(Download Word or RTF document)

II - ITINERANCY - CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE – MATURITY

ITINERANCY VERSUS DWELLING – IS THERE A ‘BETTER PART’?

14. ‘Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”’

Probably it was and still is this part of the Gospel according to Luke which contributed most to a Christian understanding of contemplation: contemplation became the opposite of action and was even better. In this image you will hardly find a hint of itinerancy as a special value for a real disciple of Christ except for the fact that the Lord himself and those who accompanied him ‘went on their way’ before they entered the house of Bethany.

Nevertheless, this text might be one which is still misunderstood as condemning action and giving spiritual preference to a ‘hidden life of quiet’ or a ‘retired place for contemplation.’ And in fact, at first glance, ‘itinerancy’ seems to be the exact opposite of how Mary behaves in Luke’s Gospel. She does not move even a tiny bit to give her sister a hand!

As a boy I always felt somewhat uncomfortable with our Lord’s reaction to Martha’s request. On the one hand, to my innocent thinking, Jesus takes advantage of Martha’s diligence and hard work, yet on the other hand and at the same time, he sides with Mary, who is sitting at his feet just listening. I felt sorry for Martha and was annoyed with Mary, whom I considered a bit lazy and someone whom Jesus praised a little unfairly. I used to imagine my sister reading the Bible while I had to do the dishes – I would surely have looked on her as one who had chosen the better part, but in no way as the one who, to top it all, deserved praise for it. But can one contradict Jesus? Nevertheless, I would have liked to question him: ‘And what about the words you said to the woman in the crowd who raised her voice and said to you: Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you! Didn’t you answer this woman: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it?”’

Even if my innocent childish thinking had little in common with biblical scholarship today, I’m convinced that I was right in questioning an understanding of ‘contemplation’ as ‘just sitting and listening.’ According to our Lord’s own teaching one has ‘to obey the word,’ to act ‘according to the will of the father.’

ITINERANCY AND CONTEMPLATION: THE ART OF INTERPRETING THE PRESENT TIME

15. What is obvious is that ‘contemplation’ is used wrongly if it is used just in contrast to ‘action,’ as an exhortation that it is better to stay at home and do nothing besides sitting around and listening. Not without reason do the Constitutions of the Nuns of our Order speak of contemplation and listening in one breath with working diligently, studying the truth eagerly, praying intently and pursuing the common life.

Thus, at least according to a Dominican understanding, ‘contemplation’ with ‘action’ is what ‘contemplative life’ is all about. So ‘contemplation’ is different from laziness. It does not mean remaining motionlessness or rigid. Even the enclosure of our nuns is related to the understanding of breadth and length, the depth and heights of God’s love, who sent his Son for only one reason: for the salvation of the whole world.

The ‘empty space,’ so important for any ‘contemplation,’ is not the same as idleness. The Gospel according to John provides us with another story of a visit of Jesus to the house of Bethany, which helps us discover more fully the dimensions of a ‘contemplative life’:

‘Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.’

Martha is again serving the Lord, Lazarus is at the table with Jesus, but Mary, who according to Luke’s Gospel had chosen the better part, is not this time sitting at Jesus’ feet, but instead doing something very concrete. But it looks like she had chosen again ‘the better part.’ Jesus again sides with her and she receives his support against Judas Iscariot’s and the disciples’ intervention. That leads to the question: ‘What is the mystery of ‘choosing the better part,’ what is the real key to leading a ‘contemplative life?’

We find an answer to this question in the book of Ecclesiastes, a document of wisdom – surely the result, and fruit, of a contemplative life:

‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.’

To know ‘how to interpret the present time’ is what Jesus expects from his disciples. Mary from Bethany obviously meets fully the Lord’s expectations. She does so while sitting at his feet, listening to his words, as well as by taking a pound of perfume and being lavish with the expression of her love, not worrying about what people might think she is.

How can one behave that way? What precondition is needed to become an interpreter of the present time, a contemplative man or woman? It is this special kind of attentiveness, Mary from Bethany shows for the Lord: she is totally attentive to him as a person, she is totally attentive to his mission and at the same time she remains aware of herself and what is good for herself: she lives out of a permanent relationship with ‘the one whom her soul loves.’

