of being ready to die for someone else. He never gave us the bell or time-table as the marks of fidelity. Otherwise, a selfish person who likes to have meals on time, and turns up punctually for breakfast, lunch and supper would be the ideal religious!

Another quote—this time from St Benedict, the grand-father of all of us who have chosen organized religious life. Knowing the vow of obedience gave the abbot lots of power, Benedict warned, “If an abbot asks the religious to do what he (superior) wants, rather than what God wants, he will go to hell!”

A strong warning! A religious superior has no right to make the members do whatever he likes and wants. He/she is bound to discern, consult and listen before taking decisions about people and works. Just because XYZ is a religious superior, it does not follow that whatever he/she wants is God’s will for the community.

(Note that the central point of the much talked-about Synodality is to listen, to become a loving, listening, caring family—not an organization that mostly gives orders.)

If people just waited to be told what to do, and did only whatever they were asked to do by religious authorities (Pope, bishops, major superiors), no religious orders would have come into being. Each order is the continuation of the dream and commitment of a man or woman who felt called by God to respond to the needs of his/her time in an new way. This is how Benedict founded his monasteries, or Francis and Dominic started the so-called Mendicant Orders, or Ignatius founded the Jesuit order or Don Bosco started the Salesian Society.

Just waiting to be told what to do is OK for a child. Children do not know what they should eat or wear or learn, or which school to go to, what to do when they fall sick. Adults are in charge.

Religious life is not a parallel to this parent-child relationship. Religious vows can only be made by adults. It cannot be imposed on anyone. If I join religious life without knowing what I am choosing and what I am rejecting, and without inner freedom to make this choice, my profession is not valid.

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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ROME, May 9, 2022 — With song, prayer and ritual, leaders of women’s religious congregations from around the world concluded five days of meetings in Rome on May 6, affirming their commitment to the process of synodality and embracing a journey of vulnerability that they believe is vital for the renewal of the church, religious life and their own communities.

The pledge was a culmination to the May 2-6 plenary of the International Union of Superiors General, during which numerous sisters, theologians and speakers voiced their support for Pope Francis’ vision of a synodal church that embraces its early historical roots, affirms the need for diversity, listens, and is more welcoming to those on society’s margins.

The 23-word commitment, spoken in unison by the 520 sisters attending the plenary in person and silently by another 200 or so who attended online, reads: “I commit myself to live vulnerable synodality through service as a leader, animating it within the community, together with the people of God.”

The plenary brought a strong sense of communion among the sister-leaders participating, UISG President Sr. Jolanta Kafka of the Claretian Missionary Sisters said in an interview after the gathering ended.

Kafka said she needed more time to reflect on the plenary but that there was a clear call for a paradigm shift in the approach to leadership — for transformation, not just change. The shift is to be more respectful, more inclusive and less hierarchical.

“Always, the plenaries give light” that lasts, she said.

Chris Herlinger, Gail DeGeorge, Christopher White

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“One of the most common questions I get is: ‘How hard was it to get through prison?’  It was not very hard; but the hardest thing for me was being homeless. When all your friends are gone, your families are not around and all you have is drug addiction, a needle that goes in your arm, drugs that take away your feeling that you’ve been running for years, that was hard. Feeling hopeless was hard; full of guilt, full of shame, depressed to the point of committing suicide was hard,” says the hero of our article Tony Hoffman, journeyed from Prison to Olympics, from drug-addict to a professional speaker.

Tony’s BMX (Bicycle Motocross, a special bike meant for racing and tricky riding) career started in high school, as he was a top-ranked BMX amateur with multiple endorsements. As a native of Clovis, California, where he attended Clovis High School, Tony started drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, and using prescription painkillers such as Vicodin and Oxycontin. His life took a turn for the worse as he became addicted at such a young age, losing everything.

