As Fishers and Shepherds presents two principal movements: outward, fishing is an act of searching; inward, shepherds are responsible for care.
Our brother Jordan of Saxony is known for attracting large numbers of young men to the Order. On May 10, we marked the 200th anniversary of his beatification, and as I read this letter I cannot stop thinking about him. He was a man who knew how to speak to people’s hearts and who made them fall in love with Jesus and with Dominic’s project. At around the age of 35, fr. Jordan entered the Order. Two months later, he was chosen to represent the community of Paris at the first General Chapter in Bologna, and a year later he was appointed provincial of Lombardy. For someone who was only just beginning to take root, it was a great responsibility to be asked to bear fruit immediately.
Many of us younger friars must arrive in communities where our brothers already entrust us with responsibilities at an “early age.” The situations vary: parishes, offices as superior, vice-rectorships, councils, formation or vocation promotion. Fresh from the “safe harbor” of initial formation, we are asked to be fishers and shepherds, even though many of us still need to be shepherded. It is nothing new for young friars to have to assume responsibilities; it is enough to listen to the stories of our elders. But there is a challenge emerging that must not be normalized: that a friar should feel alone in the work, think that he must consolidate his own project, or believe that in the fabric of Dominican life he is merely one more piece.
In the Gospel of John, when Jesus is presented to the disciples of the Baptist as the “Lamb of God,” the question they ask him is: “Rabbi, where do you live?” Then they went, saw where he lived and stayed with him. One stays where one is treated well, where one is loved. Jesus loved them. Jordan of Saxony was not only an example of the fisher, attracting friars through the nets woven by the sweetness of his words; he was also an example of the shepherd, for he knew how to keep numerous brothers in the Order through the care and love he showed them.
Our convents are “houses of preaching” where we must experience the bond of God’s love through a form of life that is itself preaching. We have come with the intention of dwelling with the Lord, not in an ideal way, but in a real way, living with brothers under one common purpose. For this reason, it is necessary to restore the lived experience of the conventual community, because it is there that the yoke becomes easy and the burden light. We must understand that the project of preaching requires us to live with one heart and mind, and thus to unite our efforts in a common work — truly common.
Jordan was not an innovator; he was conscious that his work was to continue what had been begun. If there is something that we young friars must ask insistently of the Holy Spirit, it is that he renew us in love, in care and in the mutual shepherding of our relationship with the brother in our convent. When Christ asks Peter, “Do you love me?” he asks us: “Do you love your brother?” The challenge for all friars today is to “live the Order,” and not merely to live in it.
— fr. Harold Fernando Perea Coronado, OP
