After a Chapter, we usually hear two sentences: The Chapter is over (historical factor), or the Chapter begins now (psychological factor). Or yet, the Chapter is finished (historical and psychological factors). The difference in the meaning between the two sentences is substantial.
The first one, although it underlines a fact (the closure of the Chapter as a historical event), constitutes an invitation to all the confreres to experience its influence on the life and the activities of each individual of the Institute. In fact, the sentence says: a historical fact has come to an end; we now begin to experience its effects. It is an invitation to keep alive in us that atmosphere of search and creativity that was developed during the preparation and the execution of the Chapter, a call to develop in us those values and attitudes proposed by the event.
The second sentence states that both the historical fact and its influence are dead before being born. It’s an invitation to consider dead letter all that the event was, generated and might yet generate in the missionaries.
I think that, in a more or less open way, we might hear these sentences when meeting certain confreres and speaking about the Chapter with them. “It was wonderful”. “It really steered our Institute around”. “Finally we have returned to the origins without forgetting the present”. Or maybe: “It was all for nothing, really!” “The Chapter? Better forget it!”
Personally, I’m among those who put their faith in the Chapter, in its preparation and in its directives. I engage myself to work in order that its influence may permeate our thinking and our doing the mission in a renewed form of religious life, in line with how the Chapter rediscovered and concretized our charism. And that’s the reason for this and other articles which, God willing, I intend to write so as to make the Chapter the lever of our renewal as Consolata Missionaries.
In his recent book The Mission is a-telling, Fr. Tebaldi presents a short synthesis of the nine Chapters of our Institute. He mentions the fact that each Chapter had a fulcrum, a basic orientation which is clearly mirrored in the Capitular Acts.
It sems to me that the fulcrum of the 10th General Chapter may be synthetized in two key words: Mission Ad Gentes, and Evangelization. Around these, some other well-described realities are assembled in the Acts, realities which require the presence of other realities -- which they actually contain. I propose the following scheme as a synthesis of the Acts of the Chapter:

--Strict sense=non-Christians
which require from us: --Life witnessing
--Interreligious Dialogue
as main activity
--Cooperation in the promo-
tion of the Kingdom

Mission
Ad gentes

-- wide sense = the four chosen areas
which demand from us: -- New Evangelization
-- Inculturation
-- Apostolic Community
with: IMC
Religious
Laypersons

New Evangelization
-- Divine sense: distributors of God’s mysteries
-- Work of human promotion, Justice and Peace, new
face of evangelization
-- Mission Animation of God’s people


ALL THIS DEPENDS ON, AND WILL BE POSSIBLE IF:


The Institute will rediscover its proper identity and charism;
All the missionaries will renew their identity and charism;
Young candidates will be fashioned by the identity and the charism

In this first article, I would like to develop this paradigm which gives me the key to reading the Acts, and helps me to emphasize, as in a mosaic, all the facets in it described, facets that otherwise risk to remain individual tiles of a mosaic that never was assembled.

I. Ad Gentes: The Heart of the Whole Chapter and of the Capitular Acts
If there is a word that can condense and recap all the anxieties, expectations and proposals of the Chapter, and also its hopes for a re-foundation of the Insitute, this word is Ad Gentes, in its strictest sense: the non-Christians. The Acts say it clearly: “With the expression Ad Gentes, already consecrated by its use, we arrive at the heart of the original inspiration of the Founder, of our charism and also of this Chapter. All that precedes and follows has its fulcrum here, and its convergence” (p. 39).
When the proposal was made to remove the word Ad Gentes from the title of the Acts, and to reduce it to “Our Mission”, a strong debate burst in the capitular hall. In the secret voting, the great majority of the capitular members voted to retain the expression.
There can be no hope at all of a serious re-foundation of the Institute if we do not set as a basis this our foremost reality.
This Ad Gentes, which the Chapter recognized as existing in all continents, is for the Institute the number one criterion to discern which new openings and closures to make; to decide on the approval and reception of new candidates to our missionary life, and somehow the whole way of behaving as an Institute, its way of living.
This fundamental orientation of our whole Institute towards the Ad Gentes, wanted by the Chapter, cannot be done in a sudden fashion. It requires time and a change of mentality in all of us missionaries. Above all, it requires dialogue. But the Chapter asked that this voyage be initiated, and the General Government must accept and concretize this wish in its programming, it must motivate all the Provinces, and do the same in their Regional Conferences.