An Unforgettable Night

This is Tony’s most vivid memory and he would never forget this moment. He walked into Nate’s (Tony’s friend, who died that same night due to a drugs overdose) room and said that he needed a sleeping bag and he will sleep on the street that night. For the next six months he slept on the street. He slept behind dumpsters, so people couldn’t find him. He slept in dirt fields, so people couldn’t find him. He was never ashamed of himself.

Sr Lini Sheeja MSC

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Background

Canon 1280 requires that every juridic person should have its own finance council, or at least two counsellors, who are to assist in the performance of the administrator’s duties, in accordance with the statutes. The following guidelines are provided to assist administrators at various levels.

Role of the Finance Council

It is the competence of the head of the Organization to administer the goods and represent the Organization in all legal matters and not that of the Finance Council itself. The Finance Council does not have the task of administering the finance, but it only collaborates with the concerned Organization in the administrative management of its finances in accordance with the law. Thus, the Finance Council shall not be considered the legal owner of Organization’s assets.

But the Finance Council is meant to assist the Organization in the administration of its financial resources. An active, well-formed Finance Council is a key element for promoting the financial health of the Organization, assuring accountability, and assisting the Organization with its temporal responsibilities.

Canon 537 makes the Parish Finance Council a mandated body having an advisory and consultative role with the pastor:

“Each parish is to have a finance council which is regulated by universal law as well as by norms issued by the diocesan bishop; in this council the Christian faithful, selected according to the same norms, aid the pastor in the administration of parish goods with due regard for the prescription of canon 532.”

Applying the same principle, every Catholic Organization is required to have its Finance Council, both by adherence to the Code of Canon Law and by local norms issued by every diocese or religious congregation.

Fr Alex G., SJ

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“I am tired of listening to corrections.  I’ve been working in the office for so long – preparing projects, writing reports, doing the accounts.  So far, I have never heard a positive word from sister.  She speaks only to correct and that too with a sour face.  When I am hearing only negative remarks, from where will I get the energy and enthusiasm to do my best?  If she cannot find anything else that I do well, she could at least tell me that after mopping the floor I wash the mopping cloth well.  At least that would be an encouragement.”  This is what I heard from a qualified and highly competent lady working in the office in one of the Christian institutions.

As part of the ministry of leading a community, the superior may have to give corrections occasionally.  Let us examine how this can be done effectively without making the others resentful.

Part of Being Generative

            Some superiors think that their main duty is to lead the community by watching out for mistakes or misbehaviours  and correcting them.  This is not right.  The main duty of the superior is to be generative, not to correct.

Fr Jose Kuttianimattathil SDB

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Janet first met Florette at a gathering of the parish Ladies Club. She was a newcomer to the parish and had joined the club only recently. She was immediately attracted by the charming personality of Florette and moved toward her. The affirming and delightful way Florette welcomed her floored her. She felt drawn more closely to Florette and was feeling very good to be with her. They spent quite some time talking apart from the others and Janet was deeply impressed. Janet felt she could spend the whole evening with her. After a while, Florette told her, “It is such a delight talking to you. We must meet for coffee by ourselves soon” and moved away to someone else who was showing interest in her. The afterglow from the conversation smoothed over Janet’s disappointment that Florette had left her suddenly without introducing her to anyone else.

The invitation came the very next day. And they met on a few more occasions. Gradually Janet began to get irked and tired of Florette’s self-focus, as she realised more and more that Florette was not really the person she thought she was. She recognised the shallowness and superficiality of character and her tendency to get irritated whenever Janet said something that was not very appreciative of or not focused on Florette. Soon Janet drifted away from the relationship and felt good about it.

Janet had fallen victim to the impression creation art that those suffering from the histrionic personality disorder are so good at.

FR JOSE PARAPPULLY SDB

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I am Dilan, hailing from Tuticorin, South Tamilnadu.  I am twenty-three years old.

Although I was gifted with a wonderful God-fearing and Catholic upbringing and was even privileged to have few God experiences when I just 5-6 years old, I was enticed by the worldly acts of my childhood friends which I had no idea about. One day I prayed to God and said, “I am not interested in being a good person as my parents taught me to be. Rather, I want to be like my friends.” I just went my way and then on, I started living like my friends and I desired to make my friends happy. I loved being with them and I even preferred to be with them rejecting the caring presence of my parents.

