Download 21st May 2004

May 2004
It is I who have chosen you
It is a tradition in the Institute to bring together the new provincials for a time of sharing and
formation for their new ministry, a time which could help each one to understand her mission
in the Institute of today, to interiorise it and to love it. At the beginning of this meeting, each
one of us in Saint Michael’s Fraternity desires to greet you with a warm welcome.
Hazard, or better, Providence, permitted that our meeting begin on 21st May, the anniversary
of the birth of Mary of the Passion. In fact, won’t she be the one who will accompany us, to
deepen the ministry of the provincial which has been confided to you, inspiring our exchanges
and our reflections, all throughout these weeks? Together, provincials and general council, we
form the same Body which carries the responsibility for the Institute and for its mission.
We have multiple feelings within us. The months of elections could still be in your minds and
hearts… They were made up of interior struggles and acceptance, questioning and
disponibility, anxiety and abandonment. The change of life which followed was generally
rapid, with a stage of transition which was often very short. You had to leave a mission,
commitments, a community and even a province… a whole network of relationships which
were brusquely severed.
A ministry was confided to you. It is inscribed in the long and beautiful history of your
provinces which offers you a past rich in experiences in order to welcome the present and
prepare the future. These first months have enabled you to access the extent of the task. Some
among you have already lived through difficult and painful situations. However, each one
realises that although the responsibility is great, we carry it together, with the sisters God
gives us, the sisters of your province and those of the General Council. It is lived as Church, it
is a mission of the Church. It situates you at the heart of the world and of its realities, inviting
you to collaborate, work, seek with different authorities and persons.
You have discovered that the YES given to the Lord to accept this service of authority
committed Him as much as you, and even much more. In wonderment, you find Him at work
in the life of your sisters and the situations which you meet. A missionary wrote to Mary of
the Passion who was still a Reparatrix and provincial of Madurai: “The two houses in the
South have welcomed you with transports of gratitude. They are waiting for you to save the
mission. Your house in the North also gives you an admirable contingent of consolations…
Your government will doubtlessly be hindered as a consequence of various influences going
on, but believe me, in heaven they are watching over you. Do not doubt … about the beautiful
mission confided to you… Yes, little by little, the difficulties will be smoothed out.”
Each one of you is here with her personal history and the context of her province. It is from
that, and with perceptions and expectations which could be different, that we will situate
ourselves and exchange. Our sharings will open us to the diversity in which the charism is
incarnated and to the strength of complementarity and of communion. We will experience the
complexity of the Institute and also its great riches.
We have questions and situations which trouble us at times: why me? How can this be done?
(Lk 1: 34 and the Customs Book of the Provincial 7). Concerns or people, brothers/sisters
and other persons will prevent me from loving the Lord (cf. Letter to a Minister 2)… They are
there to invite us to welcome God’s plan, to open us to the gratuity of the gift, the gratuity of
love, the gratuity of the call. “I call you friends because everything I have heard from my
Father I have made known to you. It is not you who have chosen me, it is I who have chosen
you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide” (Jn
15: 15-16). This mysterious choice, why me?, this gratuitous choice of God, like our vocation,
does not correspond with any human logic. It solicits the same response, that of the gift of
self, of offering following Christ, in the Spirit, to give ourselves unreservedly to the Father
(cf. Formula of the vows).
To conclude, if you permit me, I would like to share a personal fact which has accompanied
me for a very long time. When I was provincial, I did not like to be presented with this title.
However, one day, the head of an enterprise, a deeply convinced Christian, helped me to go
deeper in the understanding of the responsibility confided to me. He repeated to me the
account from Saint John, pointing out to me that Christ did not deny what He was. Rather
than making it a power or a right, He made it a service: “You call me ‘Teacher and Lord’ and
you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also
ought to wash one another’s feet, for I have given you an example” (Jn 13: 13-14).
“Today is the day of the marvel of the tenderness of Jesus”, Mary of the Passion tells us in the
Meditation for Holy Thursday (Vol. V).
1. “Live as women DISCIPLES, passionately in love with Christ, simple,
transformed by the Word.” (Chapter Document: Disciples sent in Universal Mission in
the world today, 2002 – Disciples 3).
Jesus knowing that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father, having loved
his own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. And during supper … knowing that
the Father had given all things into his hands, and that He had come from God and was going
to God, He rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded Himself with a towel. Then
He poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the
towel with which He was girded. … When He had washed their feet and taken his garments
and resumed his place, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me
Teacher and Lord and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher have
washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an
example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (Jn 13: 1-15).
1.1 At the centre of our lives there is Jesus Christ. At the last General Chapter we renewed
strongly our desire to be his disciples. The way of a disciple is the one that Jesus lived,
thought and acted during his earthly life. His action itself is a message which has the value of
a testament and which leaves no doubt about what He expects of us. What I have done for
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you, you do also. To become a disciple is only possible in response to a call from Christ who
invites us to live the responsibility of provincial in a spirit of service as He did even to gift, a
gift rooted in a relationship.