Attentiveness in this sense means that there is only one focus for all of your life: to be related to God and his will. Step by step that will form you to the shape of how Jesus led his life: ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.’

There is no doubt about Jesus’ itinerancy, no doubt about him living an active life, but no doubt as well about his praying in solitude and silence – the key to a contemplative life is the ‘interpretation of the present time,’ the attentiveness to the will of the father, the willingness to let your live be determined by nothing else than what God asks from you here and now, ‘to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.’

ITINERANCY – CONTEMPLATION - MATURITY

16. ‘Restless is our heart until it rests in you’ – this insight of St Augustine links our reflections on Itinerancy and Contemplation to maturity in religious (as well as in Christian) life. There is no maturity imaginable without moving forward, without taking risks, without spiritual itinerancy. But this process of growing is in need of stops, pauses, self-adjustment as well. There is a need for ones own efforts as well as for challenges from outside.

Luke’s Gospel provides us with an excellent story on a process of religious and human maturing.

‘Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.’ Itinerancy – even if just to escape from depression – is described as a possible, if not a necessary precondition for inner healing and growth, and so is companionship. There is no maturing process at all which you can undergo on your own. You are in need of the other, of his or her going by your side, of comforting you, of sharing your worries and concerns, of questioning you.

‘While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad.’ Now the story provides us with an additional insight on the process of becoming mature: Apart from those you are already familiar with you are in need of challenges coming from outside. Mourning together and sharing only among a circle of friends is not sufficient. As long as you remain with what you already know, there is neither improvement nor progress: You stand still and look sad. Even if you open yourself to an encounter with a stranger for the experience of otherness, your eyes could still fail to recognize.

‘Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”’ This leads us to another insight regarding preconditions for becoming mature. Cleopas considers the stranger at their side as the only one who does not know. In fact it is only the stranger who knows. The process of becoming mature needs a kind of letting go of security. As long as you are convinced that you are the one who knows and the other, the stranger, the foreigner is the one who does not, your eyes will remain closed and your heart will not burn within you – you can not achieve religious maturity. ‘Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!”’ That underlines the necessity that I myself must reckon with: the possibility that I am foolish, that my convictions are foolish, instead of those whom I consider foolish – like the Emmaus disciples who considered the women of their group as the foolish ones.

‘Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.’ Here we are looking at the connection of contemplation as attentiveness and spiritual growth. It is necessary to listen to God’s Word and to reckon with its strangeness and its newness. That’s what the Emmaus disciples are in fact doing. They listen attentively to one who had called them ‘foolish.’ They go even further by urging him: ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ In a way it was curiosity, a longing for a deeper insight, an ardent desire for a better understanding which finally, along with the Lord’s loving revelation, led to recognition and maturity in discipleship. Now their itinerancy changes direction: from escape to encounter, with eyes open for the unexpected.

The last General Chapter put this in concrete terms for contemporary Dominican life, when it dealt with the connection of Contemplation and (Initial) Formation: ‘Considering the world that has formed our brothers thus far, three elements may be critical to their appropriation of a genuinely Dominican contemplative spirit: constancy, depth and openness. Constancy is a remedy for the experience of transience whether intellectual, personal or religious and is, in our life, manifest both in our life-long study and in our external observances of prayer, silence and a common life that should be joyful. Depth stands in contrast to the often superficial pleasures a global economy awards the few and promises the many, and engenders a healing of desire that is both necessary and longed for. This may be most evident in growth in prayer and virtue, love of study, and in compassionate self understanding. Openness is both a legacy of this age and an antidote to reactions against it. As Dominicans, we cannot be truly contemplative preachers unless we are open to people and their experiences, new learning, and the new ways that God may be inviting us to serve. Yet for these elements to be present and effective for our brothers in initial formation we must commit ourselves to a renewal of our life in each of its dimensions (Mexico 27.4) and to participation in the common life even at a cost to ourselves (Ratio Formationis Generalis 166). In so doing, we provide our brothers in initial formation with a visible manifestation of the Holy Preaching to which they are called and to which we would have them commit their lives.’