Downfall

Days went on and nothing changed much in my character. During my adolescence, I gave into the emotions and feelings of my body rather than me controlling it. I desired the pleasure of watching filthy movies which brought me nothing but sexual arousal. Later, I started using my body as an instrument for sexual pleasure. I became dreadfully addicted to pornography and masturbation, so much so that I would almost faint after indulging in both multiple times within a very short span. Then, I understood that, even if I try to reduce the frequency of such bad habits, I wasn’t able to. I stood helpless and hopeless, trying to fight them by myself. I ran into depression as I was doing the very thing I wanted to stop.

I remained a victim of these bad habits for about five years Eventually, my wonderful photographic memory power went to a point that I would forget what I ate that morning. I was physically, mentally and spiritually impacted. It was at that time my father (who was healed of certain illnesses by God during a retreat at Divine Retreat Center (DRC), Kerala in 2004) began to fall ill again  after ten years, and my mother fell sick too. My family started to become more and more financially burdened that we literally had to take loans in order to pay the monthly interests/dues to private financiers and banks. I could not accept it. I wanted to run away from this reality.

I went to college. There, I got into flirting and immoral relationships. My study habits deteriorated. My grades fell.

Thoughts of Suicide

In October 2017, I just managed to pass in a subject in which I should have done well. Had I failed, I would have had to discontinue my studies. The reason was that I had taken an educational loan, which included a condition that I should not fail even in one paper.

I felt so vulnerable and depressed that I started thinking of suicide. I almost took that tragic step.

M DILAN

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The author realizes that he understood his father’s love late—in fact, only after his dad’s death.

It was my first Mother’s Day while working as a chaplain in jail when we ran out of greeting cards. You see, inmates have many mothers: starting from their biological ones; to grandmothers who might have raised them; and ending in their ‘baby-mamas,” the ones who bore their children. That first Mother’s Day inmates asked between four and five greeting cards considering that they could have had various baby-mamas! So, when a month later, we were due to celebrate Father’s Day we did not want to run out of cards. We bought a lot more. Most probably, after fifteen years, half of those cards are still nicely stacked in some cupboard in the chaplain’s office. As the same prisoners would proudly say, “There is only one mother, but father, any son of a …..” A lot of them, in fact, had no idea who their father was. Either he disappeared as soon as he found out that his girl friend was pregnant; or he was never present because he was locked up; or he just couldn’t care less. I remember being shocked by an eighteen-year-old Miguel in Colombia’s prison telling me, “I was conceived inside this same prison.” Juan’s memories take him back as an eight-year-old scared little boy sitting in the car next to a dead man’s body while his father was driving around the streets of Los Angeles looking for an “appropriate” place to dump it. Juan’s father had just murdered the man! The longest time Deshawn lived with his father was a bit over a year when they were sharing the same cell inside the same prison.

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Interestingly enough, Father’s Day in secular Italy is still celebrated on 19 March — the feast of St. Joseph. And that brings me to one of my favourite paintings of St. Joseph painted by El Greco around 1599. Trust and protection emanate from the tower-like figure of Joseph who looks lovingly yet with a trace of sadness at the boy Jesus. Joseph wears a blue dress. Blue is not only considered a masculine colour but also it is associated with a calming, compassionate aura, thereby giving a sense of wisdom and stability. At the same time he is wearing a gold-coloured cape — a symbol of wealth, high status, reputation, and elegance. But the viewer’s attention is definitely drawn towards the dark red dress which Jesus is wearing — that’s what El Greco intended. El Greco did not want to deflect our attention from Joseph to Jesus, but he wanted us to focus our attention on this relationship between this “vulnerable” boy and his father.