1.2 A call. “And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew the brother
of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me
and I will make you fishers of men.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed Him.”
(Mk 1:16). The choice which remains a mystery, that of every life, is the choice of Jesus who
“knows whom He has chosen” (Jn 13: 18).
1.3 A service. “Jesus rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded Himself with a
towel. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, and to wipe
them with the towel with which He was girded.” (Jn 13: 4, 5). Christ proposes to us a simple
image from daily life, different from the usual image of authority to give a meaning to what
He wishes to transmit to us. He reminds us that we are not in responsibility to dominate and
make our power felt, but rather to be attentive to the needs of others and present to their
realities and their situations. This service is a ministry, a mission.
1.4 A gift. “The Son of Man has come not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a
ransom for many” (Mk 10: 45). The image of service invites us to come out of self, not to be
centred on self. Deeply human and deeply aware, Christ is the actor in the events which will
enable Him to pass from this world to the Father. He offers Himself, He gives Himself and
invites us to come out of the logic of efficiency to live the meaningful experience of total gift.
1.5 A relation. “The words that I say to you I do not say on my own authority; but the Father
who dwells in me does his works.” (Jn 14: 10). The service of Jesus is fed on his relationship
with the Father.
2. “On the threshold of the new millennium, with the beatification of Mary of the
Passion, the Church confirms the value of our charism, a gift for the world. In
our hands we carry this ‘treasure’ for which we are all responsible…” (Chapter
Document 2002 – Introduction).
Sent in our turn by Christ to continue his mission, our ministry places us at the service of the
Institute, the province, the communities and the sisters to journey together towards the
realisation of the charism.
2.1 The service of authority
2.1.1 Jesus is in the midst of us as the One who serves (cf. Lk 22: 27). He speaks and serves
as someone with authority. His service is not that of the slave but of the Master, come to
accomplish the work which the Father gave Him to do.” (cf. Jn 17: 4).
2.1.2. Lived after the example of Christ, the authority confided to us places us at the service
of God’s plan of love for the world. (Chapter Document 2002 – Disciples 3). Jesus confides to us
his vision and that of his Father for the world. Still today, God so loves the world that He
gives his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but should have eternal
life. For God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world but that the world might
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be saved through Him (cf. Jn 3: 16-17), and that we may have life and have it in abundance
(Jn 10: 10).
2.1.3 The service of authority, like our religious life, is essentially prophetic. It is a sign of
God and announces his loving presence in opening to hope.
2.2 The context in which this service is lived
2.2.1 On the one hand, the world and its reality. We live in a world which has lost its sense of
the sacred, manipulated by the media, victim of power and of possessions, and which
influences our way of seeing authority, often questioned and not always valued. It is
perceived spontaneously as a threat to the sacred value of individual autonomy.
2.2.2 On the other hand, the precariousness of most of our situations. Today, many
communities and even some provinces find themselves in deprivation and fragility after a
glorious past which still remains very much alive in our memories and which makes it
difficult to accept the reality. To welcome this present as a passage of the Lord invites us to
open ourselves to the future from our deep sources, from the essential.
2.3 The provincial
2.3.1 Elected at a particular moment in the history of her province, animator of its fmm
project, the provincial offers her sisters, the Church and the people around, the passion which
animates her for the Lord and for his mission. According to the charism of the Institute, she
inspires, gives courage and hope, leads towards the realisation of the objectives of the
province and of the Institute and stimulates the spirit of belonging and commitment, of
sharing in the concern and responsibility for the proclamation of the Good News throughout
the whole world. (Chapter Document 2002 – Sent on Universal Mission 2).
2.3.2 An instrument in the hands of God to guide the province, the service of authority makes
the provincial humble, human, realist but also serene. “Is not the part of authority given to us
a means for us to become increasingly Minor; to serve and not to be served”, as Mary of the
Passion invites us to do (MD 659).
2.4 Government and animation
2.4.1 Two tasks are confided to the provincial: government with its administrative part, and
animation. She accomplishes them with the same spirit which animated Christ: “though He
was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied
Himself taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2: 6, 7) in order to realise God’s plan of love for
the world (cf. Chapter Document 2002 – Disciples 3). To have an orientation and a vision
gives a clear and precise direction, the true meaning of the service of authority which is “to
will and to work for his good pleasure.” (cf. Phil 2: 13).
2.4.2 It is the responsibility of the leader to go in front, to listen starting from her reality, her
past experience, her intuition, to express her desires for the present and the future and to
confront them with others so that they become a vision. Thus her vision is that of the whole,
and the vision of the whole is that of the leader. It is hope in a possible future which they
build together, in communion and coresponsibility. On this vision depends the future.
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2.4.3 To open up new horizons, the service of authority needs vision, but also
transformation, development and growth. To do this, the provincial should take into account
the charism of the Institute dedicated to Universal Mission, favour communion between the
members of her province and other provinces, support initiatives and enliven the sense of
belonging to the Institute, to the province and to the local community.
