Interview with Christian Flottes,
Provincial of France:
"We do not have to recopy the past, but to live in creative fidelity to the founding charism"
What steps have you taken in the Province of France to build on the documents of the last General Chapter?
We have engaged the Chapter documents in a number of ways so that each brother might appreciate them more fully. Ever before ending up as written texts, the chapter was an experience of congregational life, prayer, a re-reading of our religious life, involving sharing and discernment. It is this spirit that we want to share and to offer to each brother in our Province.
To this end, everyone was invited to personally read the first document: "Our inner life is renewed every day". We saw this as important step before engaging the document in community meetings. We wanted each brother to read it and to welcome it personally as a means of conversion. In this light brothers would be able to reread their own lives and see for themselves how the renewal of our religious consecration is best supported by stressing the importance of the inner life. Paragraph 6 of this first chapter provides us concrete elements to live this way personally.
We took a second step at community level when we were invited to share how our personal experiences of attending to the inner life has helped us to live interdependence, fraternity, mutual support and our service to the mission. Some brothers, more used to sharing "on what we do", shared their personal experience of faith, the moments that were an experience of renewal and conversion in their religious life, It was a sharing of "being" that preceded any sharing on "what we do". Another community chose to do "lectio divina" every week, or to take part in daily community adoration, before evening prayer .... We have also had a time of retreat, where we reflected on each paragraph of the first chapter in connection with a gospel passage. Here again this has facilitated a rich sharing of our experiences of consecrated and missionary life.
How have the documents in the chapter helped to strengthen the inner life. Have you seen signs of this renewal in your brothers?
The documents of the chapter help us to renew ourselves in our religious life. If one day of our life has been a determining one, it is the day of our profession when we said to the Lord, “Here I am". Of course the "yes" of our profession is something that is renewed in an ongoing way. The discussions and the decisions of the chapter are at the service of this renewal as religious of the Sacred Hearts. The novelty for me is how the first document serves as a key reading, and inspires all the texts that the chapter has given us. It is a question of allowing ourselves to be renewed in our mission by community life based on our charism. Each passage in Chapter One shows us a way to unify our lives and journey with the risen one who tells us, "I am with you every day until the end of time."
Again, these are not texts that define what religious life is but are more of a spiritual aid that helps us discern how to be faithful to the call we've received and which we want to live and renew whilst guided by the Spirit.
And personally how has the General Chapter affected you? What does the General Chapter bring to your own inner life?
The decisions of the General Chapter do not replace the Word of God, do not take the place of our constitutions, but they do make us vigilant, and this helps us to be "Watchers". For me it is a way to live "The joy of the Gospel", to serve the communion between us, to welcome community life as something that helps us to grow in fraternity. Decisions founded on pastoral conversion are a source of hope. I believe that what often comes up in our documents is listening: listening to God's calls. He speaks to us through his Word, through the brothers in our communities, to those to whom we are sent, and to those to whom we draw near. Yes, the Chapter offers us an opportunity. We do not have to recopy the past, but we can live in creative fidelity to the founding charism. Our prayer is nourished by all of this. A Chapter also a tool for renewal in our religious consecration. Pope Francis tells us: "Without a passion for Jesus, there is no future for the consecrated life". I believe that the experience of the Chapter that we find in these documents helps to renew in us our "loving passion for Jesus".
04/08/2019