THIRD WORKSHOP OF THE CENTER FORUM.
Retreat of S. José. Monte Argentario, Italy.
September - October 2005.
Introduction.
This brief note on what happened fifteen days
ago in the geographical center of the memoirs of the Congregation does not have
another reason than to open dialogue spaces in the environment of the Pasionist
Family, for the force of the charisma unites us, gives us foundation, and gives
us adequate causes to continue waiting actively.
A new face
at Monte
The hospitable and delicate community of
The Italian silence was broken with different
voices, Spanish, Portuguese and Indonesian; behind each voice a precise face of
lay Italian, of religious mercedaries, of religious passionist:
Italians, Brazilians, Indonesians and Mexicans.
In each language, histories began to be
pronounced: the young histories, of religious newly professed, of theology
students, of a deacon,
of young passionists priests; the long and hopeful histories of
lay women and men and, finally, the
histories of those who had the opportunity to celebrate 25 or 30 years of
religious life or priesthood with eyes directed not to the past but in a future
horizon.
In each face a desire and a puzzle, all willing
to let themselves be
shaped by an experience whose true
course would have to be delineated among all the present.
The first stage of this formative process is
constituted by the contemplation experience. It is an immense happiness to be able to
corroborate that we can make real contemplation experiences in the personal
environment and in the common environment, mainly when most of the present are
of different social extractions, cultures, histories, ages and spiritualities.
In the internal movement of contemplation a rediscovery and
remodeling of silence and solitude began to take place. On that line it is
possible to sense that creativity is a powerful impulse that remodels our
perceptions of human beings to enter in a reverence communion.
Specially significant is the experience of
Contemplation starting from events
that each one and in open community share to re-read and
moreover to give
a new meaning.
All that let us to see the print of reality as
a dynamic creation in such a way that we can discover our perception like a
contemplative look of reality.
To the Encounter with the Living God.
Since the being of God cannot be assumed as the
objects of knowledge are assumed; the moment to reconsider the way our Father
encounters us sinks its roots in the Hebrew inheritance in the Old Testament. We followed closely the texts of Jeremiah the
prophet and they accompanied us in this fundamental tract of our common
experience.
At this point, the big biblical proposals were
running of being discovered like People of God, as knowing that the fundamental
dynamism of life is of paschal type, as falling in the understanding of what
really means Fidelity in the Alliance again; like the desert is also a place of
Easter and to feel the impact of the prophecy remodeling the existence.
To these heights of the
formative workshop, the liturgies of the afternoon became more and more alive
and significant; all the celebrations were prepared in common with the
participation of all present; they were constituting the moment to pick up and
reboot the journeys of the day; it was really notorious the expressive force of
the liturgies in each one present and as a group, it was as if we had known each
other for a long time.
The Contemplation of the Crucified.
This was a specially
algid moment in the vital development of our formative process in the
charisma. In the morning we had the
pleasing company of the general superior of the Congregation, The P. Ottaviano
d'Egidio together with the consultant Luis Alberto Cano.
We allowed ourselves to be wrapped by the pronunciation that the
Crucified Messiah makes of each one of us; with great inspiring force we
received the excess of illumination of the Logos tou Stauroú; illumination that
touches and transfigures diverse levels of reality, from the theological thought
up to the anthropological understanding of human being, passing through the
paradoxical form in which God our Father has decided to reveale himself.
From there we could pick up the theological
evidence of the profound dynamism that passionist
charisma consists on. I want to manifest
that in this day the celebration of the Sacrament took us with deep reverence
to assume the basic meaning on the following of the Crucified Messiah.
A
welcoming charismatic dynamism and propeller of many ways of expression.
This last stage of the charismatic formative
process opened a very fertile dialogue about the escatologic tension; from there
we could value with wider vision and availability what is really in game in the
current moments of lay life, of religious life and of concrete perspectives of
expression.
The passionist
charisma is capable, in a plentiful and welcoming way, of giving form, sense
and creative direction to the passionist family and to the multiple vital and
creative expressions that from the charisma itself can arise.
This dynamism of the Spirit goes remodeling
little by little all
those who are willing to assume and to express life as a
charismatic existence in the environment of the Church and of our current
world.
The plural experience of the group now found a wide road of possibilities for expression, we were able to perceive the source of unity and, at the same time, the creative dynamism; clearly the real figure of a community or passionist inclusive family was appearing like a reconciliation event.
CONCLUSION.
This new experience of the formative process in
the passionist charisma was lived with supreme simplicity,
but at the same time, with great depth.
In the evaluation of the experience the force of infection appeared
immediately.
The first thing that appeared in these
considerations was the vital dimension of the experience and the urgent
necessity of sharing it with other brothers and sisters in perspective of passionist family.
Of great importance was the positive valuation
of the plurality of the group of participants; each one was expressing in a
different way a common conviction from from the lived experience. There is something profound in the workshop that makes us enter
the experience of a real and significant encounter, that unites and projects,
that picks up histories and reboots them,
that welcomes diversity fo people
and that wakes up the yearning to be People of God on the way.
The commitments appeared in a concrete way in the decision of
sharing this with other people of the places and atmospheres where the
participants develop their life and activities.
Part of this spontaneous commitment was the
desire and the decision of carrying out another formative workshop in August of
the year 2006. Immediately the promoters
arose of what can be a new vital experience.
With that we would have in perspective of the
year
Dear brothers and sisters of the Passionist
family, now our dialogue has some bigger bases on charismatic theological
experience. We are no longer speaking of
a project or a dream, but of a dynamism able to
fecundate our lives, a provocative germ of new histories.
The team of the Center Forum appreciates your opinions, comments, questions,
doubts, critics that you may want to send ; it would be a great joy to lengthen
the experience with your participation.
In our recent experience at Monte Argentario,
at a given point we had the certainty that at some time Abraham lived: we can also dream our Father's dreams, those
where the fragile can be a sign and also Event of eternity.
For the
Team of the Center Forum
Octavio Mondragón Alanis. CP.
September -
October 2005.
México, DF.
MÉXICO.