A lot is being said in the three visible hands. It was the Indian painter M.F. Husain who went to Rome to study the hands in the paintings and sculptures of the great saints. He had discovered that more was depicted in the saints’ hands than in their faces. It might be the case in this great painting. Joseph’s right hand on the staff is at the same time indicating and leading the way, while his left hand gently pulls the boy towards him. There is almost something feminine in this left hand of Joseph embracing and protecting the young boy. It seems to be less muscular than the right one. Jesus’ left hand rests on Joseph’s hip exerting a slight pressure on Joseph’s clothing. The boy’s right hand, even though not visible, catches his father at the back. A storm seems to be lurking in the background. Is the boy scared? No, there is nothing to be scared of because the little boy is covered with the cape of his father. The whole painting gives a sense of peace and tranquility amidst turmoil and turbulence.

Bro Carmel Duca MC

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On May 8^th, 2022, the Church kept the “World Day of Prayer for Vocations.” On this occasion, Pope Francis gave a message on “Vocation,” which we will do well to listen to and take to heart. For those of us who have not read the whole document, here is a short presentation of its main points. I shall give direct quotes from the document in italics and inverted commas. I am presenting this short document under twelves sub-headings, to make the message clearer.

1. Purpose: The purpose the message—and of promoting “vocations”—is not to increase the number of priests and religious, but to BUILD THE HUMAN FAMILY: “We sense the urgent need to journey together, cultivating the spirit of listening, participation and sharing. Together with all men and women of good will, we want to help build the human family, heal its wounds and guide it to a better future.” In fact, the subtitle of the document is: “Called to Build the Human Family.” So, if I just stay in religious life or priesthood, or try to get more candidates for these groups, but do not build the human family where I am, I am defeating the very purpose of vocation.
2. Context: The Synodal Church. Coming together and healing the wounds of humanity is the main purpose of a vocation. Synodality, as the Pope has been emphasizing repeatedly, is not about a meeting of bishops or about creating a new document, but to become what we are meant to be as church: A mutually listening, caring family. “Synodality, journeying together, is a vocation fundamental to the Church. Only against this horizon is it possible to discern and esteem the various vocations, charisms and ministries.” The mission of the Church is to evangelize, that is, to be good news, to bring the Good News of God’s love to everyone. All the baptized have the same mission. In fact, the message insists that there should not be a separation of clergy and laity: “We must beware of the mentality that would separate priests and laity, considering the former as protagonists and the latter as executors.” We need to move away from mentality of bishops and priests taking decisions and the laity being expected simply to do what the clergy decide. No, all of us are in this together.

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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What happened to this Canadian in his youth looks similar to what happened to St. Augustine and several others.

“I imbibed the poison and stopped going to the sacraments and ceased praying,’’ he says. The ‘poison’ he speaks of refers to the social and cultural revolution of the 1960s, when religion was ridiculed and the Church was mocked. ‘’I soon drifted out of my Catholic faith, thinking I was leaving behind a ‘myth’ that was no longer real. As my intellectual falsehoods and moral confusions increased, I felt a void growing within me. After years of this pride and rebellion—when I thought I was an autonomous, superior and free being—God permitted me to see the actual condition of my soul.  He allowed radical evil to assault me as a spiritual presence that was so dark and terrifying that I felt paralyzed, totally helpless to defend myself…It was the pit of total darkness, total terror, and absolute abandonment.’’

“But at that very moment I cried out to God and he rescued me,’’ he says. ‘’From a small spark in my soul a weak but desperate cry leaped out of me. ‘O God, save me!’ Instantly, the horrifying presence of evil retreated and the peace of God filled me for the first time in many years. Then I knew that God was not far away—He is never far away—if only I would look up, if only I would ask.’’

 This is how the most painful moment of his life became the most beautiful moment for Michael O’Brien. That was the moment when he met Jesus Christ and was “given instantaneous knowledge that everything the Church and the Gospels had taught was true. It is the ultimate Real.’’ In the months and years that followed the Lord helped him find deep healing and gradually discover the path for his life in him.

Fr M A Joe Antony SJ

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