2.4.4 The art of governing and animating cannot be lived without a spirit of wisdom and of
discernment, openness to the Spirit in order to welcome the will of God in the life of the
Institute and in each one. Listen and understand, let yourself be taught, you whose jurisdiction
reaches to the ends of the earth. For your dominion was given you from the Lord, and your
sovereignty from the Most High. For I prayed and understanding was given me; I called upon
God and the spirit of Wisdom came to me. Wisdom knows what is agreeable to the Lord, what
is right according to his commandments. For she knows and understands all things, and she
will guide me wisely in my actions and guard me with her glory. Then my works will be
acceptable. (Wis 6: 1-3; 7: 7; 9: 9, 11, 12).
3. “Brought together from many countries and cultures: Franciscan Missionaries
of Mary gifted with the same charism, Sisters, living together, discerning and
discovering deeper levels of who we are.”
(Chapter document 2002 – Introduction).
3.1 Government
3.1.1. Government is at the service of the Institute, the provinces, the communities and the
sisters. It contributes to the accomplishment of the mandates given by the different general
and provincial chapters. Inspired and animated by their orientations, it favours the incarnation
of the charism in the different contexts where the Institute is inserted and sustains the
realisation of our mission in the world of today.
3.1.2. “Government is exercised in accordance with moderate decentralisation”, as we see in
our Constitutions (art. 129). The recent studies on government have led us in the enlarged
general council of 1999 to place emphasis on interdependence, which links the different
levels: local, provincial and general, in mutual dependence, solidarity, collaboration and
communion, committing us more and more to build together the Body to which we belong.
Living the reality of the “body” is a convincing testimony for the world today which tends
enormously towards fragmentation and individualism.
3.2 The context in which government is exercised
3.2.1. The challenges of the present world and of the Church place us, because of our
responsibility, at the heart of complex but vital situations. We have to face a decrease in
human and financial resources, and at the same time it seems to us fundamental to remain
listening to signs of the times. We feel the need to respond to new calls, to begin new
missionary projects, and it is necessary to ensure the functioning of what already exists and
which is still worthwhile. We must manage our financial resources prudently and respond to
multiple requests for financial support, calling upon our solidarity and mutual aid: the raison
d’être of the sharing fund.
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3.2.2. These situations and others which we are beginning to live, like the suppression of
provinces, should not diminish our courage and confidence, by overshadowing the real signs
of life and hope which animate the Institute, the richness of its history and of its mission, the
inestimable experience of the elderly sisters, the enthusiasm of the new generations even if their
number is diminishing, the support and effective disponibility that we find in so many sisters.
3.2.3. How then, in this context, can our vocation as Christ’s disciples impregnate our
structures of government? In the Chapter Document of 2002, we affirmed that the Cross is
“the path that leads to the resurrection” (Chapter Document 2002, Sent on Universal
Mission, 4). What place do we give it? To Marie des Sts Apôtres, Mary of the Passion wrote:
“I believe that if we had to choose, we would very rarely take a share in the Passion of Our
Divine Saviour, and it is for that reason that He often gives it to us Himself, because without
that, we would never become like Him, and He did not deceive us about the means. Did He
not say: The one who wishes to be my disciple must take up her cross and follow me.”?
3.3 The structures of government
3.3.1. In the Institute as elsewhere, since Vatican II, the structures of government and their
functioning have gone through successive essential evolutions and deepening. The changes,
social as well as ecclesial, and the awareness in the communities have favoured a return to the
sources, finding again a more sisterly and convivial style of relationships and animation. Is
this not what we are discovering these days in Francis and Mary of the Passion? Attention to
persons with their gifts and limitations has enabled us to be free from uniformity in order to
discover the riches of diversity and its consequences: participation, dialogue, the process of
consultation and decision, discernment, listening and searching together, subsidiarity and
coresponsibility.
Nevertheless, as we know from experience, the integration of these realities in our daily life is
not easy. We noticed it again very strongly in the study of government. It is not enough to
change the vocabulary for the old model to be transformed.
3.3.2. The responsibility of the provincial is to ensure the good functioning of various
structures which enable the province to journey as a Body. These structures, having a
common aim, favour unity and cohesion. Nevertheless, when administrative concerns take
over space, blotting out a broader vision, when the community, apostolic and spiritual stakes
are neglected, little by little there is a loss of reference points in the province, leading to a
void, a disorientation.
3.3.3. The chapters, provincial councils and enlarged provincial councils, the province
assemblies, the teams and commissions, help the provincial in her government, in order to
search together for the common good of the province and also the Institute.
3.3.4. It is here that are lived fully subsidiarity and shared responsibility, indispensable for
the growth of persons and their sense of belonging to the province and its mission in the
Institute.
3.4. Decision taking
3.4.1. To be a superior requires taking decisions. To launch a new project, close a house,
regroup communities, name a person for a responsibility, give a sending to a sister from one
community to another, organise meetings, confide more responsibilities, confront a sister,
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take financial decisions, so many choices must be made with the risks involved. These
decisions always call for a patient and humble listening, a dialogue with a view to
discernment.
