Ansensius Guntur
On October 1, 2010 the General
Superior has written a special message to all the Scalabrinians in the world on
“Community in Mission”. The general superior puts an evidence on the awakening
of the missionary spirit. What kind of missionary I have to be? In the context
where I am, it becomes a bit difficult to talk about missionary spirit. Being
missionary seems to be something that belongs to the future not to the present
moment. Missionary often understood as going to the migrants center or
gathering all the migrants from different parts of the world. In the seminary,
many times the priest are coming to visit us and they narrate to us his
missionary work. I and the other students become the good listeners with
thousand hopes printed in our minds that one day I'll be a missionary like
them. But being a missionary is just the thing of the future? Is it just about
dealing with those who are not scalabrinians? Upon reading the general's
letter, at first, I felt like being “left out” because I have been always in
the seminary and deal with only the scalabrinian brothers and fathers. And so,
how can we apply the missionary spirit in the formation houses? What kind of
mission should be there in the seminary?
We can take some important points
from the generals letter. First of all, he emphasized the importance of not
making the separation between the Spirituality and mission. He said that
“Focusing just on the mission would lead to social or humanitarian activity,
just as emphasizing only spirituality could lead to a bland and disembodied
“spirituality”. How would we translate this message in the formation houses'
context? First and foremost, I need to affirm that mission is not just coming
out from oneself to those who are outside of the scalabrinian community, but it
is also reaching out our brothers who share the same scalabrinian journey with
us. In all the formation houses that I have been in, I have encountered a
diversity of culture, languages, place of origine and personal backgrounds.
Several times we will find in the seminary the two extremes; those who pray a
lot but hardly communicates or being part of the other's life and those who are
active socially but find less time to stay in tune with God. The general is
totally right in saying that the spirituality and the mission are two realities
that must always go together. We must be rooted in Christ and go to reach our
brothers and to put ourselves in their service.
In the formation houses, there is a
need for us to be formed as missionaries. Being missionaries begins exactly in
the seminary. As I have stated earlier, our comunities are really rich in terms
of diversity of cultures, languages, place of origine and personal backgrounds.
We need to be trained to accept the differences and try our very best to come
out from our “familiarity” and immerse in the diversity. We have to make sure
that all of us Scalabrinian brothers appreciate the diversity and not take it
as a stumbling block to our journey. We need to be formed in opennes, welcoming
attitude, sincerity, simpathy to the lowly ones, help those who are in needs
and developing the sensitive attitude. We need also to nourish our spiritual
life by attending the sacraments, attentive to the personal and comunity prayer.
These points mentioned above, according to me, are very important because what
we are now, it will be also what we will be in the future.
Finally, I am always inspired by how
the first christian communities have lived their faith in Jesus. They have been
marked always by how they loved each others. I wish that when people look at
our communities, they would say: “Look how they love each other”. This is our
challenge and this is our mission to accomplish in the seminary.
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