1. The Mission Ad Gentes Among the non-Christians
What does it mean to direct ourselves more numerously towards non-Christians? Which are the constituent elements of a mission among them? The Chapter proposed to us certain new elements, and it insisted on the renewal of more traditional ones that we have.
a. The Interreligious Dialogue is the new face of the mission among non-Christians (Acts of the Chapter pg. 71-74). Missionaries find it more and more difficult to enter into territories where non-Christians are a great majority. But the doors could definitely be closed to them if the mission does not present itself with this new face. Future openings among these new peoples must keep this in mind, must draw inspiration from it, must make it their topmost priority.
Because of the importance of this new way of doing mission, I propose to write an article to deepen its nature, its necessity, the various modes of dialogue, and the attitudes that dialoguing requires from those in dialogue.
b. Interreligious Dialogue is connected to the Witnessing of Life. Living the Gospel values the way the martyrs did constitutes a challenge for all the missionaries who intend to work with members of other religions. Although shrouded in silence, the witnessing of a life that is authentically Christian remains forever the most vital and lasting form of announcing the Gospel. In the Gospel and the Acts of St. Luke, protector of our Chapter, this facet of the mission is presented in a live and persistent way. Its highest expression is found in the great mandate set at the end of the Gospel, which says: “You will be witnesses to all this, beginning from Jerusalem” (Lk 24:48). The same is found in the introduction to the Acts of the Apostles where we read: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, even to the farthest ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
It is in this light that we understand the importance of religious life stressed by the Chapter. Our religious life, if lived intensely, with magnanimity and unconditional dedication, offers to us a better possibility of being authentic, heroic witnesses. The Chapter reminds us of that, presses it on to us. “Consecrated life foreshadows (the characteristics and the requirements of the Kingdom), and the Mission proclaims and witnesses to them” (pg. 34). This was the reason that brought the capitular members to ask that the study on religious life begun during the term of the preceding General Government, be given continuity. “Let the General Government continue with unabated commitment the reflection on religious life that they began in, 1994-95. It can be done through various initiatives such as spiritual exercises, days of recollection, zonal meetings, personal encounters and other services” (pg. 40).
c. The third element of the mission among non-Christians is to live with the poorest and the derelict in order to participate the most directly possible in all their suffering and pain, to become for them a presence of compassion, of help, of total liberation. This participation must be brought about by an exquisite love, it must be accompanied by a sense of total concern, and by a generous and unlimited dedication; it must be imparted with the affection of one who sees in them the image of the suffering Christ. The Chapter suggests that the missionaries who work with non-Christians should “adopt viable forms of encounter and collaboration in daily life, sharing with other religions the commitment to conduct projects of human promotion and development in the light of the common values of solidarity, justice and peace” (pg 81).

2. Other Ad Gentes Milieux
The Chapter knew that a mass movement of missionaries to non-Christian areas is not possible, nor is it desired at the moment. It is not possible because governments of nations that are prevalently non-Christian are very reluctant to let foreign missionaries enter their countries, and the difficulties in obtaining visas are almost unsurmountable. It is not desirable because, with the Chapter, we must admit that “in the history of our Institute there is no tradition of interreligious dialogue, not even with the traditional religions that we met in Africa or in Latin America” (pg. 80). Consequently, a change of missionary style of such a magnitude requires time and effort to put in place. That’s why the Chapter, although not suggesting many new openings (pg. 50, 81), cared about instilling this concept of Ad Gentes in all our missionaries, even those who work in Europe and America (pg. 50). The Chapter also decided to invite the young candidates in a special way to look at the mission from this point of view (pg. 54-55). It afterwards widened this concept to include in it new situations that have a deeper missionary meaning; it also included in it challenges that were such that the missionaries themselves felt the need to anwer them. These situations are unban poverty (pg. 50), ethnic minorities (pg. 50-51), qualified services to the new missionary Churches, especially mission animation, and the preparation of their leaders (pg. 51-52), and finally the work for Justice and Peace (pg. 53).
These choices should be preceded by a substantial re-dimensioning of our presences in situations of normal pastoral activities, in places where we have been working for decades, in structures of preservation rather than propagation of the faith (pg. 55).
Besides, these options require that the General Government be prudent in the distribution of the personnel and follow the preferential options of the Chapter (pg. 94-95); that these chosen missionaries work normally in a team; that they form apostolic communities together with all the agents of the mission (pg. 64-66); and that our presence be limited as far as time and number of structures. All this must become part of the programming of the General Government and of the Governments of the Provinces.

