Formation and Mission: The International Houses of Formation (Summary)

INTERNATIONAL MISSION CONGRESS OFM Conv Cochin, Kerala, India January12 22, 2006 PEIXOTO JORGE OSCAR Formation and Mission: The International Houses of Formation (Summary) 2006 1

PEIXOTO JORGE OSCAR Introduction Formation and Mission: The International Houses of Formation (this is a summary of the Original Spanish text) Translation by Daniel Pietrzak 1. - The Christian world has become very familiar with dialogue in recent times. In fact, mission through enculturation seems to be one of the great contributions inspired by the Spirit and emphasised by the Second Vatican Council. Dialogue with culture and with others belongs to the profound mission of the Church, which directs the proclamation of the Christian message in the world. The encounter with cultural diversities via religious dialogue brings the traditional Christian meaning of mission to maturity. The light guiding us comes from the Gospel. It calls us to transcend our boundaries; it becomes necessary to discard our stereotypes or mindsets and open ourselves to the Gospel toward a communion founded on love. 2.- Furthermore, we are challenged to live our communion in multiculturality, particularly in the relationship between the missionary and the people, and between the friars in formation originating from different circumscriptions. We must be disposed to accept others as gifts, different, and unique. To create the proper mind-set and disposition, we cannot continue to think of individual houses of formation as insulated from the universal dimension of the Order; confined to their local concerns, without the experience of diversity. The nature of formation demands the capacity to transcend nationalism or regionalism to aim toward interculturality in an ecclesiology of communion in accord with the mission of the Church and the demands of consecrated life. 3.- Permit me to make a brief presentation of international formation in service of interculturality for the purpose of mission with a programme of education in which people learn to live together, think, pray and work together, in the spirit of interculturality. A. FROM INTERNATIONALITY AS MULTICULTURALITY TO INTERCULTURALITY 4. - Interculturality moves beyond the experience of internationality as multiculturality (the juxtaposition of friars from different cultures in the same community) which has been present, e.g. at the Seraphicum, in some mission areas and some special communities such as the Sacro Convento. Interculturality exists as an itinerary, as a process or a journey that seeks to foster a new level of relation with others without prejudices. It seeks to unite the two essential aspects of intercultural relations: encounter and diversity. It cannot be imposed just as on one can impose dialogue. In interculturality, both identity and diversity are affirmed, but there is a movement toward interdependence and exchange. It means more than just being together, it implies convergence. 5.- Interculturality is a movement of reciprocity. It strives to overcome any prejudice in the transmission of knowledge. The mind is fixed on the point of view of others as well as our own: their life history, their origin, their stories, and their world of fantasies. In the area of affection it implies empathy. In the field of education it would result in esteem, respect and appreciation for the culture of others which goes beyond mere curiosity and folklore. 6. - As Franciscans, by interculturality, we mean fraternity without boundary. Further, we use interculturality to mean the creation of space for the service of intercultural relations. 2

Interculturality and universal Franciscan fraternity are two inseparable realities. Interculturality underscores mutual respect for one another s differences. 7. - The goal of interculturality is intimately connected with our life as disciples of the Lord Jesus. It is the way of living in relationship with others, feeling responsible for and being in solidarity with the poor, loving and being loved, thinking and wishing, living the suffering and joys of others, and finally the self offering which leads even to the cross. One cannot unite himself with the attitudes of Christ and Him Crucified without accepting the diversity of others, without renouncing ethnocentricity and without climbing the ladder of humility for intercultural coexistence. Education for Interculturality in an International House of Formation 8.- Intercultural education can be described as the attitude of learning to learn within our relationship with God, with others, with one self and with the community. It consists of allowing oneself to be provoked and formed by daily life in such a way that every event and every encounter becomes a call and a formative moment. It is life-long. Intercultural education means to live in a perennial state of education, embracing new things and transforming what has been learned. Such a predisposition has been termed docibilitas, that is, docibility. (Docibility is much more than docility: it means allowing oneself to be taught and allowing oneself to be touched by the lives of others). This implies a continuous conversion, at every age and in whatever existential context, with the intelligence of the spirit, with active and responsible choices, with interior liberty and capacity to relate to others. Finally, intercultural education presents docibilitas as a basic model for formation for the Franciscan life. B. DIMENSIONS AND LITTLE EDUCATIVE ITINERARY 9. Although we know where we ought to go, we have not yet developed clear ideas as how to get there. How does one arrive at the freedom of heart; so that we can remain open and serene in intercultural sharing. How do we free ourselves from certain expectations and pretensions, from conventual models constructed in other times? How do we remain willing, in the face of new attractions and certain institutional aspirations, to affirm our own culture while remaining open to new cultural expressions? One thing is sure: we need to model ourselves on the Poor and Crucified Jesus who draws us closer to other and expresses itself in a preferential option for the poor. 10.