INTERNATIONAL MISSIONARY CONGRESS OFM Conv Cochin, India January 12 22, 2006 MARAGNO VALENTINO Human Promotion and Mission : Anthony, Gospel and Charity 2006 1
MARAGNO Valentino Human Promotion and Mission: St. Anthony, Gospel and Charity (Contribution of CPM and Saint Anthony s Charities of the Paduan Province of St. Anthony) Translation by Daniel Pietrzak 1. INTRODUCTION: Community thoughts from the spirit of the Jubilee. A path to be walked together. The world in which we live and work is continuously changing: this fact is not of secondary importance, and heavily conditions our choices, objectives and any spiritual and missionary paths we may tread, despite the fact that our fundamental values remain valid and unchanged (Gospel, Magisterium, Francis ) In fact, a close look at our immediate environment reveals deep problems experienced by people, families and groups. We are deeply involved with situations, which require of us the capacity to listen with care and empathy to the people and their experiences. The time has therefore arrived for us to develop a spirituality based on poverty, the giving of oneself, common sharing and hope. Whenever we speak of poverty, either in our own countries or in the world at large, we note a threefold aspect to poverty: - a poverty generated by lack of material or primary necessities: food, clothing, health, housing, work, education, this is the poverty we know best, the one we meet most frequently, and against which we are most active. This type of poverty is rising and is increasingly affecting even whole family households. - A poverty generated by a lack of human relationships: loneliness, abandonment, lack of care, the forsaking of certain categories of people (the elderly, the mentally ill, prison inmates, the handicapped, immigrants, single-parent families, minors, adolescents, ). This type of poverty does not generally require material resources, but a human presence and the entry into a community, the being together with others and the establishing of healthy social relationships, - A poverty generated by a lack of meaning and values in one s life and in that of others (forms of self-destruction: drugs, alcohol, bulimia and anorexia, fast driving, thrill-seeking, gambling,.) When faced by this threefold cry emerging from contemporary humanity we increasingly feel, within our Franciscan circles, the need to cultivate a spirituality in which the way we listen to God s word will transform itself into a piercing sword, a bringer of good news which demands a reaction where life is most offended, degraded and crucified. The spirituality necessary to give soul and substance to our works of charity is the spirituality of hope which is capable of endurance in the face of trials and failures, a spirituality which accepts the labours of even the less gratifying tasks, which sees a path of salvation even in the most degraded of human situations, and which is capable of creating embarrassment to the spirit which feels satisfaction at the achievements of efficiency. 2
It is a spirituality which becomes and which uses the lessons learnt from facts, and which evaluates itself on them. This spirituality does not so much seek to be present and active everywhere, rather it is inspired by the certainty that faith is not only restricted to its profession, but that faith also exists in those forms in which it incarnates. It is a spirituality which at times leads us to propose, for Franciscan communities and parishes, ways of life which are sometimes alternative to current modes and culture. 2. APOSTOLIC WORK AREAS My experiences with the brothers of my Province are currently directed into four areas of apostolicpastoral commitments, each of which constitutes a way of living and incarnating the Franciscan Charisma: The educational, formative area in the broadest sense of the term; this also comprises permanent and initial formation, and also vocational work. The pastoral area, in other words the apostolic service in all its diverse forms: ministry in Conventual churches and in shrines, and in particular in parishes; culture and instruments of social communication: MSA (The Messenger of Saint Anthony) The social-charitable area, with those works inspired by the figure of St. Anthony and his care for the poorest; The area of the missio ad gentes with its peculiar note of first proclamation, but today also of re-proclamation (new evangelisation), in its attention toward other cultures and the interreligious dialogue. I will dwell on the last two areas of apostolic-pastoral commitment, which are relevant to the contribution I have been asked to make during this conference, and which is also connected to my work in the Province. Charity and missionary area: a fruitful path, a legacy to be re-proposed in a creative way. Franciscans have always developed solidarity and cum-passion with the poor and downtrodden upon Saint Francis invitation: The friars must be happy when they are living among lowly despised people, among the poor and the weak, among the sickly and lepers, and among beggars by the wayside (Rnb XI). Our Province, which recognises in St Anthony an acclaimed inspirer of particular forms of evangelisation, education and charity has developed, in the course of the last century, various forms of charity connected to single friaries and the Basilica of Our Saint in Padua. However, it