3.4.2. The foundation of all discernment is trust, trust in the Spirit who animates and who is
expressed by each one, the trust in one another. Describing the role of the abbess in the
community, Clare sees her as a sister among her sisters, who takes decisions after
consultation with each one. I, with my sisters …according to the expression of Clare, means to
show equality, mutual support and reverence for one another.
3.4.3. The service of authority presupposes an ongoing asceticism in order not to impose
one’s own will, and a search together in order to remain open to the Spirit who blows where
He wills (cf. Jn 3: 8). Government is always at the service of life, of the life of the Spirit in
each one and in the mission which is confided.
3.5. Carrying out decisions
3.5.1. A basic element for a good carrying out of decisions is communication and clarity of
information These favour participation and commitment and create a healthy and constructive
province spirit. Letting the application of decisions drag on leads to loss of credibility in the
exchanges, consultations and discernments.
3.5.2. Some decisions bring sufferings and risk creating frustrations and wounds. It is a fact.
It is not in continually postponing decisions until later that the solution is found, but in the
how of its application. Is it possible then to transmit also, with the decision, the mercy and
tenderness of the Lord?
3.6. Shared responsibility
3.6.1. If the task rightly appears to us to be big, we do not carry it alone. No person can be
superior alone. We need one another. At the provincial level the partners of this shared
responsibility are the provincial councillors and the superiors. Sharing and carrying together
the concerns and painful situations, the joys and signs of life and hope, enables us to feel the
solidarity and the strength of searching together, because where two or three are gathered in
the name of the Lord, He is in the midst of them (cf. Mt 18: 20). What at first could appear
impossible, difficult, then becomes possible.
3.6.2. The complementarity of the knowledge and abilities of each one is an inestimable
strength and richness for a discernment, for taking a decision. Finding in the other what is
lacking in oneself, recognising it and appreciating it, offers great means. Shared responsibility
is lived Pentecost, in welcoming the Spirit who expresses Himself by each one and gives us a
glimpse of new horizons.
3.7. Coresponsibility
3.7.1. Each sister, no matter what her activities, her responsibilities and her commitments, is
coresponsible for the life of her province and of her mission. Each one has received the
charism and in her God reveals part of Himself. The first mission of authority is to listen to
the voice of the Spirit in each member and to believe in her capacities and her contribution.
“Jesus saw a multitude coming to Him and He said to Philip, ‘How are we to buy bread so
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that these people may eat?’ … One of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to
Him, ‘there is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among
so many?’ Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ … There were about five thousand there.
Jesus then took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to those who
were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted…” (Jn 6: 5-11)
3.7.2. To have confidence in the others helps them to grow in self-esteem, and therefore
improves the collaboration and participation of each one.
3.8. Priorities in the service
3.8.1. It is often difficult to distinguish between what is important and what is urgent, to
programme for the long term when one is confronted with pressing questions which must be
resolved immediately. Often we feel ill-prepared before a very large quantity of tasks. The
lack of time, the inevitable demands of office work and the multiplicity of contacts,
gatherings, meetings, disperse one and create tensions. How to establish priorities?
A crucial choice has always to be made between limiting oneself to facing the urgencies,
managing what exists, and planning, establishing priorities which, starting from a vision and a
projection, enable us to open paths leading towards the future.
4. “We commit ourselves as FMM disciples, to live as sisters in the heart of an
international or intercultural community that announces communion beyond
differences and responds to our contemporaries’ spiritual thirst and lack of hope”
(Chapter Document 2002 – Disciples, Lines of Action 3).
4.1. Animation
4.1.1. At the end of the meal, after having explained to his disciples what was about to
happen, before separating from them, Jesus, in a final prayer, gave back to the Father those
whom the Father had given Him
Jesus lifted his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father, I have glorified thee on earth, having
accomplished the work thou gavest me to do; and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own
presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.
I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world; They were
thine and thou hast given them to me and they have kept thy word. Now they know that
everything thou hast given me is from thee; for I have given them the words thou gavest me,
and they have received them and know in truth that I came from thee, and they have believed
that thou didst send me. I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world whom thou
hast given me, for they are thine; all mine are thine and all thine are mine, and I am glorified
in them. And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world and I am coming to
thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one.
… As thou hast sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world…. I do not pray for
these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word. …
… O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know
that thou has sent me. I made known to them thy name and I will make it known, that the love
with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (Jn 17: 4-11, 18, 20, 25, 26).
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4.1.2. In his prayer, Jesus describes to us the mission which He has just completed. Sent by
the Father, He formed the community of disciples. He animated them and accompanied
them, revealing to them who the Father was. He, in his turn, sent them into the world to make
disciples, and He prayed for them and for those who would also become his disciples, through
their word.