- In formation when we talk of being a disciple of Jesus we recognise the urgency to reach out with evangelical love somehow towards every confrere of the Order in a felt relation of brotherhood. Indifference would be its staunchest enemy in the creation of a universal fraternity. In reality, an intercultural pedagogy invites us to see evangelical love as the decision for otherness and diversity, a commitment to make real our experience of fraternity, in the first place, with all our brothers without distinction. 11.- Franciscanism, rather than being a doctrine, is a way of being and living, expressed in the relational dimensions with God, others, and all creatures. In the Franciscan vision we overcome the situation of rupture, sin and conflict; and we work on what is common to every creature by nature, and what man with reason informed by faith comes to know and understand. In creation everything is intertwined in such a way as to require the existence of the other. On the human level, each person possesses a relative autonomy with a sense of one s basic value. We all live in continuous reciprocity. In a culture where one expression, one set of values, dominates, the loss of the bonding becomes apparent, since minorities lose their sense of worth and become powerless. On the contrary, as Franciscans, we are called to relate with attitudes based on shared sentiment, 3

respect, gratitude, communion and gratuity, for the gifts of each person and the value of each created thing. We resist every desire of appropriation. We refuse to appropriate to ourselves. 12.- This permanent rupture of bonding can be overcome with a spirituality which continuously bring us back to the original bonding, to the primacy of the goodness of God, Who has gratuitously willed to create us and Who invites us to accept creation as His gift of love. The Franciscan translates the rationality of the gratuitous love of God into a new way of being in the world. It is a perspective without egoism and without cupidity, which eliminates every form of pride and allows us to live in the world, close to creatures, with them and not above them. Our greatest challenge in formation is to guide our young friars to adopt this logic, one of loving gratitude to a generous and self-less God. 13.- The call to live in minority is expressed in a way of life that assumes the condition of the least in society, integrating with the desire of new justice and walking with the same hope for liberty shared by all the marginalized. Just as our spirituality represents the bond and relation among everything that exists in God, so our Franciscan mission needs to emphasise these same values. Hence, the Franciscan mission is not limited to a single type of work or action; it is not a matter of institutional growth. Rather it consists of making ourselves present in the world as minors, without possessing anything of our own, in the attitude of obedience, together with all our brother and sisters, and in particular way with the poor. A minority way of relationship promotes the inclusion of those who are least and marginalized to afford them a real participation in the benefits of the economic system and to defend life against the threats of a culture of domination and death. 14.- Minority is continuous actualization of the primacy of goodness which binds the world, starting from a love without ambition nor desire of possession. The Franciscan, like Francis himself, does not ask himself how much he can possess but how much can be done with little. He avoided appropriation to arrive, through renunciation, at freedom and fraternity. The logic of goodness and freedom involves a politic of relation and a societal strategy which is capable to move the transformation of reality ahead. We are walking with others and the whole of creation because we have discovered the reality of participation, solidarity and coexistence. Our Franciscan mission is realized when we reinforce our being in solidarity and in communion with all other creatures. 15.- An international house of formation for the service of interculturality is a laboratory of inter-cultural growth with a programme of formation, which while meeting the needs of the mission charism, offers some space of viability and sharing, stimulating a change of mentality and offering guidance for a new global culture. 16.- Interculturality in an international house of formation is based on the spirituality of minority, on the education of listening and in hospitality, through meetings and intercultural dialogue as key to coexistence and fraternal relation. Interculturality proposes to establish direct contact with different styles of life, points of view, ecclesiastical concessions and theologies. It is not enough to have a new mentality. We need to interiorise it in such a way that it inspires new behaviours, nourishes new dreams and renews evangelical actions. This is the pedagogical challenge. 17.- Among the dimensions and the possible educative programmes in Franciscan formation, and the various characteristics that must distinguish an intercultural project in an international house we would like to underscore the following: a. Franciscan Fraternal Education on Interculturality: Freedom, responsibility and interdependence 4