is especially from the 70 s onwards that the Province has renewed its sensitivity for fragile human situations. It has transformed the Messenger of Saint Anthony into a primary tool for evangelising the poor. It has re-launched the missio ad gentes by establishing Saint Anthony s Charities and the Secretariat for the Missions. Moreover, it has encouraged every friary to grow in its charity toward the poor, while a new and fitting awareness is growing about friars who have fallen ill or are too old. The path we have taken has made us increasingly aware that, to outline the future of doing works of charity in the Province or in a mission, is not so much a problem of works to be eliminated or added, rather is it a problem of what meaning is to be attached to the spirituality of sharing. This motivational attitude cannot fail to interest all our friaries, all of the ministries of the friars. In 3
short it is a culture of charity-sharing which should be cultivated within our communities so that a common identity may arise, an identity which will engrave itself during the formation of our young friars and become a collective mission. To this end we have become aware that social-charitable works are significant when they are promoted by the community of the friars through an austere and brotherly lifestyle, always willing to help one s neighbour. It is not so much solitary pioneers that are needed but evangelising communities. Obviously, the friary is the first place of hospitality, of reconciliation and of the exercise of daily charity, first of all among the friars themselves. The friary chapter becomes the place in which differences, rather than causing divisions, confirm personal identity and strengthen relationships. It is also important that our convents be seen not so much as distributors of religious services but rather as focal points of an anthropological culture based on the Gospel, ready and willing for peaceful dialogue and to interact with optimism and open mindedness with all that is new and different around them, and willing to renew the mind and the heart. For example: in the dialogue with non-catholic Christians and other religious and cultural diversities, we can experience a new culture of peace by simply using our style of life and the values we believe in. In its encounter with the poor the friary must not feel itself an isolated oasis from the rest of the society and the network of solidarity. It is important to collaborate in a generous way with the Church s charitable organisations, with centres which offer aid to life, with family help centres and with volunteer organisations. 3. ANTHONY: GOSPEL AND CHARITY Three proposals for mission and human promotion: - The Provincial Mission Centre (CPM-Centro provinciale Missioni) - Saint Anthony s Charities - Sistema Francescantoniano I would briefly like to recall the main objectives that have guided in these years the Provincial Mission Centre (CPM) and Saint Anthony s Charities in their relationship with our missionaries and other bodies we have been in solidarity with. A. The CPM in collaboration with Franciscan communities in Italy and in the missions: PROMOTES: the proclamation of the gospel and the values of solidarity and justice between peoples; COORDINATES: the activities of mission animation in the community of our religious Province; PROMOTES: exchanges between our religious communities and young churches in mission, by collaborating in formation, in pastoral work and in charity. The most significant initiatives of the CPM are open to three levels of missionary collaboration: formational pastoral- solidarity FORMATIONAL: 4
To our missionaries and lay people who leave for or return to the missions, we indicate as a centre of formation the CUM of Verona. This is the organism of the pastoral mission of the CEI (The Italian Catholic Bishops Conference) which every year offers courses both in Italy and abroad on Latin America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. This is a good experience of interchange and formation between churches and the missionaries of the various religious institutes, and offers a common experience and mutual growth. Recently the inter-franciscan proposals of Brussels for those missionary friars who are about to leave constitute, for us, new opportunities for a fuller cooperation and missionary formation. The year of Franciscan volunteer service: for the formation, besides the CUM, we have, in our opinion, a valid reference point in the Villaggio S. Antonio for a volunteer service in Italy and in the Centro Missionario OFS in Tuscany, Italy, for couples or lay people about to leave on a mission. Lately, even the Basilica of Our Saint in Padua is offering opportunities in volunteer service, coordinated by Fr. Christian Borghesi. The choice of donating a year for our brothers, either in Italy or in the missions, can constitute a precious opportunity to grow and learn in depth the meaning of one s own life; it is an experience not only of simple collaboration but also of responsible sharing. The monastery of Montericco and the school of peace education promoted by Fr. Danilo Salezze and by the Commission for Justice, Peace and Safeguard of Creation, offers to all of us, friars and lay, precious places where we may pray and read together in the light of Franciscan values. These formative