4.1.3. Does Jesus’ prayer for his own not describe the broad traits of the service of
animation? Following Christ, Servant, listening to his word and with attention to the signs of
the times, we enter into God’s mystery to discover his love which runs right through history
and saves the world (cf. Const 11) according to his loving design (cf. Eph 1: 9) on us and all
those to whom we are sent. In this way we will be renewed in Christ in order with his Spirit to
build fraternal communities, to join Him in washing the feet of the poor, and to contribute in
your own unique way to the transfiguration of the world (cf. VC nº 110)
4.2. The context in which animation is lived
4.2.1. The context varies quite considerably from one province to another with regard to the
number of sisters, their average age, vocations, the possibilities and means of formation, the
apostolic engagements… There are very old provinces, there are very young provinces; there
are provinces without vocations for a long time, others have many and others again have very
few. There are provinces with many elderly and sick sisters who, after having given the best
of themselves for very many years to the Institute and to its mission, today need particular
attention. In many places they are in the majority. Many provinces have already responded
with creativity and love to their needs.
4.2.2. There are also the living strength of the Institute no matter what their age, those who
are engaged directly in the mission and the service of communities and of the Institute. Often
not very numerous in the provinces, they need to be supported, listened to, regrouped,
stimulated, nourished spiritually and to live in communities which offer them space and
support. If not, there is a risk for them to become marginalised to try to survive.
4.2.3. There are also the younger generations with the challenges which comprise their
integration into the communities and the provinces often with an average age clearly higher
than theirs. There is an urgency to find with them new responses which will offer them
apostolic fields where they can give themselves and responsibilities where they will be able to
serve. Their accompaniment remains a necessity in order to help them live the necessary
passages for the constructive experiences of integration.
4.2.4. In our communities we often find sisters who feel alone and isolated. The rhythm of
our daily lives, the multiple commitments, do not always favour deep relationships which
need time, energy and interest. We communicate easily with sisters, persons at the other end
of the world, in other provinces, but those who are close to us and of whom I am the
neighbour remain at a distance.
4.2.5. There are also our situations of fragility, sisters who are not able to reconcile their
commitments, their life of prayer and their community life and who, after a certain number of
years, find themselves without strength, empty and dispersed. There are those who, wounded
by life, are not able to situate themselves in a relationship of goodness, courtesy and
openness. There are those who do not know how to grow old gracefully and who do not
succeed in retiring from their charge when the time comes. There are those who, marked by
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the individualistic culture, act alone and without any reference to the community. The
examples of different situations are multiple…
4.2.6. Jesus is there before his disciples. Among them there is a great diversity of character
and of temperament, of enthusiasm and of poverty. They have various feelings. There is fear,
dynamism, sensitivity and instability… and even sin. Jesus is on his knees before each one,
even Judas, to affirm that for Him all are great and important, all need their feet washed… A
service which He renders to all, without taking into account their differences, their merits or
their dignity and which will give birth to a community. The account of the Last Supper is the
story of a broken community, in pieces. The Man at the centre of it will be betrayed and
denied. All his friends will disperse. It is the story of the birth of a community where
alienation in all its forms, treason and even death are abolished. A story which brings us hope.
(from Timothy Radcliff op, I call you friends, French edition, p. 151)
4.2.7. The challenge for the provincial is to know, from these realities and those of the world
today, how to give an animation which helps the sisters, the communities and the province to
have an experience of God which, when shared, becomes comfort, solidarity, justice, peace,
reconciliation and dialogue with all …
4.3 Service of the sisters
4.3.1. In the service of authority, as in our life as disciples, it is always a case of loving,
loving gratuitously, loving generously, loving without expecting anything in return.
Following Francis, Clare received the sisters whom the Lord gave her a short while after her
conversion (Test Cl 25), as a gift offered to her freedom to love …and to ours. “Loving one
another with the charity of Christ, let the love you have in your hearts be shown outwardly in
your deeds so that, compelled by such an example, the sisters may always grow in love of God
and in charity for one another. May she who will be chosen for the service of the sisters … be
to the sisters just as a good mother is to her daughters; with attention and providing for their
needs … Let her also be so kind and so available that all of them may reveal their needs with
trust and have recourse to her at any hour with confidence as they see fit, both for her sake
and that of her sisters” (Test Cl 18, 19).
Think of the others, pray for them, offer up their sufferings, esteem them, be grateful and
rejoice at their successes … all that is a sign of an authentic service, rendered in truth and
love.
4.3.2. In the service of authority, we are called to open ourselves to dialogue with the sisters,
to listen, share, to give time to grow in mutual understanding. Jesus came then to Simon Peter
(Jn 13: 6). At the end of this dialogue with Jesus, Peter adheres fully to the Master’s plan.
Dialogue, in attention to the other, opens out to unexpected responses which could turn a life
upside down.
Responsibility calls us to commit ourselves with great and deep humility and charity, with the
patience that knows that God has his hour. In our own weakness, his transforming action
ceaselessly surprises us by his fidelity in love.
The first and deepest service of authority is relational quality, the capacity to build
interpersonal relationships, in openness to the other, to her personal history and to what makes
her live… and thus, then journey on together.