18.- A new quality in fraternal relations: developing a welcoming attitude, a spirit of hospitality, by listening to self and to others; a proper sense of self-esteem and the capacity for communication. A mature friar knows how to listen and welcome the transcendence of others, and how to give it appropriate value. The journey of authentic formation in order to live as true brothers passes through a double discovery: of one s own dignity, and of the dignity of others. Without this acknowledgement, it is impossible to begin an intercultural experience, because otherwise some will submit, while others command. Recuperating the basis for radical equality in diversity is very necessary, because the fraternity in diversity is constructed on this equality. b. Itinerary for the Formation of Criteria of Choice and Evangelical Options 19.- It is the constant exercise of reflective activity that moves us. In fact, education helps, in formation field, to separate the superfluous from the essential, either in the area of information or in the area of messages which are received in everyday life in favour of the capacity for critical and selective choices. It means we need to grow in these criteria to resist idiosyncratic thinking or communal ideologies. In this way we will be enabled to make a suitable offering of one self for others. c. Co-responsible Fraternal Relations within the Universal Fraternity, Belongingness to the Mission Charism 20. The previous point leads us to talk about pedagogy of responsibility which spurs us to engage ourselves, to take care and to feel responsible for life in the fraternal relations in the community and in the Order. It spurs us to take responsibility and essential care for the whole of life that surrounds us. Our responsibility does not end with what we are able to see; it does not terminate with our little community projects or provincial projects; nor is it limited to our geographical boundaries. At institutional level, in the Order, one of the problems is that most of us continue to live and to see ourselves as a federation of provinces, and worse still, with an outlook of competition. Without an education based on the paradigm of interdependence it will never be possible to make ourselves present in the contemporary culture, and to live in the Order as a universal fraternity. The progress is a challenge; nevertheless, it is an invitation, at the same time, to a change of mind and heart, overcoming fears and prejudices. The emerging growth of the Order in new cultural spaces (in particular Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe) challenges us to develop a stronger identity and sense of belongingness to a universal Franciscan fraternity. The growth in new geographical areas that are far from the birthplace of Franciscanism urges us to practice effective interculturality. The international houses of formation in the service of interculturality are the most privileged places to deal with these challenges. d. Franciscan Mission as openness to Globalization and itinerancy 21. Whether we like it or not, itinerancy is a fact in our globalised world. We human beings see ourselves more as travellers with a shared culture than people anchored in traditions of the past. We are challenged in our creative capacity, more than in the repetition of tradition. To educate, today, is not a simple matter of transmitting or reproducing, forming in the service of uniformity, but learning to learn under the guidance of the form of the Gospel, to walk together with others without losing ourselves in relativism. Our convents (as a term we use to denote convergence, cum- venire) is the world with its various cultures, with service to justice and ecological coexistence, and in particular way to peace and goodness. The physical convent, established like a monastic entity, becomes ever more precarious and weak. Franciscan conventuality must be understood as the capacity to be present in different cultures, in the life of the Church, in the social and political life, beginning from the least in the society, with the proper attitudes of friars minor. We cannot ignore our own story or stop to give our contribution to a project which brings minority and fraternity to the heart of every culture to fertilize it and direct it towards the Gospel. Hence our presence, beginning from the paradigm of inter-culture, will make our friaries become, not only places, but ways of being in such places. Forming ourselves in the capacity of being creative by using the compass of the gospel is indispensable. The pedagogy of travellers, along the itinerary of 5

