INSTITUTE OF THE BETHLEMITE SISTERS DAUGHTERS OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS. General House. CIRCULAR LETTER No. 5A

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1 INSTITUTE OF THE BETHLEMITE SISTERS DAUGHTERS OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS General House CIRCULAR LETTER No. 5A Bogotá, January 20, 2015 Subj. Day of the Consecrated Life Year of the CL N.1 Provincial Sister Leena Medabalimi Sisters of the local communities Holy Brother Pedro Province Dear sisters, Do receive my fraternal greeting and my prayers before the Lord. To celebrate the day of the Consecrated Life I want to make a simple reflection taking the letter that His Holiness Francis sent to his companions for Christmas. I take the fifteen points presented by the Pope in a Bethlemite perspective, so they can become suggestions to encourage us and commit us with more zeal and enthusiasm every day. His Holiness conceives the organization of the Roman Curia as a body. It is a beautiful image that takes us to reflect about the importance of the 1

2 body that, we as Bethlemites, take part of: we are ecclesial body, congregational body, and apostolic body; Body of Christ to the service of our brothers and sisters. The Holy Father invites us to revise the body and for this, he presents some clues. As I told you before, I take the essential parts of his message applied to our life. 1. Understanding our smallness It is wonderful to understand that we are limited, finite, small, as small is the Babe Jesus in the poverty-humility of Bethlehem who opens his arms to welcome and smile. We live and serve with the simplicity and generosity of the poor one who knows how to give himself and give the very best of himself all the time. We do what we can and God makes his best: He gives a dimension of infinite to our humble service. Our smallness is immersed in the plenitude of God: Assume in our personal reality the charismatic poverty that will take us to live, at the example of Christ, the despoliation of ourselves and the detachment of our criteria to express our absolute trust in God. CD, Poverty, L As our father Pedro used to say: Your life should go between Martha and Mary. Indeed, weariness comes frequently to our lives, to our communities, to our apostolic works. Often our conversations are about everything we do. Sometimes the mission gets blurred and it is turned into sterile work, in percentages, in indicators. Frequently, we anxiously want to see better performance in the management, as if our mission would be creating and managing an enterprise. To have an appropriate balance is urgent. We need to cultivate what gives meaning to our life: the relationship with the Lord, the listening to the Word, prayer, the liturgical and sacramental life, the formation, the Evangelical gaze at the world and the commitment to mission. CD, Identity, L. 4. 2

3 3. To maintain the human sensitivity that enables us to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice. HH Francis The CD Identity, L.2 invites us to cultivate a deep sensitivity; to be and to serve with the Lord s human sensitivity: In fidelity to the charism of our Founders, we are called to the contemplation of the Incarnate Word at two decisive moments of His life: the birth in Bethlehem and the death on the Cross (Const. 2a), in perfect communion with the will of the Father. Let us commit ourselves to agree with His feelings and attitudes, and to live the poverty-humility characteristics of our Bethlemite identity. (cf. Const. 28; John 4, 34; Hebrews 10, 7). 4. To be attentive to the novelty of the Holy Spirit. A valuable trait of our apostolic life is organization; our communities and apostolic works cultivate very interesting approaches for planning and developing the tasks. It is important, always and in every circumstance, to be open and docile to the action of the Spirit that makes new all the things. This openness recreates and brings freshness to life and mission. As HH Francis says: Things need to be prepared well, but without ever falling into the temptation of trying to contain and direct the freedom of the Holy Spirit, which is always greater and more flexible than any human planning. 5. Strengthen ourselves as body The CD, Identity L.16, states: To advance in the construction of an "Apostolic we" at the provincial, interprovincial and Congregational level, in order to stimulate and strengthen the mission in the Church. And in Mission, L.27, the invitation is to Create networks of participation, solidarity, learning and communication. The concept of network is highly meaningful in this process of strengthening ourselves as body. 3

4 A network is conceived as the group of nodes connected by signals (Network = nodes + connections + signals). In our case, the nodes are the local communities which are called to strengthen the links among each other to all the levels, to cultivate relationships for fraternal interchange and sharing. The signals reveal the quality of the links. Let us not remain isolated; let us strengthen our relationships. 6. Keeping alive the fire of the fist love We have a charism and a spirituality that we must enhance, intensify and live. Let us make of ourselves specialists of Bethlehem and of its teachings; assiduous to the Gospel and to the Constitutions. Let us not be satisfied with living from what others have found and have brought. Let us be evangelically restless and follow the example of our Lady the Holy Mary who, after the message from the Angel, rose to visit her cousin Elizabeth to sanctify, with the child she was carrying in her womb, everything that grew, flourished, and came to life around Him. (Leading thread XXIIGC, CD page 17). 7. To serve with humility The invitation is to go to Bethlehem to grow in that poverty-humility lived by those who contemplate the mystery of the Incarnate Word: The mystery of the Incarnation, the CD says in page 27, illuminates our life and our commitment to live the poverty which "fosters inner freedom and fits us for our apostolic service" (Const. 47). The testimony of life of our Holy Founders demands a lifestyle that becomes visible in the world as the love of the Word made flesh, who did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2, 6). Sisters, let us go to Bethlehem as the CD is teaching us in page 25: To turn to the grotto of Bethlehem means to remove the sandals of privilege, of power, of prestige, of pride, of arrogance, of vanity and to get rid of 4