II. The New Evangelization in These Milieux Ad Gentes
If the missionaries who will go to the non-Christians are called by the Chapter to a new mission, the ones who will work in these more advanced milieux, which are more according to our mission, will be called to discover and practice a different form of evangelization. The Chapter has described it in clear terms and presented the various progressive steps of all its personal, collective, cultural, social and economic areas. Modern evangelization is integrating and holistic, it embraces the whole human being and all that surrounds him, it influences him: the land, social, economic, political, religious, cultural, global structures. A concept that goes back to the Founder, a concept that has now been developed by the Church and by missionary praxis, and has new facets and elements (41-45).

1. Inculturated Evangelization
A necessary facet of a renewed evangelization is the fact that the message, the methods, the instruments are inculturated. The process of evangelization has changed much, its fruits have stayed somewhat superficial, exactly because of a lack of real inculturation of the evangelization. After all, this is an ancient process, as old as the Church itself. A process that, for us missionaries of the end of the 2nd millennium is relatively new and requires mental agility and practical ductility if one wants to understand it and to concretize it.
The General Government and the Governments of the Provinces have a great responsibility to help the missionaries in their acceptance of this renewed and incarnate evangelization. The programming of this General Government’s term in office must offer the concrete possibility of promoting among the missionaries the idea of a renewed evangelization, and to offer them new forms and instruments for its execution. This will help even those who for various reasons have to keep on performing mainly pastoral activities in order to evangelize in a way that is more according to Evangelii Nuntiandi and to the inspiration of the Chapter.

2. Evangelization that is Promoted by Apostolic Communities
Mission and evangelization are not activities that are born and are promoted in an individualistic way. Rather, they are activities that are born in that first community that in God exists, the Trinity. They are promoted by the Church, which is the community of the believers. They are built, these communities, in union and collaboration with all the members of the ecclesial community. “Jesus, the Missionary of the Father, offers the first lesson of humility in front of any attempt to appropriate the mission to ourselves” (pg 30).
“For our Founder, the mission is entrusted to an apostolic community that inlcudes all pastoral agents. His missionary project advances on the master road of communion among all those engaged in the various activities” (pg 64).
In this apostolic community, the mission lives and is nourished by love, understanding and the help of its members; it plans together, it acts in unity of intents and in the complementarity of the ministries; its performance is evaluated in unison in order to see its weak points and to improve them, and to make the necessary corrections. In this community, the gifts of the Spirit are welcomed by the others and become forces that direct its internal life and its mission to others, rather than duties emanating from the rights and the position held by some.
We mention two types of agents of the mission that have had an enormous echo in the Chapter: the IMC missionary, and the Lay. (We will speak of the Consolata Missionary Sisters in the paragraph on the identity).

