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ONGOING FORMATION
PROJECT MONTHLY DOSSIER JANUARY 2012 – YEAR 3 –
No. 25
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EVANGELIZED TO
EVANGELIZE by Fr. Fernando
Ventura, OFMCap Dossier prepared by the
CIOFS Ongoing Formation Team Ewald Kreuzer, OFS, Coordinator Fr. Amando Trujillo Cano,
TOR Doug Clorey, OFS INTRODUCTION The XIII General Chapter of the Secular Franciscan Order was held on
October 22-29, 2011 in Sao Paolo, Brazil. During this Chapter, Secular
Franciscans from around the world reflected on the theme “Evangelized to
Evangelize”. The keynote speaker was
Fr. Fernando Ventura, OFM Cap, a gifted presenter who challenged the
Capitulars to live their vocation and assume their responsibilities in the
Church and in the Franciscan Family. PRESENTER
CONTEXT From January to June, 2012, Fr. Fernando’s preentation to the 2012 General Chapter will be presented
in six dossiers. These dossiers will
form the basis of the Ongoing Formation Program for the first half of
2012. The following is a breakdown of the
subjects that will be presented in each of the six dossiers: 1. What is evangelizing? In this dossier, some of the essential
elements of the meaning of Evangelization and of our Christian faith in the
context of our contemporary culture will be presented. 2. Time for Emmaus. The author explains why this is the time to go back
to Emmaus and to rediscover the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and to
reflect on their experience of leaving behind the centrality of faith and
hope as they walked towards the periphery, towards the despair. 3. What is God’s religion? This dossier begins by posing some provocative
questions: In whom does God believe? Catholics have the idea that God is
Catholic; Protestants, that God is Protestant;
Muslims, that God is Muslim; Jews, that God is Jewish. And, for this reason, we
have been killing each other for centuries. 4. The Exodus - a key reading. The Exodus story becomes of key importance in discovering
that God creates memories in history. But this is only the beginning of the
book of Exodus. The God of Abraham, of Isaac, Jacob, Jesus Christ, is not a
God of a distant heaven, but a God of the here and now. 5 + 6. The Beatitudes: the most dangerous text in
all of the Scriptures. Finally, we will reflect on the most dangerous text
of all the Scripture, and the most revolutionary text of all the history of
mankind. Fr. Fernando presents the constitutional charter of Christianity, the
text that managed to explain the reason why we are here, the text where we
can discover our mission, without which we will never find the meaning of our
lives. During the first six months of the year, it is our
hope that you will read and study Fr. Fernando’s presentation, and take the
time to discuss it with your brothers and sisters in fraternity. WHAT IS EVANGELIZING? Fr. Fernando began his presentation of the OFS
General Chapter´s central theme by asking the Capitulars some probing
questions. Very soon, the Capitulars became aware that his presentation would
be more of a "personal experience" than an academic lecture. In
fact, his words proved to be thought provoking as he addressed some of the essential
elements of the meaning of Evangelization and of our Christian faith in the
context of our contemporary culture. He challenged all Secular Franciscans to
look into what has happened to words and feelings. Words and Feelings Do we have the courage to tell our neighbor, "I love you"? Without
joking and looking straight into their
eyes... Could we tell the
person next to us right now? It’s not that easy, is it?
Isn’t it true that we’re afraid of the
words? Isn’t it true that the
words are dead? Isn’t it true
that we have killed the feelings? Words of this type frighten us! On
the one hand, telling someone ‘I
love you’ means that you’re telling him/her that ‘I need you in order to be happy’. We can go that far. But telling someone 'I love you' can also mean something
else. We are saying to the
other "I cannot be happy without you." Do you see where we are going? "I need
you to be happy," is one thing.