possibilities can open for us a path which values community and educational resources and, at the same time, direct us on the path that the Church is suggesting for evangelisation and the practice of charity. PASTORAL: In these years the CPM has promoted an intense collaboration between our communities in Italy and those in the missions in order to promote mutual knowledge and growth. Particular emphasis is given to the formation of catechists and of young seminarians for our missions, the future guides of the young churches, as with other missionary realities indicated by the Order, in particular the new missions opened in these years. The formative work of the various printing presses in our missions has also been sustained because of their precious cultural and pastoral contributions. The missionary days have brought about twin-relationships between most of our Italian communities and those in the missions, thus enlarging that close network of fraternal relationships which create the solidarity tissue which our province has always maintained with our brothers, both when they are working in the missions, and when they are welcomed in our communities during a rest period in Italy. It is becoming clearer that more mutual knowledge deepens along with the missionary exchange the more will we appreciate the gifts that the spirit is maturing in a thousand ways in our own people and communities at the service of the Kingdom of God for the benefit of many poor people who daily cry out to the Lord. The Basilica of Our Saint in Padua, with its facilities, stages during the year various missionary activities and animation days. 5
It also welcomes the friars of the missions who come to Italy to benefit from ongoing formation or to experience the Franciscan or Anthonian places. Finally, the summer experiences of numerous priests and churchmen of other nations in our Franciscan shrines favours mutual understanding and a brotherly vision open to the most diverse realities within our Order. SOLIDARITY: Mutual knowledge and the interchange with the community in the missions has developed a network of relationships of solidarity which range from distance adoptions, canteens for the poor, to the establishing of centres for the shipment of basic necessities during humanitarian crises. Today, distance adoption offers to the Italian public a wide range of proposals. The CPM, in unison with the missionaries who are our main contact people, proposes distance adoption as: - solidarity aid, (which does not create dependency) for minors, families and adults in grave difficulties, which can guarantee them a normal lifestyle and that human warmth necessary for the wholesome growth of the human person and his entry into society. - How it is brought about: one or more families send every year a certain agreed sum of money to a person in a parish or in some religious community. The adoption fees collected are then sent by the CPM to the missionaries who, together with their collaborators, will decide (through their knowledge of the locality and the conditions of the potential beneficiaries) the best and most pedagogically opportune way to solve the problems of the adopted people and their families. The missionaries will, in their turn, inform the families and the communities in Italy through a report and exchange of letters and documents of the real effectiveness of the operations. - The adoptions aim primarily to: Prevent family abandonment and the exploitation of child labour by promoting education and access to schooling. Salvage street children and overcome child prostitution. Prevent and cure infective diseases and malnourishment. In these last years we have also initiated solidarity cooperation with some local charities (Caritas) of our Fraternity in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Romania and Ghana. The aim is to sustain those communities who have committed themselves, in friary chapters and pastoral meetings, to read and study together the territory, and find adequate pastoral and social solutions. In fact, it is important to focus on the local and provincial Fraternities to ensure a solid relationship with the missions. Finally, we dedicate particular attention to those missionaries who are working in the most dangerous areas, such as the pastoral of the landless in Brasil and of the temporeros in the desert of Atacama in Chile or in the numerous favelas of the great cities where we are present as a Province and as an Order. 6
The interchange between our Fraternities in Italy and those in the missions enables us to: open together the book of the Mission, to discover how, anywhere in the world, for love of the gospel and to serve man, many brothers and sisters are living. This provides great wealth to our churches: awakening a passion for the missions which always produces tangible results, storng strong and tangible signs of pastoral renewal. (The Love of Christ drives us on: n. 3) B. SAINT ANTHONY S CHARITIES, established in 1976, aims to: a. Carry out works of charity and promotion in favour of people or groups in situations of grave need by using the resources that the subscribers of the Messenger of Saint Anthony magazine and other devotees of Our Saint around the world donate for projects in the poorest developing countries. b. Operational strategies to streamline missionary and charitable collaboration