Introduction
THE ELEVENTH GENERAL CHAPTER:
AN INSPIRATION FOR OUR JOURNEY

Not long ago a new millennium began and we too began a new century of life, a new six-year term, a new stage… But the Spirit is always the same: the Spirit of the Father who is calling on us to give new life to our Congregation.

The congregation, our family, is constantly in our thoughts, affections and actions. While contemplating the Congregation’s future we continue to feel the impact of our Founder’s words: “The form you should take in the Society is that which Our Lord inspired and continues to inspire in me....” - the present indicative. He is our wise mentor and guides us today as he always has done. The seed he planted in the Church’s vineyard has taken root and borne fruit.

Today this hundred-year old tree is in our hands. Each of us must care for it and make it bear fruit a hundredfold. Let us receive from the Chapter all that is new, grace-filled and engages us creatively in the missions. There is no shortage of challenges both inside and outside the Congregation and the Church. We know that the missions represent a constant challenge to our way of living and working - consequently we are called to act.

1. From Established Values to a New Creativity

From the very moment we began preparations for the Eleventh Chapter the Lord has been at our side in a thousand different ways – like the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24) – and continues to be with us today. In a way all His own, he has helped us remember and appreciate our past history, our experiences and His interventions in our Congregation. He has helped us to review – through the documents of our missionary family (the Founder, the Constitutions, the General Chapters) – the events of our life and work as Consolata Missionaries. In short, dialogue with the Risen Lord on our Mission Journey is our style of life and work. We are missionaries the way the Apostles were – this is what Allamano wanted.

We are dispensers of the mysteries of God. Precious gifts have been placed in our hands that we must carry them to the very ends of the earth for the good and salvation of all men. This is why we must go out of ourselves, our countries and spend our lives there where the Lord of the Harvest wants us to be.

If we examine ourselves closely we will discover that our lives are not always consistent with our ideals. This is an opportune moment for all of us: we must committing ourselves to making the values of the Eleventh Chapter a reality. The Chapter tells us that these values are valid today – we can see them in so many of our confrères.

The certainty that the Risen Lord is in our midst moves us – as it did the disciples of Emmaus – to initiate a new era both as individuals and as a community. With new enthusiasm and new creativity we must strive for holiness of life by living as brothers in increasingly multi-ethnic and multicultural communities. We must join forces with the Consolata Sisters and other co-workers in new areas of activity; we must learn to appreciate available, up-to-date instruments of communication that will help us carry out our mission effectively.

Let each one of us realize his own strengths and share them with others. This exchange of gifts is typical of missionary life in its going and coming. Who of us has not experienced this? We have so many gifts – and they all come from God. With Paul we can say: “I can do all things in Him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4,13) Everything! So many events in our past and present missionary experience confirm this. We do so much good in the world, the Church and the Congregation. The ability to do these things is not our own; it is not the result of our talent or our natural or intellectual acumen. The ability to do these things comes from Him who has called us to work in His vineyard. “I can do all things …” with God nothing is impossible … Everything is possible for the one who believes … “Not that we are competent to do anything for ourselves, as of ourselves: but our competence comes from God, who has made us competent ministers to be a new testament” (2 Cor 3,5-6).

With our efforts the gifts we have been freely received will bear fruit!

2. A New Calling

Like the disciples of Emmaus we may sometimes be tempted to return to the life we led before meeting the Lord. Often we stray from “our” Jerusalem.

Faced with the challenge of renewal we must respond to the Lord who is calling us. He approaches us and repeats the question he addressed to Adam: “Where are you?” (Gen 3,9). At every point in history God addresses a similar question to mankind, “Where in the world are you? The days and years that have been allotted to you are being consumed: at what stage of life have you arrived? Where are you now?” God wants to provoke us. We must let ourselves be provoked; we must let his questions strike our hearts.

To avoid accepting responsibility for his conduct Adam hid himself. This is true for the sons of Adam: everyone hides to avoid responsibility. We can follow the same pattern: fleeing responsibility and hiding. Our personal life can become increasingly problematic. One who flees from God is hiding from himself. It is easy to drown out God’s voice. When this happens one’s life ceases to go forward. One makes progress only when one listens to His voice and like Adam admits that he has fallen and confesses: “I hid myself.”

Coming back to oneself is the beginning of the human journey. Where are we? Not just in our personal life but in the life of our Congregation and its various projects … at what point? He can surprise us: the Holy Spirit breathes and reinforces our established values; at the same time He opens us up to new inspirations. He calls to us to respond. Only one who is ready to listen and discern can perceive His call to a new life.

We are Adam. We are the disciples of Emmaus. In His own way the Lord repeats His call to us while we are on our journey – as He has done so often in the past. Today according to the XIth Chapter we are called to renewal – above all in specific areas of life:

a) In our own person

The person of the missionary is the primary asset of the Congregation. It must be the object of special attention to assure uninterrupted growth and renewal.
We may find ourselves on the road to Emmaus leaving Jerusalem behind, disappointed by promises made and never kept. We look for answers elsewhere – not in the faith.
Our daily experience leads us to the following conclusion: nowadays faith like science and technology, must provide more effective answers. We need high quality instruments if we hope to achieve our goals. This is equally true in our own area of expertise: missionary work.
We must begin with ourselves. To carry out the mission the Lord has entrusted to us, we must do our personal best in all areas: physical, affective, psychological, spiritual, charismatic and institutional. There may be zones of discomfort in any of these specific areas at any time of life.
By encountering the Risen Jesus who conquered us with love, we will find our way back to Jerusalem, joyful and refreshed by the example of the community. We will find new inspiration in the perennial and living charism of our Father Founder; we will face the missions transformed.
The Chapter itself presents an opportunity for renewal. It asks us to focus on our own human and spiritual maturity; we must strive for holiness of life and find our identity as zealous, Eucharistic missionaries of Consolation.