I cannot finish this spiritual approach to ‘Itinerancy – Contemplation – Maturity’ without at least mentioning another key text. We find it at the end of John’s Gospel: The moving dialogue between Jesus and Peter. After Peter’s testimony ‘Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you’ and the Lord’s answer ‘Feed my sheep,’ the Lord continues: ‘Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ This is possibly the most important part of our personal itinerancy, the deepest contemplation and highest level of maturity, when we are willing to agree that it is no longer we who decide and determine what to do, where to go, what to leave and what to keep – but stretch out so that someone else can fasten a belt around us and take us where we do not wish to go – and yet we remain full of trust that whatever happens is happening for our best and that we remain able to confess: ‘Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.’

III - ITINERANCY IN THE FORMATIVE AND INTELLECTUAL JOURNEY

17. Itinerancy denotes movement, the capacity to go forward with passion, in an adventurous spirit. As we reflect on this aspect of our Dominican life, we can try to discern the various ways in which this movement can sometimes be blocked, both in ourselves, in our communities and provinces. The blocking of internal movement is ultimately a form of repression. It can appear on the level of the emotions, which is a form of neurosis; it can appear on the level of the mind, which is an ideological stopping short of the intellectual capacities; and it can appear on the level of the spiritual life, when the response to God is paralyzed by interior brakes. It is this last form of repression which inhibits most the itinerancy which is proper to our Dominican charism.

THE LIBERATION OF EMOTIONAL ITINERANCY

18. In a neurotic repression the dynamism of the emotions is blocked by other emotions, by the emotion of fear, or an emotional feeling of obligation. This leads to self-concentration, to an incapacity for self-criticism and a seriousness that has no room for humor. Emotional repression is a problem of youth, in which the fear of self, of novelty, of one’s sexuality, of what people will do or say, or the emotional sense of duty become an ultimate rule. It incapacitates the conscience to reason for oneself. This can lead some young men and women to search for the security that a sheltered religious life can give. In their emotional fragility, they may look for clear and simple rules of life which dispense from risk and adventure. Instead of being moved by a fascinating preaching mission which reaches out to the Cumans of our times, they will persist in being locked in by their fears, by their instinctic disapproval of everything that involves novelty. A healthy community life will help to liberate them from these fears, to move and be moved by others, to laugh in an interior freedom at one’s own blunders. Blessed are those who know how to laugh at themselves because they will have great fun all their lives!

THE LIBERATION OF INTELLECTUAL ITINERANCY

19. In an intellectual repression the mind is prevented from going towards the truth in all its richness and contextual diversity. A mind that refrains from the effort of searching for truth or prefers half-truths that captivate by their simplicity is stuck in dismal intellectual paralysis or is constantly swayed by external forces such as fashion.

20. Itinerancy should not mean dispersion of the mind. This is an intellectual danger: having a supermarket attitude, trying to know everything, to be interested in everything, accepting all popular trends without ever seeing how they fit together. The first stage of intellectual formation is a moment when the mind has to be furnished. We need the time for study, time for a contemplative putting of everything together. We need to ask deeper questions, to see the nexus mysteriorum, the metaphysical rooting of truth.

Jesus said: ‘Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod’ (Mk 8,15). The Pharisees thought that they had all the answers, their mind was blocked from reaching out beyond their rigid convictions. Herod had no answers, no pre-conceptions, no ideologies. He was looking for entertainment, for fun. In the post-modern world, the great ideologies are gone, and the world is set on entertainment, on producing money and spending it, on creating and enjoying superficial needs. The temptation therefore today is to remain on the level of superficiality. A young person entering the Order may be tempted to know everything, to be interesting in everything, to have plenty of information on many diverse issues, coming from TV, from the news, from travel; but what will be lacking is the capacity for a deeper vision. ‘We are faced with the patent inadequacy of perspectives in which the ephemeral is affirmed as a value and the possibility of discovering the real meaning of life is cast in doubt’ (John Paul II, Fides et ratio, 6). The first stage of intellectual formation must help youth to acquire convictions, to be free from the slavery of fads. Our Dominican tradition is built on the conviction that reason has an inherent attraction to truth, that it can perceive the true good, and stick to it, not because of external group pressure, but because it is true. The capacity for discernment of truth however, has to be developed.

What sort of philosophy do we give to our young? A knowledge of disparate, conflicting ideas, which helps one to be in line with various contemporary trains of thought? Or a philosophy which integrates the mind, giving it the confidence that it can know truth, enabling it to interpret critically what is observed in contemporary culture? Some people need to be helped to formulate an intellectual synthesis, before they will reach out to new fields of thought. Others will manage while acquiring a disparate knowledge because they already have well-formed interior convictions.