in the Province and in the missions: - Relationships between the Province and the friaries: Saint Anthony s Charities and the CPM are not substitutes for the charitable and missionary activities of the individual communities of the Province and the Missions; they can, instead, sustain them and participate in them or indicate situations of need, and the ways to assist them. - The current method of the interventions: The fundamental aim of Saint Anthony s Charities and the CPA remains, however, that of avoiding any form of welfarism by seeing to it that their assistance be of the promotional type, limited in time and, possibly, capable of resolving problems and bringing them to closure. Operation strategies of Saint Anthony s Charities approved also by the CPM: - the choice of some geographical areas or particular countries in which to operate on a systematic basis, by involving the local partners in stable relationships that will guarantee long term collaboration when the project is completed. This will assure that the social, economic and spiritual changes introduced by the project will root themselves deeply in the population and reduce to the uttermost the fragmentary character of the help offered. - Micro-projects that address specific needs and which can be directed easily so that selfsufficiency is guaranteed for the future. This assistance must be of significant economic weight, have a somewhat unique character and be well-thought out beforehand, especially regarding the way the project will be governed in the long run. - Cooperation with non-governmental Associations (NGOs) for complex projects. In such cases it is important to have transparency and a guarantee of visibility. Example: Project 2003-2005: Nascere senza AIDS in Tanzania [Birth Without Aids in Tanzania] in collaboration with doctors for Africa of the CUAMM of Padua and the 16 medical clinics run by the diocese of Dar Es Salaam.) - Privileged backing of the Missionaries and of the local churches. The June projects 7
Promoted by Saint Anthony s Charities in 2005 were carried out with the collaboration of the Friars Minor Conventual who were at the forefront of the missions in four poor countries of the world: - Burkina Faso: a sanitary clinic offering first aid - Brazil: State of Bahia, the Church s campaign Agua de Chuva : 300 water wells to collect rainwater. - Indonesia: after the tsunami at Banda Aceh, the reconstruction of 45 houses. - India: Kerala. Our friars are running a clinic for AIDS victims. - Financing study and work grants for every school grade and age group. These grants are an integral part of local projects to develop the level of culture. - Choice of themes that ensure that the projects have a certain underlying unity in the course of the social year. - First Aid in the case of calamities and natural disasters - Finally, to assure a better involvement of the whole Fraternity, every project sent to the CPM or to Saint Anthony s Charities must receive the written approval of the local friary Chapter and of the Provincial Definitory. If a diocesan parish is involved, the written approval of the bishop is necessary. The Friary and Parish Caritas, a service of animation with a missionary face. Within a cultural and social context which is constantly changing, we ask ourselves: - How can we express charity and human promotion(development) at the same time? - What contributions can Caritas offer to a parish community so that it may increasingly assume a missionary face? Animation means for Caritas primarily to favour the development of five tasks: - Knowledge of all needs, both the known ones and the less known ones, the expressed ones and unexpressed ones; - Analyse the available resources to address real needs; - Charity education for the whole parish, in other words giving substance and visibility to the project God has for humanity: for all of us to live together as His family - Formation of the pastoral operators of charity and those Christians involved in social public or private services and in the activities of human promotion. - Coordinate the various charity and assistance groups inspired by the Christian faith by helping them to work together as church. The development of these tasks contributes to the breaking of the bread of charity, and thus to nourishing our faith. In fact, The bread of the word of God and the bread of charity, just like the bread of the Eucharist, are not different types of bread: they are the same person of Jesus who gives himself to humanity and involves his disciples in his act of love for the Father and the brothers (ETC,1). If we really make the contemplation of Christ our starting point, we should be able to see him in the face of those who he himself has desired to identify with because he is especially present in the poor, and this compels the Church to a preferential option in their favour. (NMI, 49) How then can we harmonise in our missions efficiency (which sometimes requires the use of substantial amounts of money for the initiatives of human promotion) with the efficiency of the Gospel, which instead calls for a very limited use of money? Once again, a constant discernment on the part of the whole community is requited: the whole people of God, moved by faith and led by the Spirit of the Lord, must be involved in discerning in the events, in the demands and aspirations, which it shares with other men, what are the real signs of the presence and designs of God. (GS, 11) 8