formation towards interculturality, is critical. This pedagogy of a journey helps us to free ourselves from stereotypes and positions which pull us and stop us. Today, more than ever, for educative assignment, we must reclaim the Socratic attitude the educator-companion who believes in and fosters hope in the birth of the new: an attitude of advent, anticipation and construction for the new time that approaches us. In an international formation community the friars practise the reception of diversity within the fraternity. They begin by going beyond their national boundaries, their language, social class, culture, and ideology, with the aim of renewing their own vision, their way of thinking and felling, to open themselves to an affective solidarity, both at the local and global level, at the same time. e. Studying Theology as Trainees in Franciscan Wisdom, and not just to acquire knowledge 22. Diversity in terms of origin in an international house of formation promotes diversity in the form and study of theology, because there is no theology detached from a given reality, from a given spirituality and a given culture. The ability of the friars to question themselves, their convictions, their certainties coming from their cultural world and backgrounds becomes incentives to a favourable journey. The right questions that transform life are raised to perceive the complexity of the real and the weakness of our current response. Therefore the newness and the difference in the way of studying theology by a Franciscan friar is not only found in the field of knowledge with its methodology but in the project of compatibility and existential consistency with the content of faith and the spirituality of the charism. What matters is not what we know or how much we come to know, but rather the decisions to which the knowledge acquired invites us. Such knowledge leads us to evangelical fidelity, and to the realization of the kingdom. As O. Todisco observes: For the Franciscan and this is a strictly meaningful thesis knowledge is a dimension of love, in the sense that we do not know, except what we love, so that it may be loved all the more deeply Franciscan thought does not just seek to arrive at the point of the truth, instead it seeks to surpass it in the direction of goodness. Learning to know and to think is necessary, to enable one to orientate oneself in a world of uncertainties and rational ambiguities. Learning to know and to think in the Franciscans tradition, means that reason transcends its own logic in love, without betraying it. f. Toward a Franciscan who is Minor and Fraternal, Welcoming and Open to Reciprocity 23.- Maybe it is the true mission of a Franciscan to not allow ourselves to be pulled by the posts of our present culture (the culture of post-modern, post-christian, post-ideological, postmetaphysical, post-historical), rather, to give life to a pre, with a great deal of humility and intelligence, as preparation towards a future that is already present. The methodology of the pilgrim must be put into practice as our dominant metaphor: a pilgrim who, while travelling on his life s journey, liberates himself from his ethnocentrism and closed paradigms, learns to learn and above all learns to listen. Fide ex auditu Faith comes from hearing, from open and profound relation with God who continues to search for us as interlocutors on the path of life and culture. Globalization is creating some condition for qualitative leap in the journey of education; the birth of new harmony among people and their cultures, among the cultures and creatures, among technologies and developments, among spiritualities and poetries, among hearts and thoughts. Furthermore, globalization is leading us to a new solidarity built not only into politics, but also into ethics and into spirituality. In other words, we are in the presence of a new reality, with new emerging values, new dreams, new forms of organization of conscience, a new type of social relations, a new form of dialogue with nature, a new way to experience God, and a new way to understand life that is integrated in a whole. The reality of this methodology is that, the convergence of the educative process toward globalization will make us understand interculturality as an encounter and dialogue and not as mere subjectivity. It will remind us that we are interdependent, and that, our common destiny depends on cultural reciprocity. In the international house of formation we are called to live by creative charity which permits everyone to be 6

recognized in his diversity as a gift of God (for me). This is the assignment entrusted to formation and to the international community in particular at the service of interculturality.. CONCLUSION 24.- These reflections should have made it evident that not everything will be realised rapidly and without effort. To begin to consolidate a new educative-formational plan in international formation communities sustained by the pedagogy of interculturality, there is need to overcome the provincial limits, to feel the sense of belonging to the Order as a universal fraternity and to have a brotherly heart full of love for the world and its sufferings. How can all this be achieved? The lack of an intercultural formation plan is generally accepted and usual in many jurisdictions. What is necessary is to recognise the reality of collaboration among the jurisdictions and conferences as a value in itself and not only as an imposition of necessity. It is appropriate to move out of provincialism in formation in favour of the inter-exchange and integration of Regional, Interprovincial or General projects. 25.