4.3.3. The service of authority enables us to know the sisters in depth, to approach them in a
special manner, to help them, to support them and accompany them in moments of joy and
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confidence as well as in moments of frailty and difficulty. “I prayed for you so that your
faith may not falter. And you, when you have returned to me, affirm your brothers,” said
Jesus to Peter on the eve of his Passion (cf. Lk 22: 23).
The meeting of sisters enables us to be in contact with the sacred part of each one, with her
desire to live the fmm life, in the disponibility and passion which animates her for the
Institute and its mission. Some sisters also live with tremendous courage and great generosity,
often in situations of poverty and violence. Their testimony of life is a source of inspiration
4.3.4. Nevertheless, the service of authority invites us to go still further in love of the other.
To love is to have the courage to remind the other of her desire to live her consecration with
joy and authenticity, in liberty and in truth. Is the tendency not sometimes a ‘laisser faire’
attitude or to say ‘everyone is doing it’? It is not always easy to name truthfully the tensions
and conflicts which hurt and form an obstacle to community life, to the mission.
4.3.5. In Jesus’ gesture of washing the feet of all the disciples, even those of Judas, the
service of authority is called to pay particular attention to those who are living a bitter
experience, those who are hurt by life and who find it difficult to forgive, to forgive
themselves. True reconciliation begins always with the one who has been offended, hurt. Is
that not the message Christ leaves us in washing the feet of Judas? To Marie de Ste Veronique
who submitted to her a step of reconciliation with a missionary priest who made the sisters
suffer, Mary of the Passion wrote: “It is the injured one who goes to the one who is in the
wrong and turns the right cheek to the one who struck her on the left… Do your best for the
Father and whatever you judge to be prudent and possible; if it is the will of God that peace
and charity be restored, he will have his hour” (September 1887).
4.3.6. Jesus called his disciples to follow Him, He healed the sick, chased out devils, raised
the dead to life and dared to confront the religious authorities of his time. In Him, power
healed always and gave life. He never belittled, never demeaned, never disparaged, never
destroyed. He gave his power to his disciples (Lk 10).
It is important to value persons and their mission. Hence the importance of having confidence,
in a word, of giving people responsibility. Is that not what Mary did at Cana? She hurried the
situation because she believed that Jesus was capable of great things.
Well understood, the service of authority is one with life, the growth of persons.
4.4. The service of the communities
4.4.1. “In a divided world, dare to live as sisters in international or intercultural
communities in communion, sharing and non-exclusion”, we wrote in our chapter document
(Chapter Document 2002 – In the world of today, 4.1).
4.4.2. In a world which is becoming more and more fragmented, as Christ’s disciples, we are
called to give a visible and concrete witness to the Gospel, from our manner of living in
community. The richness of interpersonal relationships in an international and intercultural
context, mutual knowledge, support, respect and collaboration, show that difference does not
mean division but rather a testimony of universality. True community teaches us to value diversity
without succumbing to the dispersion, individualism and isolation of the postmodern world.
4.4.3. We carry within us aspirations for a fraternal life where an exchange is lived in depth,
in an atmosphere of welcoming, respect, acceptance, freedom and friendship. We desire
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communities in which the members support each other reciprocally and fraternally, also in
the sharing of the mission. But we notice that there is a great distance between the ideal and
the reality. Communion within the communities which should be one of the most evident
signs, is difficult to attain. Our relationships, however, gain in depth and further a truer
mutual knowledge when we dare to share the faith which animates us, how God is at work in
our lives.
4.4.4. We are aware at the same time that community in its very essence belongs to the
consecrated life and to the way of living mission. Community life is a factor of the credibility
of our proclamation of the God of Love… each one bearing the charge of the love of the
other, we accomplish the law of Christ painlessly (St Clare, LER 17). It is part of our witness,
of what we say and mean by our existence, much more than by our words. Our manner of
living is in itself an evangelisation and a hope. It questions the world and announces a new
society.
4.4.5. The visits and the different contacts that a provincial must make to the communities,
are a privileged moment to join them on their journey and to help them, starting from their
history, to be true to the aim of their presence, their project, their raison d’être in the Church
and in the world of today.
4.4.6. Francis considered the visit of the brothers as one of the responsibilities of the
ministers and servants of the other friars. “All the brothers who have been established as
ministers and servants of the other brothers should assign their brothers to the provinces and
to the places where they are to be, and they should visit them frequently and spiritually
admonish and encourage them.” (ER 4, 2), while in the second Rule, where the expression is
more concise, there is a different emphasis: “The brothers who are the ministers and servants
of the other brothers should visit and admonish their brothers and humbly and charitably
correct them.” (LR 10, 1). The two rules emphasise the importance of the visits, with different
aspects, which express the aim and spirit with which they should be made.
4.4.7. The visit, a privileged opening to the Spirit and of mutual listening, a time of
information and formation for the sisters and for the community, is a time of grace for all,
provincial and sisters. It broadens horizons and opens out to solidarity and communion with
the other communities of the province and the Institute.