a. The Consolata Missionary in the Renewed Vision of Ad Gentes
If we briefly look at the practical proposals of the Chapter, we see that a good number of them are directed to the missionaries themselves, since they are the first to be responsible for their own formation and growth as Christians, religious and missionaries. Even the practical proposals addressed to the Provinces and the General Government have the same purpose as they usually refer to the help that the missionaries need to reach the same goals.
The mission Ad Gentes, in its narrowest aspect (pg. 23-24), as well as its wider one (pg. 46-47), demands a revitalization of the missionary. The evangelical counsel of the new wine that should be placed in new wineskins has its most concrete application here.
And so, the Chapter, although not talking explicitly about the missionary, did outline aptitudes, values, attitudes, style of life and activities that make the missionary apt to accept the change of form of mission and its exigencies as seen by the Chapter.
One of the greatest preoccupations is the ongoing formation of the missionary. This formation “should be more than just another kind of updating. It should motivate the whole person by a deepening and an assimilation of our charism, of the spirit of the Founder, of the ideals of consecration, of communion and of mission” (pg 54). For the first time in the life of the Institute, the Chapter made obligatory the participation in activities in three strong moments of the life and the activity of each missionary: after about ten years of missionary activity, for a first evaluation (control) of his life and activity; around the silver jubilee of religious profession, for a deeper analysis of his own life; and during his golden years, in order to accept the mission as an offering of his life in the form of sacrifice, shortcomings, sufferings (pg. 91).
Another peoccupation for the Chapter were the young missionaries. This preoccupation is based on two elements, one positive, the other negative. On one side, their intellectual education, the values taught them during their formation years, the strong experience of community and sharing, the method of prayer practiced during their seminary years, the way of relating to others: all these things require an atmosphere of human brotherhood, of sincere welcoming, of shared life and prayer that sometimes are not easy to find in the life in the missions and in our communties. On the other side, the fragility which is proper of modern youth, the difficulty that many young people feel in accepting a commitment for life: all these things discourage them, and many give up. “The easiness with which some ask for periods of absence from the community, or want to do work that does not correspond to the purpose of our Institute, brings us to wonder about the depth of their identification with he latter and with our charism” (pg. 27). Faced with this problem, the Chapter asks the Office of Formation to review the Ratio Formationis (pg. 92), to give priority to choosing and preparing the formators, (pg. 54), to provide an adequate academic and missionary formation (pg. 54); and it invites all the Provinces to provide to young missionaries a gradual insertion in the missions, the possibility of a welcoming community, and the opportunity of getting together so that they can consult one another and find in the others mutual help and support (pg. 95).

b. The Lay Missionary
The apostolic--missionary community is not only formed of consecrated persons but also of lay people. This reality continually grows and requires the study by each missionary institute. It is also requested by the new theology of the mission and of the laity developed by Vatican II and by the subsequent documents of the Church; by the experiences already made by lay missionaries in the missions; by the request of friends of ours that feel that they are part of our charism and want to live it in plenitude through an active participation in the missionary life and apostolate, in their own country or in foreign lands. Our Institute cannot opt out of this movement but must insert itself actively in its progressive development. The Chapter made some specific requests in order to initiate a deeper research into this theme. Regional meetings, both continental and intercontinental, are to be organized with those lay people who already were active in the missions. This will bring about a renewal of the statutes of the laity in order better to define what type of structure and participation we want for the future (pg 66-69). This is a sort of work that will engage all the Provinces, the General Councilors, the Secretariat for the Missions and the General Government all through their term in office.
It is strange that our Institute, that was one of the first to accept and to promote the participation of laity in the mission, today seems reluctant to continue on the way so well initiated some thirty years ago. Who does not remember the lay people from Los Angeles who were accepted by Bishop Cavallera, lay people that Fr. De Marchi took care of for many years in Kenya, who afterwards became his first collaborators in Ethiopia; people I prepared in Buffalo in the 60s and sent to Africa, Latin America, and even to North America? Who does not remember with emotion in our hearts, how other missionary institutes, Maryknoll included, came to us to see how to start their own groups of lay missionaries and how to prepare them for the missions? The mission may rest for a while, it may advance at a slower pace for a little while, but it cannot go back, because the Spirit that animates it is not the spirit of the past but of the future; it does not back up, it advances forward. The Chapter presents well laity for the mission when it says that “these developments and the many requests for missionary service manifest the signs of the times, to which our Institute should pay attention. If it did not, it would forfeit a true missionary kind of service and would be missing out on possibly precious forces that could be placed at the service of the mission. The presence of the lay people exalts the value of witnessing, strengthens the capacity of collaboration and of living the mission in communion and complementarity, and is a help against solitude and pastoral individualism” (pg. 67).