- The international houses of formation oriented towards an intercultural education, are the privileged place for missionary action, for allowing ourselves to live the profound significance of the missionary identity of the Franciscan charism. While our commitment for the mission grows in the intercultural encounter, the symbolic resources and the true criteria coming from the Franciscan memory and from the message of the Gospel must not diminish, in order to bring them to accomplishment. 26.- Intercultural communion allows the mission of the Order to be united around the charism of fraternal minority. Not only the poor and the oppressed need to be liberated, but all human beings, because every form of oppression follows a paradigm of the mistreatment of creation, consumerism, the negation of otherness 27.- The formational experience thus understood undoubtedly exalts the unity of the educative process, integrating the concepts, sentiments and utopia, safeguarding minority, and the spirituality of itinerancy and fraternity. Paideia is an ancient word that indicates the totality of the content offered in a formative journey, what the adult world desires to propose to the young in order to ensure continuity and change, memory and novelty. This Paideia in the Franciscan formation process appears as eloquent and prophetic in our times only if we move towards the other in fraternal relationship, in reciprocal dialogue, taking responsibility for a common future. Franciscan formation does not only promote the encounter with the other, but for the other, whereby each one expresses the kenosis and poverty, not as the possession of the brother, but as a generous offering. 28.-Intercultural pedagogy gives unity and coherence between the conceptual basis and the cultural realities, thus organising authentic educative processes. This Franciscan pedagogy is constructed on fraternity in such a way that the formandi and the formatores are integrated in the discipleship community of mutual esteem and fraternal love. 29.- For this reason the educative proposal of the Franciscan spirituality, with its ethic of poverty, presents itself as the expression of the love of God, permitting us to understand his formational action in our personal history and calling us to embrace others without holding on to them, but rather offering them a journey of responsibility and freedom. Since poverty, love and minority do not impose themselves onto the creatures, do not suppress others, reducing them to simple objects of manipulation, it is necessary to strengthen the places of formation where the living of this spirituality is possible. At the present moment in our Order we need an educative proposal that does not finish with initial formation (since that would be partial and we would be only forming repeaters or functionaries of a pastoral enterprise). It becomes indispensable to begin in the initial formation with a solid ongoing formation towards the docibilitas for life, where friars 7

are sustained by an attitude of listening to God and to others in the local fraternity within the horizon of a universal fraternity. 30.- On the operational level, it is important to live together in the Order, interrelating three comprehensive principles: - the care and custody of the originality of the Charism, loved and lived in our consecration, that nourishes the breath of minor and fraternal spirituality and gives sense to our educational project and to our mission; - inter-provincial cooperation which goes beyond the simple calculations of survival, but is open to a deepening of the institutional affiliation and to diversity, and above all, concerned with strengthening the affiliation to the charism in the Order. (A fraternity must have a heart, not only projects and assignments to carry out); -fraternal co-responsibility concerned that the consequences of all our local efforts be ordered to the good of the universal fraternity. 31.- To promote the educational assignment in the international houses at the service of the interculturality is to participate in the work of giving new significance' to the Mission of the Order, through the elaboration of a new cultural project. The formation in the international communities in intercultural education continues to be the key method for the reconstruction and new presence of our Franciscan charism in the world. The experience of Abraham and hospitality 32.- Like Abraham we are afraid of the unknown; we mistrust the stranger. We move in the logic of hostility in place of that of hospitality, of indifference as negation of the other in place of encounter and coexistence. The invitation made by God to Abraham: Go out of your land, or rather: Renounce your cultural world, the restricted horizons of your daily life, the too rigid ways of your theological reflection; go out of the conceitedness that you possess the truth without looking for it and without making yourself a trustworthy guest of the One who invites you to go out of yourself; go out of the common places and the prejudices constructed during your history. To this call there should follow a precise answer: Here I am, We can give the same answer, borrowed from the journey of faith of Abraham: Here I am! I am here to measure the depth of the mystery of the gift received, to dialogue with others, with the stranger, with the different one; I am here, turning myself into a stranger and in dialogue, misunderstood among the misunderstood, close to the outcasts, prophet with so many prophets, mystical with the mystics. I am here visited by Grace and willingly a disciple like Francis of Assisi in minority and fraternity, fascinated by the passion of Christ and by the gift of Love offered to all. Jorge Oscar Peixoto 8