4.4.8. It enables the provincial to accompany the onward journey of the community and to
support the incarnation of the charism in the milieu, to arouse generosity and apostolic
commitments, to encourage collaboration with Church and with other organisations, ongoing
formation, to renew enthusiasm and hope in face of the future… The community project, an
important tool for growth, gives the provincial the means of evaluation and accompaniment.
Sometimes the community project is limited only to what the community lives and does
without reference to the aim for which we are together. Then the commitment of the sisters is
situated at the practical level. The community no longer has its own identity, nor the members
a sense of belonging.
4.4.9. The visit is also a support for the local superior, a time which permits exchanges on the
challenges encountered, of sharing hopes and fears freely and fraternally. In the Customs
Book of the Provincial, Mary of the Passion insists on the primordial role of the local
superiors in the life of a province. “The Provincial Superior will be sure of the good state of
her province if she leads and maintains all the local superiors in the love of God, in his divine
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will, consequently in order. Let her be occupied with the local Superiors with particular care
and consider them as the most precious part of her flock. Let her try to inspire them with
confidence and sincere affection, so that her influence over them may be that of a mother who
consoles and supports, rather than that of an authority with the charge of controlling her
subordinates.” (Customs Book of the Provincial 47).
“In communion …”
(Chapter Document 2002 – Sent on Universal Mission 2)
That they may all be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us
so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I
have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that
they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou has sent me and hast
loved them even as thou hast loved me. (Jn 17: 21-23)
5.1 The apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata confides an important task to the consecrated
life. “Consecrated persons are asked to be true experts of communion and to practice the
spirituality of communion as ‘witnesses and architects of the plan for unity which is the
crowning point of human history in God’s design.’” (Vita Consecrata 46).
5.2 Christ’s intercession to his Father some hours before his Passion, finds an echo in the
heart of Mary of the Passion. It is also prayer, desire, thirst, the expression of her
consecration. “Communion. Grant that my life may be communion, O my God. … May I no
longer be me, but Him, Jesus, love, and that Jesus may be in me, a holocaust consumed in all
the perfection of communion” (NS 356). On 28th March 1893 she wrote to Father Raphael,
“The more I go on, the more God sings in my soul the beauties of unity.” Unity – communion
– she desired it for the Institute called to form but one body (cf. MD 724).
5.3 To be an FMM is to be part of the Universal Fraternity of the Institute where together
we are responsible for our mission and our communion in diversity… to announce and
prepare the fullness of the Kingdom when all peoples will be reconciled and gathered into
one People of God (cf. Const. 7). Although the community and the province are the place
where our sense of belonging is concretised, they can never be perceived as an end in
themselves, they open out to the whole Institute.
5.4 It is to the provincials that she especially confided the safeguarding of this unity, the
spirit of one body (cf. Customs Book of the Provincial 128).
God is the source of all diversity, He who created each person unique. Communion is what
He ardently desires for us, a desire that He alone can satisfy and which He invites us to live in
the image of the Trinity. To discover the trinitarian stamp of communion in our service of
authority is to announce a manner of being which, in openness to difference, lived in poverty
of heart, welcomes and integrates in order to build a humanity capable of communications, of
relationships and of respect. In receiving the service of authority, the provincial receives a
mission of communion.
5.5 Although the tasks of the provincial are above all at the service of her province, her
responsibilities place her at the service of the whole Institute, of its identity and its mission.
Called to govern and animate her province according to the charism and the orientations of
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the Institute incarnated in the objectives proper to the province, she creates, with all the
members, relationships of trust, solidarity and commitment. As the bond between the
communities of her province, she builds unity among them and opens them to the whole of
the Institute (cf. Const. 156 modified and 157).
5.6 “It is in the Institute that we have freely chosen to follow Christ, and it is in this religious
family that we live together our vocation as disciples”, we wrote at the last general chapter (cf.
Chapter Document 2002 – Disciples 6). Attentive to today’s signs and linked with the past,
source and root of our identity, the provincial, in creative fidelity, opens new horizons and
offers new perspectives which strengthen the sense of belonging to the Institute, to the
province and to the community and confirms the sense of “body”.
6. … “with the whole Institute we are ready to share in the concern and
responsibility for the proclamation of the Good News throughout the whole
world.” (Chapter Document 2002 – Sent on Universal Mission 2).
6.1 “Communion and mission are profoundly connected with each other,” the document
“Fraternal Life in Community” tells us. “They interpenetrate and mutually imply each other,
to the point that communion represents both the source and the fruit of mission: communion
gives rise to mission and mission is accomplished in communion.” (cf. “Fraternal Life in
Community, nº 58, Document of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life).
6.2 Through our identity, we have a vocation to universal fraternity. We reaffirmed this at the
last chapter. “Commit ourselves as FMM disciples to live as sisters in the heart of an
international or intercultural community that announces communion beyond our differences,
and responds to our contemporaries’ spiritual thirst and lack of hope” (Chapter Document
2002 – Disciples, Lines of Action 3).