3. The Mission Ad Gentes and Evangelization are Divine Activities
Our society easily leads us to consider every activity, even the spiritual ones, as a “work”, a “profession”, a means for our own survival; the fact that it could bring good to others is not the main motivation, but a simple spin-off that may or may not happen. We are inclined to see mission and evangelization as a work that is organized by a multinational that prepares us, qualifies us, sends us, asks us to give a strict account of our successes or failures; it will also judge our operation in relation to that success, will give us a promotion to a higher position when our success is clear, or will eventually ask us to leave the place if we fail.
Naturally, the missionary needs preparation, needs a professionalism that is adequate to his call. But this is not what qualifies and identifies him. His identy lies in the fact that he is a servant who dispenses the divine mysteries. His activity shares in another activity that is, and always remains, eminently divine. Mission and evangelization are works of God, a God who employs creatures to accomplish them. The Chapter was very strong in the presentation of this point. Reading through its Acts will make us see this reality, and will invite us to take a deeper look at our work, will give us a clearer perception of the dignity of our activity as missionaries and evangelizers.
“We feel our being missionary; we feel in us the mission, which is the first expression of the Missionary God, as it grips us and permeates the whole of our existence: head, mouth and heart” (pg. 11). “The fundamental intuition for Allamano, which unites all the aspects of his charism, is the call to cooperate with God in the concretization of his universal plan of salvation. For him, this is the most “sublime’ work, and it is ‘essentially divine’” (pg. 23). “His (God’s) design of salvation has its apex in the mission of the Son, who associates us to his work as collaborators of God in the concretization of his project” (pg. 45). “In our evangelization Ad Gentes, we collaborate with God in the fulfilment of the his plan of salvation for the whole of humanity… In this sense we are ‘dispensers’, God’s privileged instruments” (pg. 60).

4. Human Promotion and the Work of Justice and Peace Are an Integral Part of the Mission and of Evangelization
Human promotion was always a fundamental characteristic of our Institute and of its mode of doing mission. Few elements have been identified, described and promoted as strongly and as passionately by our Founder as this one. His joy was great indeed when his project relative to the method of work of our Institute, which contained human promotion as intrinsic to evangelization, was approved by the Church. He came out with that sentence which remained memorable: “In the past, some people dared to criticize our method of evangelization, as if we busied ourselves too much with material things and not enough with spiritual ones; Missionaries must preach and baptize, they would say, and not care about much else. But after the publication of the Decree of Approval…., they changed their opinion, and many people of good will confessed to their change of mind”(pg. 57).
We must admit that, in our days, this form of human promotion is prevented by the way in which many national and international institutions are structured. Today, it’s no longer a question of sending financial aid, of preparing personnel for certain professions, of helping by sending in modern machinery, in order to build a better society. Yes, this is still useful and necessary. However, the aim today is to work for the establishment of justice in the world. To annul or change present commercial laws, and the regulations on the exchange of goods, and the tariffs imposed on these goods; rules on who puts a price on these products and who determines what kind of salaries the workers receive; to end the exploitation of minors; to impose a limit on the profits made by multinationals on their products at a minimal cost, products that they sell as if they were made in the industrialized nations. These and other situations of injustice contribute, more than anything else, to develop poverty; they make the life of the poor miserable; they create an always greater chasm between the rich and the poor. They were described in the Acts of the Chapter (pg. 16-17). These are the new frontiers of our missionary action, especially in the countries of the North, from which come many of us.
It is in this context that the Chapter sees the new challenges to our Mission Promotion, in this it discovers the new face of the Consolation the world needs. The missionaries who love the people of the countries where they do mission are invited to direct this way their efforts towards justice and peace. The best defense of the people under the protection of the missionaries, the best guarantee of progress, the missionaries’ best contribution to the quality of life in the world, all these pass through these words: justice, equity, solidarity. Even if these words do not fully express all the richness of the consolation that Mary is for the world, nevertheless they express its new and vital face in a very clear way. “Working for peace, justice and solidarity is one of today’s expressions of consolation” (pg. 58).

