SFO International Council - Weekly edition
Volume: 8 - N. 7 - 2002 - February - III
From: Letter to the Assistants, 2001, N. 3
(Part II)
The post-conciliar exhortation Vita Consecrata invites a re-reading of the relationship between religious and seculars in the light of the ecclesiology of communion. "In recent years, one of the fruits of the teaching on the Church as communion has been the growing awareness that her members can and must unite their efforts, with a view to cooperation and exchange of gifts, in order to participate more effectively in the Church’s mission. This helps to give a clearer and more complete picture of the Church itself, while rendering more effective the response to the great challenges of our times, thanks to the combined contributions of the various gifts" [1 .. This relationship between the SFO and the First Order and TOR is born, or should be born, not so much from the need for personnel that has partly accelerated and provoked collaboration between religious and laity, but from living the same charism in a secular or religious way in favour of the Church, as the author of the Legend of the Three Companions points out so well: "And thus, through blessed Francis... the Church of God was renewed in three Orders" [2 .
The Pope affirms that this sharing is to the benefit of both the seculars, who "will experience at first hand the spirit of the evangelical counsels, and will thus be encouraged to live and bear witness to the spirit of the Beatitudes, in order to transform the world according to God’s design" [3 , and the religious, who would see the spread of the charism beyond the frontiers of their own Order, being animated, through the participation of the seculars, to deepen "certain aspects of the charism, leading to a more spiritual interpretation of it and helping to draw from it directions for new activities in the apostolate" [4 . What can we not say about sharing, about collaboration and interchange between the Franciscan seculars and religious, anchored and animated by the same charism?
Collaboration and interchange in the mission of the Church is already given where there is a secular Franciscan fraternity or a secular Franciscan brother. Deepening these aspects of the Exhortation Vita Consecrata would increase and serve as a stimulus to both to study and analyse their own vocation in the following of Christ after the style of Francis of Assisi, of putting one’s faith in the Franciscan religious, through the Assistants, to "be expert guides in the spiritual life, and in this perspective they should cultivate 'the most precious gift: the spirit. For their part, the laity should offer religious families the invaluable contribution of their 'being in the world’ and their specific service" [5 .
In this collaboration and interchange, a spiritual atmosphere will be created and grow to the benefit of both parts, religious and secular, which will help in the discernment of their own identity and in collaboration on the mission or in apostolic activity that will complete their own physiognomy.
It is opportune to remember that it is communion that leads us to the unity of the various vocations that exist in the Franciscan charism. Unity and communion are founded on the common belonging to Christ, in the unique call to follow Him [6 , and by the participation in the same given Spirit. The primacy of the charism in all the Franciscan Family is the following, the choice and free decision to share the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Urs von Balthasar makes the originality of Francis relevance on giving to the seculars a project of life for their state, similar to that which he gives to the Friars for their religious state, when he affirms that the disciples are called by Jesus to continue His mission as itinerants, while the majority of listeners, the sick who gather about Jesus, are transformed into new men, but he leaves them in their environments as the ferment of their transformation [7 .
The Franciscan Order alone will bring up to date and renew the charism of Francis, by living it together as a Family in the life and mission of the Church. From this point of view, the spiritual assistance, in so far as it is animation and includes the life of mission, of presence and of openness to new ways of collaboration as a sign of communion. In this aspect also, the collaboration between religious and seculars will improve in the Family with a better formation of all, secular and religious.
At the same time, the life of communion that is born of the charism and the theology of communion in the Church helps us to overcome "uniformity", through which Church life, lay and religious, often declines. The very communion within the Franciscan Family shows us the wealth of the charism in the diversity of expressions through which it is manifested and which is born of the creative force of the Spirit that has found in Francis such a good home. Thomas of Celano says of him: That "outstanding craftsman, for through his spreading message, the Church of Christ is being renewed in both sexes according to his form, rule and teaching, and there is victory for the triple army of those being saved" [8 .
The assistance is ordered also to a reciprocity that does not exclude the differences but rather demands them. The reciprocity between the First Order and the TOR and the Secular Franciscan Order, between Franciscan religious and seculars, is charismatic, by trying to overcome the existing fractures or inequalities of levels that underline the specific way of living the charism. The Christifideles Laici reminds us, using the words of Paul VI, that "the Church has an authentic secular dimension, inherent to her inner nature and mission, which is deeply rooted in the mystery of the Word Incarnate, and which is realized in different forms through her members" [9 . Canon Law ratifies this: "Flowing from their rebirth in Christ, there is a genuine equality of dignity and action among all Christ’s faithful. Because of this equality they all contribute, each according to his or her own condition and office, to the building up of the Body of Christ" [10 .. This reciprocity between the Franciscans comes to a single project of life, lived in its specific form of religious or secular.
The reciprocity shows a reciprocal recognition that is achieved through sincere relationships. The reciprocity suggests the recognition of the ways of a reflexive sharing, thought out and activated on the mission, which seeks the authenticity of the reciprocity without forgetting the differences, which in themselves are precious, because they constitute at the same time the limitation and the condition of possibilities.
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