From this the need arises to educate ourselves and to educate our donors in the evangelical use of money. Charity without justice is not sufficient. And justice requires that we leave to others what is their rightful due: their rights, their freedoms, their dignity and responsibilities. All of us need to understand that justice alone will bring peace. For us Franciscans justice can, for example, mean to: - Use money together with a more sober lifestyle: to combat hunger change your lifestyle, to spread, as our late Pope used to say, a new model of development which pays attention to religious and ethical values. Use money in well-informed way for the real problems of the poor for whom it is destined, in order that justice and solidarity may grow and mature. Gather information also from the religious communities and the churches in which the missionaries are working for a mutual enrichment. - Designate money for the formation of catechists, ministers of the Word, teachers in schools, pastoral operators of the earth, for micro-credit and for sanitary assistance, besides material works, especially when they are not urgent or necessary. We often do in fact realize that projects and people must come before the construction of buildings, because only qualified and educated operators will be able to use them as real centres of evangelisation and human promotion. - Invest money in micro-projects: small projects are often the best way to address the real needs of the inhabitants in some place. These projects must actively involve the beneficiaries themselves and can be easily run by them after they have been educated to do so. Great works have often shown great limits; they require great sums of money, which then turns out to be difficult to direct in the right way, even for missionaries. Great works are easy prey to crisis and failures which then penalise the poor. Once the missionary who guaranteed the financing of the project has left, the economic aid also often terminates and the projects wind down. The price the poor then pay is disappointment and the loss of economic hope. - When a project is presented for approval, demand that it be the fruit of a joint decision between the pastoral advisory board and the people, and that it be in communion with the superior or the local bishop. This is because, for a Fraternity in mission, the main objective is to enter into communion with a culture and a young church, and learn together patience, humility and respect in order to share close relationships with those brothers in our care. - Commit ourselves as Franciscans, as far as we can, so that those structures of sin and injustice towards the poor countries may become structures of solidarity and human promotion. - Move from welfarism to formation. There is still a way of helping the poor that makes of them mere beneficiaries of money pouring in from outside. This will not allow them to grow as persons, it does not set them on their feet as Dom Helder Camara used to say. - Francis and Anthony are masters in this, and point out to us a path which starts from working for the poor to being with the poor until one lives as the poor. - Initiate with the missionaries a fraternal dialogue on the ecclesiastical aspects of their communities as regards the liturgy, the catechesis, Bible reading and charity, in order to reach mutual understanding and discernment. 9
- In the friary and parish communities the creation of a Caritas group should be promoted which will involve in particular all those who share our charism (OFS, MI, GIFRA). Intercultural exchange, twinning, and distance adoptions are to be promoted as forms of sharing. - To promote the evangelical quality of the economic choices, work should be put into assuring a fair distribution of the goods in the friaries of the Province, between Provinces and the Order. Establish between the Provinces, the delegations and the missions of the Order a fraternal network of missionary relationships and exchanges for a common growth at the formative, pastoral and solidarity level. 3. Proposal of Collaboration with the Order: Sistema Francescantoniano (See attachment: Fr. Paolo Floretta) 4. CONCLUSION: The view from below is not to be programmed, it just happens! It is not an extraordinary event reserved for particular categories of people. Instead, it has to do with everyday life, where God walks and becomes incarnate: You have eyes and see not, the itinerant teacher in Galilee continues to say. She had eyes and saw are the most beautiful words of praise spoken about Mother Teresa of Calcutta by Pier Paolo Pasolini, an acute observer of life, who wrote of her, Sister Teresa is a women with a sweet gaze, who, wherever she turns her eyes, sees. This is very different from a lot of charity which gives without seeing and therefore without really meeting the other human being. Francis, the poverello of Assisi, embraced the bitter leper, and receives sweetness as a reward, that which, at sight, seemed bitter became sweetness in my soul and body. Francis sees clearly that the leper, who is driven out of the polis is an ugly human being, and to embrace him is a bitter experience, but he knows that he(the leper) is the bearer of a secret inner beauty (Vittorio Nozza). Fr. Valentino Maragno 10