An excessive intellectual itinerancy at the initial stage of intellectual formation may be disastrous. Some people in their intellectual journey move from one extreme to another. They begin as liberals and end up ultra-conservatives. They look for answers to their questions in Buddhism, psychoanalysis, or political sciences – and never take time to immerse themselves in the Word of God and in the Catholic tradition. The initial intellectual formation should lead to the finding of a Master, some author, approved by the Church, who will help the student to formulate a theological synthesis. This may a Father or Doctor of the Church, a renowned theologian, it can very well be St Thomas Aquinas. If the young sister or friar spends many years reading the chosen author, studying his or her theology, building ministry and preaching on the works of the Master, this will give a solid point of reference. The preacher will know what he is talking about. If a synthesis is not built, this may lead to a state of perpetual itinerancy, without any convictions.

21. The necessity for intellectual hygiene however should not lead to a fear of questions. The Thomistic tradition formulates the videtur quod. Our intellectual synthesis is built on the conviction that the mind can hook onto the true good. With the conviction that truth is accessible, we can without fear address all types of questions, knowing that every truth, coming from whatever source, ultimately comes from the Holy Spirit. The formed mind, capable of critical discernment does not fear new ideas. It can develop a further curiosity, it can compare its own approach with others, it can acquire new information, expand interests, because it has a base. Itinerancy is possible when you have a home to go back to. It is not an invitation to intellectual nihilism.

A mind formed in the searching of truth, and in the hooking onto it, will be free from intellectual stagnation. The quest for truth should prevent us from being glued to a frame of mind, a vision of the Church, of society, in which there is no critical self-reflection. Do we ask where the Spirit is leading us, and do we allow him to do this? The mind is hungry for truth but it can become enslaved. This is the danger of ideologies. The mind stops short at a half-truth, and does not allow itself to be led to the fullness. There are not only the great ideologies that imposed various forms of totalitarianism. There are also small ideologies which block communities and provinces. A particular style of life, a set of opinions about the Church, about the needs of a province or religious congregation, can easily become an unmovable tradition. It functions like a contraceptive device which blocks the birth of new concepts; it is not life-giving. The Dominican democratic form of government cherishes the lively novelty of ideas, which should be given a field of expression in chapters, community meetings, formation sessions. Not all proposed solutions will be appropriate, but a healthy community climate will allow them to be voiced and discussed. If discussion is forced into a fearful underground, the little ideologies will lock the community in stagnation.

The search for truth has to be undertaken in community life, in philosophical endeavors, in the study of theology, and in the pilgrimage of faith. One of the dramas of the contemporary intellectual scene is the retreat from the search for truth. ‘There is the deep-seated distrust of reason which has surfaced in the most recent development of much of philosophical research, to the point where there is talk at times of the “end of metaphysics”...I cannot but encourage philosophers – be they Christian or not – to trust in the power of human reason and not to set themselves goals that are too modest in their philosophizing’ (Fides et ratio, 55-58). Faith provokes the philosophical mind to go further. ‘The mystery of the Incarnation will always remain the central point of reference for an understanding of the enigma of human existence, the created world and God himself. The challenge of this mystery pushes philosophy to its limits, as reason is summoned to make its own a logic which brings down the walls within which it risks being confined’ (Fides et ratio, 80).

22. The expanding of the mind which is an intellectual itinerancy will draw it even deeper into the truth. This is the meaning of faith and of dogma. In the classical theological tradition faith is a gift of God which draws the mind out towards God. Dogmatic statements are a gift of the Holy Spirit which give more light, preventing the mind from falling into error and focusing it on the mystery which is salvific. In modern thinking faith and dogma have been interpreted as a limitation of the mind, as a blocking of curiosity imposed by ecclesiastical authority. A spiritual itinerancy will involve the reaching out of the mind towards the revealed truth. ‘As a theological virtue, faith liberates reason from presumption, the typical temptation of the philosopher’ (Fides et ratio, 76).

