The days are passing and we are immersing ourselves more and more in the Pauline life and many situations that are challenging us as a Congregation present on every continent, urging us on to a future yet to be discovered and lived.
Today our key word was ZOOM! Yesterday we explored the overall situation of our Institute and today we got down to details.
Sr. Gabriella Santon, Bursar General, helped us come to a better grasp of the economic situation of the Congregation, re-echoing the challenge that our Founder, Blessed James Alberione, faced in his day and that we too face in ours, namely: “to concretely live Pauline poverty, which renounces, produces, preserves, provides and builds.” The horizons are vast because it means that we must courageously adopt new things and take risks in faith since we were born to proclaim the Gospel with all the means that progress little by little places at our disposition. But it also means that we must live to the full and in a down-to-earth way the choice of poverty in a world torn by dramatic social injustices, economic-financial crises and socio-cultural divisions. It is urgent that we “organize the good” so that it will reach everyone effectively.
We feel called to transform the Eucharist that we celebrate into concrete choices of life: “It is not enough to eat and drink at the Eucharistic banquet,” Fr. Devasia Puthiyaparambil, a Pauline priest from India, said to us. “We must live as Eucharistic persons. If the Eucharist does not lead to solidarity with others, then it is abused.”
To conclude on an imaginative note, here is a vignette from our Eucharistic Liturgy today: because of the bad weather, the lights went out for a few minutes in chapel during the Mass. As a result, the offertory procession took place literally by candlelight. As the procession moved up the aisle, the flickering flames enabled the assembly to discern in the background the picture of Jesus Master, the one true Light in our dark world.
Was it a tweet from on high? We like to think so, especially as our circumscription superiors prepare to share with us the apostolic and fraternal situations in the various parts of the world in which we live and work.
Ariccia, 25 August 2013