b) In our community

Allamano always wanted the very best for his missionaries. He wanted the Congregation he founded to be a community, a family. He had guided many religious communities and knew that this involved dedication to others in the apostolate and even more so in the missions. To provide his missionaries with effective support he wanted them to live in communities – like a family.
If we live and work together in a spirit of communion we will reproduce the life of the Trinity in our daily community life. To possess this spirit and live it with ever greater commitment we hope:

• to have a minimum of at least three missionaries in each community within a few years;
• to face the challenges of our multi-ethnic and multicultural communities and to consider, look on them as a source of enrichment - a prophetic sign of the Kingdom we have been called to proclaim;
• to collaborate with the Consolata Sisters, the Consolata Lay Missionaries and the people;
• to attract, through the example of our communion as many people as possible who – like us – want to devote their lives to the missions.

c) In our mission

Our personal and community renewal can be a source of enrichment for the missions. There are three fundamental attitudes we must make our own: Missio ad gentes, life-long perseverance, work among the poor. Each of us is called to admit that “this is for me, this touches me personally!” Only the missionary who makes this act of faith can give witness to and live a life of poverty, a life of simplicity, a life in which he shares with others everything he possesses. This necessary transition makes the proclamation possible.
The areas of the missio ad gentes described by the Chapter are occasions for the zealous revival and renewal of our commitment as individuals with a call. For example, Mission and Vocation Promotion: we look on this as qualified service to our Churches. If we strive to be qualified in our external efforts we must make a similar effort vis-à-vis our internal services in the Congregation. If we do not succeed we will fail both the Church and the missions – there will be no missionaries. “Every missionary must be convinced that recruiting is an integral and inevitable part of the missio ad gentes and the communion of the Churches.” Then we can boldly offer the Consolata Missionary vocation (priest, brother, layman) to the youth of today. This is a valid path for devoting one’s life to the missions. This is a duty – there is no excuse for shirking it!
Young people fill us with hope for the future. There are so many in those young churches where we work – but they seem estranged from us. We see them committed to other ideals, with other people or involved in other religious or secular institutions. They are enthusiastic, full of life and devoted to great and noble ideals. The missions would satisfy this idealism if they could only realize it. We live out our mission with them. We are drawn by the figure of Christ who gives meaning and strength to our dedication and accomplishments.
It is He who forms, renews and takes us to the edges of the world where we encounter the outcast, those without hope and without God who seek our “consolation.” It is He who will give us optimism, enthusiasm, confidence and the joy to live our vocation and mission to the full – as He did with the disciples of Emmaus after they recognized the Risen One in the Breaking of Bread.

d) The courage to downsize

Renewal and re-training must be accompanied by a downsizing of works and activities. We are all aware of how many activities we are responsible for on the four continents where we work. We have far too many commitments for our diminishing resources. Given our methods, the physical and psychological health and number of our confrères as well as our lack of training – we have more commitments than we can manage.
Maybe we have too many Regions - too many missionaries involved in administration, organization and institutional service.
Maybe we have stayed too long in well established local churches that could manage on their own.
We must listen to Jesus: “Let us go on to the nearby villages so that I may preach there also. That is why I have come out.” (Mark 1,38). Perhaps this should be our present concern. There are so many people who have not yet heard the Gospel – they are waiting for us. Allamano’s call to “courage” involves looking beyond the familiar, the places we have been working for years.

4. A New Way to Work and Live

The Evangelist John speaks of a “new” commandment: charity and love. By living love we learn how to live out our vocation, our consecration and the mission in a new way. Here are examples of how we can carry out God’s plan today:

• living our fraternity-communion as a family, sharing responsibility and subsidiarity on continental level;
• engaging in dialogue among ourselves, with the Consolata Sisters, the Consolata Lay Missionaries, the local church and other religions;
• giving witness to an alternative Gospel life-style in difficult situations that goes against the grain of the dominant consumer society around us;
• communicating the wondrous things God is accomplishing through us to the whole Congregation;
• being men of hope and action even in difficult situations;
• sharing with the poor those possessions the Lord has so generously given us;
• moving forward, our eyes fixed on the future, with perseverance, flexibility and openness to all that is new and better.

Conclusion

After walking with the disciples of Emmaus all day long Jesus “entered the house and stayed with them; at table he took bread and blessed, and broke it and gave it to them. Their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Luke 24,30-31). They then became witnesses of the Resurrection of the Lord – first to the Apostolic community and then to all mankind.

The Risen Lord is walking with us too in our increasingly international and multicultural communities. Our communities are becoming ever more diversified in age, education, training and competence. He is with us as we work in an increasingly globalized world that is undergoing constant change and division. We must live and work as brothers, ready to share our resources with others wherever serve the missions: in the apostolate, mission-vocation promotion, formation and elsewhere. We must show that it is possible to work and live in communion, to value and appreciate different cultural and religious elements.

As members of the General Government we recognize our international and multicultural composition and want to be the first to work and serve in that spirit of communion and unity of purpose our Father Founder would have wanted.

May our Mother, the Consolata, strengthen us on this path!

Father Aquiléo Fiorentini, IMC
Superior General

Father Stefano Camerlengo, IMC
Father Francisco López Vázquez, IMC
Father António Fernandes, IMC
Father Matthew Ouma, IMC