The adapting of the mind to the divine mystery however is painful for the mind, because the mind by nature wants clarity and faith is an encounter with the mystery. Within faith there is room for searching for understanding (cogitatio fidei), but sometimes there is also a coagitatio fidei. Due to the mind’s inherent need of clarity, as it is adapted to faith, it becomes agitated. In the development of faith the mind encounters the cross. The passing through this cross is always painful but paradoxically life-giving. The great stumbling block for faith is intellectual pride: the incapacity or subconscious unwillingness to accept the mystery. We are not to scan the Word of God with tools coming from human sciences, accepting these sciences (history, archeology, linguistics, psychology, sociology, philosophies) as the ultimate criterion, because this destroys faith. (Aquinas, interpreting St Paul says that even good philosophies can destroy faith, if these philosophies offer the final word!) We are called to scan our lives with the ultimate criterion of faith. This is painful for intellectual pride, but only then do we go further. The courageous itinerancy of the mind allows for itinerancy on the spiritual level.

THE LIBERATION OF SPIRITUAL ITINERANCY

23. The mind in its pilgrimage of faith needs to be freed from attachments. When we invent projects, new missions, when we perceive challenges, when we conceive ideas, we easily become attached to them. The attachment to our own concepts for a moment is good, but very easily we attribute to ourselves the merit. When the Holy Spirit conceives life in the Church, he does this without egoism, in a total gift of self. The Holy Spirit’s conception is immaculate. The trick is to be selfless in what we do with passion. The motive for our work needs to be purified. Not only bad habits and customs, but also good projects need to be purified, to ensure that they shall be for God. Without this the attachment to our own ideas prevents spiritual growth, leads to the building of private empires. What is essential is a transparency for God working within us. In intellectual as in artistic inspirations there is a temptation of egoism. No soon that an idea comes to mind, immediately there is the joy that it can be used in an article, in an artistic project, in a homily to be preached – for our own glory. The spirit of dependence on God, of itinerancy requires a great spiritual poverty. The good things that will pass through our minds, hands and mouths will be God’s not our own, even though we have devoted to them our energy and talents.

The religious profession in which we vow our future to God is a confirmation of the value of itinerancy. The acceptance of the unknown, received in faith, as a permanent rule of life strengthens the attachment to God and to God alone. It is here that the true fruitfulness of life and mission is born. At depth, it is the grace of God which allows goodness to be born through our service.

We will find out what was our true vocation at the moment of death, when looking back at our lives we shall see at which moments we have been most responsive to the calls that have been addressed to us. A true career is made by God as in each step of our life we give ourselves totally to God. Each step however comes as a surprise, not as the realization of a personal project for which we have fought. In the earlier stages of life we have our plans and dreams, but one by one we are asked by God to relinquish them, as God’s plans turn out to be totally different. What can we say about the young postulant who in the early part of the 20th century entered a Dominican congregation in Moscow? She had dreamed of travelling far and wide so as to see the world, but at the same time she recognized that God was asking her for something more. She put aside her dreams and entered religious life, giving to God her unfulfilled travel plans. But God’s response turned out to be abundant. Before her novitiate ended she was arrested and sent to the gulags of Siberia. She visited during a long novitiate numerous prison camps along the Arctic sea and then along the Chinese frontier. Her initial desire to travel was fulfilled in a demonic, but at the same time divine way. It was only after seven years that she met another sister in a prison camp in whose hands she made her profession. A life maybe wasted, but maybe not. In the heart of godlessness and despair, this Dominican sister brought the message of the Gospel preached through her witness and charity.

24. Why is it that some of us do not want to move, do not want to accept that we can be sent for a mission? In some cases, there may be an excessive individualism, a thinking about personal fulfillment, the search for personal success. Instead of responding to God who sends, there is a search for one’s own career, as if we could plan our lives. Sometimes there is an excessive attachment to the first love, to our first assignment. We took up the job that we were asked to do, and we did it with the correct motivation, as our gift to God, but in time we became attached to our work, we treated our achievements as totally ours. We failed to accept that God wanted our services in this particular mission for a few years, and then others were asked to continue, whereas we should have moved on to something else. This is a difficult moment, like that of parents who have to let go of their adult children. The elderly parents who centered their life on their children may fear about their own future. What shall they do in later life without their children? This however is a normal stage, a moment when the time comes to find a new challenge in life.