The present challenge for us, in many places, is to really live our identity, to share it. The
international, intercultural community is a choice for us. How does the animation of
communities, the true rereading of our lives, help us to welcome one another and mutually
support one another to be unequivocal witnesses of pardon and reconciliation within us, among
us and around us (cf. Chapter Document 2002 – Sent on Universal Mission, Lines of Action 1)?
6.3 To be at the service of communion, following Christ, is also to respond to the desire
which Pope John Paul II has “to make the Church the home and the school of communion:
that is the great challenge facing us in the millennium which is now beginning, if we wish to
be faithful to God’s plan and respond to the world’s deepest yearnings.” (Novo Millennio
Ineunte, nº 43). Do we not have responsibility as members of the Church, to express – by
word and by our life – the essential in the following of Christ? More and more, everywhere,
we rub shoulders with displaced persons, persons from other nations, cultures, religions or
Churches. How then can the service of authority confided to us help each one to bring hope to
these persons flung to the four corners of our planet?
6.4 Our fmm life is situated in the plan of God. “God is love. It is his will that all men and
women should be saved and constitute his People”, we read in the Constitutions (Const. 1).
Our faith invites us to enter into the practice of God, a concrete practice. He is there in a
privileged way wherever life is threatened, but also where life is being reorganised. His glory
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is the living person (Ps 114-115). Our service of authority requires us to accompany our
sisters on this path of life (Dt 30: 19), a path to be lived, shared and proclaimed.
6.5 The provincial chapters should be moments when we dare to respond to challenges. Often
the chapters take courageous, even daring, decisions; and nevertheless, three years later,
nothing great has happened. The difficulty is not so much in taking decisions as in carrying
them out.
6.6 Discernment and the pursuit of the common good are the principal tasks of government.
They support and accompany relationships between the different levels of government. To
give a sister for another community, or for another province, is not always understood or
accepted, nevertheless it is here that we have the clearest expression of our communion in a
common mission, that of the Institute. How can we deepen and support the sense of
belonging? openness to the mission of the province, of the Institute? The quality of our
mission depends on the sense of the “body” which we experience. If this sense is not strong,
there will be no disponibility for mission.
6.7 More and more the concrete need for collaboration is very strongly felt to be present in
our reality. The complexity and fragility of our situations challenge us all and invite us to an
effective and solidary communion. It is important to open up to mutual help among the
provinces. Is this not what was lived throughout the whole history of the Institute? It is this
which will help us to transcend our fears and insecurities faced with a future which
preoccupies us all, and to free ourselves from individualism or self-sufficiency which form an
obstacle and diminish our communion and commitment to the same mission.
6.8 The Spirit is at work in the shared mission. The document “Starting afresh from Christ”
invites us to go even farther in collaboration and confirms what we have retained in the last
general chapters. “The communion which consecrated persons are called to live goes far
beyond their own religious family or Institute. Opening themselves to communion with other
institutes and other forms of consecration, they can spread communion, rediscover their
common Gospel roots and together grasp the beauty of their own identity in the variety of
charisms with greater clarity, like shoots on the same vine. They should compete in mutual
esteem (cf. Rm 12: 10), striving for the greater gift, charity (cf. 1 Cor 12: 12) (Starting afresh
from Christ, nº 30).
6.9 At the heart of our mission of authority, there is the grasp of the great mystery of the
presence of God today. Are we really consecrated to the one and incarnate God? How can we
renew our experience of God in order to discern his presence at work in the groanings and
expectations of our world? To give a spiritual and apostolic vitality to the sisters, to the
communities, is the principal mission of the provincial. In supporting a consistency of life,
she enables communion to grow in the province, and from this very fact, in the Institute, the
Church and the world.

Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to
behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the
world… I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which
thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (Jn 17: 24 and 26).
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The first day, we allowed to mount up within us questions we had: why me? How can that be
done? Concerns … prevent me from loving the Lord. According as the days passed and the
rereading of these first months advanced, we became more aware that the choice came from
the Father. He gives us the mission of his Son, Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not
by constraint but willingly, according to God (cf. 1 P 5: 2).
Although the choice does not depend on us, nevertheless grace was given to each of us
according to the measure of Christ’s gift (cf. Eph 4: 7) and we know that his gift is limitless.
It is the Love of God in us in order to live the service confided to us, that of loving, serving,
giving ourselves, living our vocation until the end so that others may live theirs fully, God’s
project for them.
This service has its source in the Eucharist where each one receives her mission “Do this in
memory of me”, and her sending “Go”. The Eucharist, celebration of Life, is one with our
most basic human experiences. Even if these are beyond us, we can look at them with hope,
the hope which opens our hearts to the Passion of Christ for us and for the world.
“Communion, this word fills me”, Mary of the Passion tells us. “Jesus consumed in me and for
me, consume me in You and for You, that my whole life may be a Eucharistic communion.”
(NS 356).
Christiane Mégarbané fmm
Superior General
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