5 whatever hinders our relationship with the poor and the humble God of the manger. 8. Conversion To live in process of conversion is extremely necessary for us, since we have placed the Lord in the center of our lives. The CD in poverty states in L1: Starting from the contemplation of Christ, poor in Bethlehem and His dispossession and total abandonment on the Cross, to live in an attitude of conversion that will take us to bear witness to the transcendence of the Kingdom by the living experience of the poverty of spirit, as well as of the material goods. We are aware about the fact that some of the difficulties we face in our mission lie in the way we relate to others. Let us review our lives in the exercise of the evangelizing mission, and with the example of our Founders, let us strive to reproduce the attitudes of the Lord Jesus who sacrificed Himself and went to the death to save and defend His flock. (Leading thread XXIIGC, CD, page 15). 9. Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent. (Phil 2: 14-18) The Chapter Document in the section devoted to formation, states the need we have of strengthening our community dimension to live it in the style of our holy founders. We learn from them that love is the heart of fraternal life. As our Mother Encarnacion tells us: let everything be lost but charity. We also understand this when we contemplate our Father Pedro, the man who was charity. Following this idea, the invitation for us is to strengthen in each one of the communities, the charismatic attitudes of poverty-humility that are lived and reflected in: forgiveness, mercy, hospitality, dialogue, acceptance of differences and concern for each other. CD, Formation, L.11. 5

6 10. To order affection. Give the right place to creatures. We are called to live an intense and deep relationship with the world, with the creatures, with the temporal goods, but we should never confuse the goods of the Lord with the Lord giver of goods. We are tools in the hands of the Lord. We are workers of his vineyard. The CD, in the introductory reflection of the lines of action for poverty, clearly states where the heart of a Bethlemite should be: The Bethlemite poverty is based in the contemplation of the Word poor and humble in Bethlehem and in His commitment on the Cross. This experience leads us to an authentic commitment to dispossession of ourselves and of all that which is not essential for the construction of the Kingdom. 11. Open ourselves to the we, leave our small worlds His Holiness calls to leave indifference. In our case, I speak about the need of going out from our communities, from the small securities we have, from the nest we have built in the local community. Let us not be resigned with our small circle. Let us open the arms to welcome the world in need of God, in order to help and bring light to the dark night of our brethren with the light of Christ. 12. An apostle must make an effort to be courteous, serene, enthusiastic and joyful, a person who transmits joy everywhere he goes. HH Francis. One of the most meaningful witness we give nowadays as religious is that of an authentic fraternal communion: look how they love each other. It is the best vocational promotion: Engage ourselves in the construction of communities that express joy, peace and serenity, as an integral part of our identity of consecrated Bethlemites. These characteristics are the result of the presence of God, who acts in us, dispose us to prayer, free us from fears and infuses strength, moves to conversion and to hope. CD, Identity, L.11. 6

7 13. To live unencumbered by baggage In the XXII GC of the Institute, the capitular sisters called us in different ways to live the poverty-humility that should characterize our Bethlemite life. The CD in page 26 presents to us three important ways to live unencumbered by baggage: The contemplation of Christ who embodies and lives poverty commits us to three attitudes: acknowledging the generosity of God, living in a constant emptying of ourselves, sharing with others what we are and have. Usually we have much more of what we need and we get easily attached to many things: places, goods and different kind of resources, relationships, ways of life, types of work, timetables, programs, All of this is useful and valuable, but when it comes to be available it generates difficulties and even conflicts. The Holy Father says: Accumulating goods only burdens and inexorably slows down the journey. 14. We are a body, neither divided parts nor small groups that forget the Body and even Christ. The Congregation lives a time of transition in many of its scenarios; a transition that obviously will not spare suffering and cross. Indeed the bridge generation (group of years old) is called to help in an active and dynamic way in this process. We are, from our origins, fighters and enterprising. The Bethlemite sisters have the trait of service and self-sacrifice, of effort and work. Now, more than ever, it is necessary to strengthen the relationships between generations. We need the elder sisters to be mothers and teachers who guide the way from their plenitude and wisdom. We need the young sisters to be docile to welcome and accept. We need the bridge generation be like the arms of Christ: open in plenitude to help the Congregation in order to embrace and support. 7

8 Let us maintain together, in total communion, the torch of the charism and, let us strengthen with our commitment the fire of love. Every time has its charm; every time has its struggles; every time has had and has in the Lord its greatest charm for whom every struggle, every effort, every commitment is valuable. 15. To live the example of Mary, Our Lady of Bethlehem Mary appears in the plan of God as the faithful virgin, the one who says Yes to God and embraces his will in obedience by faith. In Incarnation, God demands from her an attitude of love and poverty to receive the Word and give it to the world. For us the dynamism of spiritual life should be expressed in a continuous answer of love and fidelity as the one of Mary. Constitutions 77. Dear sisters, may the celebration of February 2nd, day of the consecrated life, be for each one of us an opportunity to thank our vocation, to thank the mission that the Lord entrusts us, to pray for vocations. I WISH YOU A JOYFUL CELEBRATION OF THE DAY OF THE CONSECRATED LIFE Fraternally, Diana Lucia Torres Bonilla, Bethlemite General Superior 8