In religious life, we do not own our apostolates, nor do we own the people whom we serve. We accept that as we leave them in other people’s hands, we leave them in the hands of God, and God will take care of them. This requires hope. Hope is the acceptance of the mystery that is unfolding in our lives. A natural hope grants the energy, the boost to undertake difficult challenges. (In Polish the word for hope, nadzieja, means ‘force for action.’) The theological virtue of hope, being focused on God, allows our will to accept the way that God has planned for us. Both St Augustine and St John of the Cross tie hope with memory, and they write that to grow in hope, the memory has to be purified. It is not that remembering things is bad. A good memory is of course a valuable asset, but we can become attached to our memories, both good and bad, and this attachment has to be purified. The attachment to pleasing memories may block the willingness to go forward, to accept the novelty in life. It is normal that a friar working in a university chaplaincy will experience the joy of serving young people as they mature. But he helps these people so as to let them go, and allow them to move to other cities, to set up their families, to live their own lives. When he is replaced by somebody younger, the memory of joys, the pastoral experience acquired over the years will have to be set aside, so as to accept a new task, a new challenge. Similarly bad memories may prevent itinerancy. Memories of awkward situations, of suffering may paralyze. Somebody who has suffered in a community in which he or she has not been appreciated will not want to return there, nor will there be a willingness to find oneself in a similar job, in a similar setting. Maybe in the meantime the community has changed, its members have matured, they have grown out of their unfraternal behavior. Has the community been allowed the right to make errors and to grow out of them? Painful memories also need to be purified so that hope will grow, so that confidence in the divine mystery unfolding itself in life will be accepted.

The purification of hope helps to center the attention upon God. And when God is truly the prime passion, then we are free to move. Dominican itinerancy needs this freedom. Both the friar who is asked to move to another community and the provincial who is asked to give a friar, can do this, if they accept the mysterious leading of God. If they fail to be open to God’s own mystery, they will object when new missions will be proposed. Provincials are sometimes perplexed when they are asked to give a friar who was prepared for the province or when he is earning money for the province. Where is the openness to the mystery in hope?

25. It is not good when too many posts are tied with a salary. Obviously communities prefer to have brothers or sisters who bring in a regular income. Some works however, undertaken by the community as a whole (eg, the running of a shrine) also bring money, without the attachment of an individual to a given salary. A salaried job may block itinerancy. It may lead to a situation where somebody spends many years doing the same job, sometimes living in the same building, in the same room. Provinces that have too many salaried posts end in stagnation. Certain ministries need to be changed quickly, because society is going through profound social changes. The young change every few years, they listen to different music, watch different films, chew a different type of bubble gum. The youth chaplain or formator must constantly adapt, prepare new themes, new conferences, so as not to lose a common language with the young. If there is little movement within a province, a religious congregation, or lay fraternity, stagnation and routine, in time, conveys an out-dated image of the Church.

26. In wondering about the difficulties in itinerancy, we should not place all the blame on those who have a difficulty in letting go of their attachments. An important psychological block against itinerancy may sometimes come from the lack of support on the part of those who send. When a province opens a mission, that province has to be responsible for its friars sent abroad. Normally there is a long period during which a new mission belongs to a province as a provincial vicariate; then with growth in numbers it becomes a regional or general vicariate, then a vice-province and finally a province. During all these years, the mother-province may have its brethren in the new entity, first in a major position of responsibility, then of cooperation and finally dependence upon local brethren. During all these years, the mother province must exercise its responsibility for the friars who have been sent to the distant mission. They need encouragement, interest, and sometimes financial aid. If their work is viewed not as a mission, but as a place of dismissal, a place where difficult brethren may be sent in the conviction that their problems will resolve themselves, this will as a backlash discourage further brethren to take up the challenge. Those who are sent must know that they are sent and not dismissed. Itinerancy requires responsibility, both on the part of the sent and of the sending.

27. St Dominic as he moved from place to place walking along the roads of Europe used to sing the Ave Maris Stella. In this ancient Marian hymn, we have the phrase Iter para tutum! St Dominic was praying to Mary, asking her intercession so that his road would be safe, so that it would lead to where he was planning to go, so that God’s plans would be present in his initiatives.

Page 1 - Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 >>>> Next

---

Top of page