3. Mission Promotion: New Evangelization of the Churches that Send and Receive
The members of the Chapter did not study this facet of the mission Ad Gentes and of the new evangelization because they wanted to respect the monographic character of the Chapter. But they clearly showed their thoughts on the subject in some short, vibrant sentences. Here are the proposals of the Chapter, or at least some conclusions that we can infer from their words:
a) There should no longer be any Province in our Institute that is exclusively for Mission Promotion. All Provinces, in proportion to their original nature, must include Ad Gentes, as well as Mission Promotion.
b) This concomitance of the two elements must be proportionate to the original nature of the Province. In this light, Europe and North America remain mainly Mission Promotion areas. However, they are invited by the Chapter to also include in their work some Ad Gentes activities. The other Provinces remain mainly Provinces of evangelization, but they too must include in their work some activities of Mission Promotion.
c) This Mission Promotion must continually grow in all Provinces, especially in those of Africa and Latin America, because it gives us the possibility of animating in a missionary way these Churches which we brought to life, or in which we are accepted as missionaries.
d) Mission promoters, especially those in Europe and North America, are invited by the Chapter to make a serious evaluation of their methods and means of operation.. Traditional means are not to be eliminated completely, because in certain areas they are still valid, and because some promoters would not be able to come up with new ones. But the Chapter hopes that new and more meaningful means of Mission Promotion be accepted and used, such as the Mass Media. A brief presentation on this subject was asked for by the missionaries at large, and added by the redactors to the text presented to the members of the Chapter, although it was not part of the Instrumentum Laboris. This means that our missionaries were eager to study this subject, it means that it was very important to them.
e) The mass media, such as TV, radio, video, E-mail, etc., constitute the new face, and also the most modern aid, to the mission and to mission promotion (pg. 70-73). The mass media have no boundaries, no one can stop them. Their influence invades the innermost recesses of the earth, and echoes in the silences created by politics, by the shabbiest mentalities and by narrow-mindedness motivated by ignorance and prejudice. Through their invisible, but real action, they can accomplish the mission, do the work of evangelization, concretize mission promotion even where missionaries are not accepted or are expelled by governments. To invest in the mass media means to give space to the Gospel where it is not known, it means to give a voice to missionaries who have been expelled from countries, or who are no longer allowed to announce the Good News. It means to sustain and support in a Christian way the pusillus grex (little fold) left orphan by the going away of missionaries. To invest in the means of social communication signifies to do a more penetrating and more professional kind of mission promotion, a promotion that is more compatible with a society that depends on the media for its knowledge and its evaluation of individual, collective and global events (pg. 71-72). The capability of the mass media has been immensely developed, and their financial difficulties have been greatly reduced, especially with the introduction of the Internet, Home Page, etc. More traditional means of mission promotion, such as magazines and other publications, are still important. Their content and appearance must be prepared with more professionalism and seriousness. But the electronic means are the way of the future, and we must use them in a more intensive way, if we do not want to be cut off from the most vital current of service to the mission and the animation of God’s people.
This is one of the greatest challenges for the General Government and for the Provinces. How can we prepare missionaries, and even lay people, who will be able to render this service in a way that is constructive and mature, and not in some sort of extravagant, counterproductive fashion that is too individualistic and lacking in dialogue with all the forces of the mission? In our programming, which activities should have priority? Those who are already using this missionary methodology, how can we convince them to work together, to help one another in order to make better use of the means of communication, and at the same time to reduce its expenses that are already so high? Here’s an immense open area of work that we must explore and utilize, even if in a limited fashion! An area, this one, that must not be forgotten in the programming of our Institute and its Provinces.

III. RADICAL CHANGES AND PERENNIAL IDENTITY
The mission Ad Gentes and the new evangelization require that our Institute and all its members rediscover, in the light of their new contexts, their own identity, and they ask for a sense of total availability to a change of mentality, attitudes and methods of doing missionary work.

1. Radical Changes
The members of the Chapter came from various continents. They were carriers of diverse experiences in the Church, and of many a style and method of doing mission work. They themselves unanimously attributed these differences to the power of a phenomenon present everywhere: the changes in society. A change that is universal, speedy, implacable. There is no area, even the most remote, that escapes its influence. There is no activity, the most sacred ones included, that does not see the need of adapting to its unavoidable vise. In a continuous crescendo, the Chapter members referred to these changes happening in all the areas of modern society as coefficient factors that must be carefully examined so that we can adapt to their requests. Some quotations will help to understand this anxiety of the Chapter members.
The 10th General Chapter saw the need to seriously ponder the contexts in which the mission and the evangelization Ad Gentes are accomplished and in which we must act accordingly (pg. 13-22).
The Chapter members often discovered in these contexts the phenomenon of deep, sudden changes by which these contexts are earmarked. Their discernment was “warranted by the deep and fast changes taking place everywhere… and in particular in the evolution of the very concept of mission Ad Gentes…, in the personnel of our Institute…, in the dealings with the local Churches…” (pg. 11-12). The Chapter also remarks: “The span of time that separates us from Blessed Joseph Allamano… has produced deep changes in the concept of mission and in the manner of doing it” (pg. 13). They also speak of “changes which we can call epochal” (pg. 13), of “diverse realities and demands, together with evolving situations that tell us that there cannot be a uniform model of mission” (pg. 19). They speak of the “Institute that is changing” (pg. 20), of a “high-speed change in our days that invades all sectors of interest for us: Our way of living, community mode of life, as well as our inner and cultural world” (pg. 22).
Faced with these changes, our missionaries answer in many ways: “Some see them.., and would like to merge them with tradition, but do not know how… Others automatically have recourse to tradition and consider inappropriate any kind of discourse of adaptation …, others look only for whatever is new…, others do not see ourselves in any of these, they simply suffer…” (pg. 21).
It is the task of all missionaries to follow the perceptions of the Chapter: to stay faithful to our perennial charism and to our identity, but also to open themselves to what is new, in the hope that, all together, we may be able to face these changes in a creative, non-destructive way, in continuity with the past and in a creativity that forebodes the future.

