Religious: Beware of Becoming Braggarts of Faith

At the 69th Sixth monthly Assembly of the Union of Superiors General Fr Pascual Chávez Villanueva, the then Rector major of the Salesian congregation, elected President of the USG said, “Religious life is prophecy, even if not to be reduced to this alone. More than ever the Church and the world today need a prophetic consecrated life. In a social context where people live more and more “as if God did not exist”, religious life is called to proclaim God`s marvellous plan, and to denounce all that runs contrary to it.” He continued, “Our prophecy, is not something external to us, as happens to certain kinds of prophets, who simply foretell punishment and bad events or with courtly prophets who say what their listeners want to hear, or with social style prophets who curse one economic or social system but canonize another, without seeing the need there is to reshape all of human reality. Consecrated life will be prophetic only if it knows how to give witness to the passionate love of God.”

The Carmelite biblical scholar Carlos Mesters developed on the above theme of prophecy basing on the Bible, the primary inspirational source for religious life, stating: “If we carefully re-read the circumstances of the prophets in the bible in particular the experience of Elias, it becomes easier to see that also in our time apparently ‘without prophets’, new forms of prophecy are on the rise (Charismatic healers, Picking the past sins and memories, foreteller of future mishaps, visionary diagnosis of the sick, etc.). It involves re-reading the past in a different way. The situation of defeat, death, secularization Elias found himself in and which every ‘imprisoned person’ finds himself in, can in fact be perceived as the precise time and place where God unexpectedly reaches out to us.”

Father Josep Abella, Superior General of the Claretians, after reflecting on some experiences of prophecy in present day life, underlined certain constants present in them: a careful observation of reality, an atmosphere of freedom with which we live out our consecration, a clear reference to the founder together with a rediscovery of the charism of foundation; the full awareness that “the poor evangelise us”, a new way of understanding and living the community dimension, a new placement within the Church, discernment and the ability to deal with new questions, constant attention to the major issues of humankind: peace, justice, reconciliation, holistic ecological development. The meeting recalled the prophecy of ordinary consecrated life, the prophetic word of some contemplative communities, the new forms of consecrated life, the prophetic dimension present also in theological reflection and in dialogue with cultures and, finally, the importance of the prophetic presence of consecrated persons in world gatherings where the future of millions of human beings is decided.

The themes further developed were: The prophecy of religious life today; Prophecy and religious community; Challenges and questions raised by society and cultures today for the prophetic dimension of religious life. The meeting focused on the importance of an explicit desire by religious to be prophets, ready to pay the price of prophecy which, if it is truly so, will be especially disturbing to those who are in control and who are responsible for intolerable situations. Therefore, there is no need for “braggarts of faith” who presume to have the answer to all of life`s questions and problems, of health and illness, who proclaim publicly their powers in exaggerated forms. What we need is humble people who entrust themselves to God`s grace, asking him daily and humbly, that they will never succumb to the inevitable and typical temptations of the world we live in, that is, showing off the insight, power  that God gives to us.