But telling someone "I
cannot be happy without you” is
quite another thing. This destroys us. This forces
us out of our personal vanity;
out of this mania that we carry
inside, that we
are the center
of the world. If we understand what Evangelizing is, we will be
able to understand everything... Evangelizing is this, brothers and sisters. If we can understand
it, we will be able to understand everything we are doing here. If
we fail to understand it, we’ll continue being the most wretched sons of men … people living a matrimonial relationship
with God that is divorced from life … people that live married to God
because there is no devil that
will marry them … the bachelors and spinsters of history … bitter people … people who live a power relationship with life. And here we
have ruined everything. We live
in our fraternities ... in our convents.... and
in our monasteries.... and we live at all levels, under the oppression of people who only understand service as
power. In terms of being (with) the
other, they only understand vanity. These are people who have no one
to support them. We are tired of the bachelors and spinsters of history. We're tired of nice people. This is not the time for sympathy. This
is the time of empathy. The
nice person at best will smile at you. (And here
I always remember Confucius,
saying, "watch out, because
behind the smile there are
teeth.") It´s time... This is the time to go further. It is time to turn the tables (as is said in
Spanish, to turn the omelet). It's time to recognize that we don’t have the right to say we have a religion, because this is the time to understand that we have a religion that possesses us. People of religion are unbearable. People living with a belly full of God and what comes from
within, are nothing more than
mystical breezes, which do not
touch anyone's life. And we
continue to follow the wrong signals. And we continue to bullshit
one after another. I ask you, Secular Franciscans of the first, second, third and fourth
world to explain to the bishops of your country, the priests of your countries, the friars of your countries, the nuns of your countries, that the habit cannot be a badge of power. That this thing about
being community is more than anything
and, in the first place, a way of life. And in many places around the world we
are assisting a church mounted with power from the top, a church that is losing its footing because it stopped being of service … because
it stopped being a sign. It was sold to political power. In many countries and in many places, it has
been sold to the power that
distributes money. And I have seen this with my own
eyes on every continent. It's up to you It's up to you to be a sign of contradiction. It is up to you to bring back the Franciscan revolution to the world. Francis goes back to look for it (his Church)
on the outskirts of Assisi with
the lepers (when) his Church is steeped in power, his Church is in the midst of power. And
in many places, men and women
of religion love going to bed with the lords of power. And the poor and
the lepers are as alone as ever. The adventure began...
The desire that we all have And we continue insisting on an error. We continue
to insist in that which is our Originating
sin. I’m not speaking of original
sin, because with so many people who have sinned for so many years, it is
very difficult to be original. I am speaking of the Originating sin, that which
is at the origin. It is rooted in the desire to reach God … the desire to be
God … the desire to control the knowledge of good and evil … the desire that
we all have to be masters of life and death … the desire that we have, to
come into God’s world, to touch God's world. And we don’t realize that there
can only be one GENESIS; there can only be one dream of Genesis, because
there was only one Apocalypse, because there was a chapter 21 of Revelation …God's
world that descends, the new Jerusalem coming down to take human space. Because in this discussion, in this topic of
conversion, we are all fighting and hitting our heads against the wall to see
if we can achieve our conversion. We do not realize that what Francis brings
is new. He has been the only one who has understood, first, that if someone turns
to someone else, it is God who turns to us. This is the time to turn
things around (turn this omelet which is burned on the other side.) Christmas - the greatest moment in history Francis was the only one who grasped God’s
conversion to history. For this reason, he came to realize (the importance
of) Christmas, and because of this, Christmas becomes for Francis the
greatest moment. There, God touches history. There, God becomes one of us.
There, God converts to us. There, we celebrate definitively the covenant (marriage/bond). And, here, we must
return to Emanuel, because this time, besides being one of dead words, is a
time of people widowed of their affections, unmarried to their emotions. QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION IN
FRATERNITY 1. Why is the right understanding of evangelizing so
important for us Secular Franciscans? 2. What does covenant, the "key
word" of the Bible, mean to you? 3. Christmas became for Francis the greatest moment
in history. Why? |