5. Permanent Identity
Changes are here. They cast their influence over everything, they decide which changes to make in missionary style, method and tactics. But the central nucleus of some realities and the core of their existence can never change, even if their external expression can be altered. This was the conviction that led the members of the Chapter to dedicate a whole section of the Capitular Acts to the identity of the IMC. Our identity and our charism are our DNA: they identify us, they distinguish us from any other religious-missionary institute. All the constituents of this charism-identity are briefly described in the capitular Acts. This description endeavors to harmonize the essential nucleus with the changes requested by the signs of the times. An immense task, this one. In the two letters on this subject by the former General Government, it was well presented and explained. Unfortunately, this was not the case of the Acts of the Chapter where, because of the limitation of space, it did not come out too well.
The elements of this identity are, and will always be, our charism, our religious consecration, and the consolation of which we are distributors.

Something absolutely new: The insertion of the Consolata Missionary Sisters in our identity

What the Chapter wrote about this aspect might seem small and inadequate. However, the change operated by the Chapter to the brief text on the Consolata Missionary Sisters is very meaningful and enlightens the programming of the General Government and of all the Provinces.
You may remember that in the Instrumentum Laboris, the text was set among the various agents of the mission (religious, lay, local forces, etc.). During the exchange in the capitular hall, observation was made that such a placing of the text was not right, and did not respect the wishes and the directives of the Founder. After which the Capitular members voted, almost unanimously, to place the text among the components of our identity, as a part of our charism (pg 26-27). This change has thrown a totally new light on us and on our Sisters, and has presented a different perpspective to our mode of operating. For this reason, the General Government and all the Provinces will have to ponder attentively this change and prepare a programmimg that will respect the wishes of the capitular members, a programming which will promote new and deeper ways of being in relationship with them, ways of studying the elements that are common to both branches of the family of the Consolata Missionaries, ways of planning together activities, new openings and the re-dimensioning of those activities we are in (pg. 29).
Following the wishes of the majority of the members of the two Institutes, the two General Chapters recommended that the two General Governments often get together to program studies on our charism, on our Founder and, generally speaking, on those aspects that are common to our life as Consolata Missionaries and as Consolata Missionary Sisters. This will be an urgent area of work in our programming, also because it follows times of rather cold relations between us, times of parallel walking rather than walking together (pg. 65).

CONCLUSION
This letter on my interpretation of the Acts of the 10th General Chapter is personal; it does not presume to be taken as interpretative, ascertaining, or even just paradigmatic. I will be happy if it helps any other confreres in coming up with a meaningful synthesis of the Acts that will help their own growth, their apostolate. If it is considered irrelevant or even… odd, let it fall into the waste paper basket. What is most important is that we all make an effort to understand the Acts of the Chapter the best way we can, that we make a synthesis of them for ourselves, that we translate them into our personal, religious and missionary life in such a way that they may become our launching pad all through the near future.
The mission will always be central to our life: but what mission, in the near future? Religious life will always be a component of our way of being: but what kind of religious life, in the near future? The charism of our Founder will always be the center around which to turn in order to find our style of being and operating: but which style, in the near future? The Acts of the Chapter offered us clues, proposed directives, pointed to paths for us to tread on, indicated changes. It’s up to us to read and interpret these things, to assimilate them, to make them part of our being the best way we can. For the next six years they will be for us a constant call to order, a spur, the measure and the guide of our life. We must listen to the call and answer; we must feel the spur and react positively; we must use the meaure to find whether we are marching in equal strides; we must follow the guide-leader so as to again reorient our voyage, in order not to lose our way, so that we can walk together in harmony in the concretization of the dream of the Chapter, the vision of the Chapter, the wishes of the Chapter.