Sunday May 19

Today was a day of reflection and prayer for the Chapter.
 

At 10:00 a.m., the Min­is­ter Gen­er­al pre­sent­ed today’s speak­er: His Emi­nence, Luis Anto­nio Gokim Car­di­nal TAGLE, Met­ro­pol­i­tan Arch­bish­op of Mani­la, the Philip­pines, and Pres­i­dent of Inter­na­tion­al Caritas.
The theme of his first talk was on prophe­cy. Accord­ing to the Car­di­nal, all reli­gious must ques­tion their own way of pro­claim­ing the Gospel. These days we are expe­ri­enc­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of glob­al­iza­tion, we can learn every­thing about every­body but we have dif­fi­cul­ty pro­claim­ing the truth that saves.
As pro­claimers of Christ, our biggest chal­lenge is being too pre­oc­cu­pied by the strate­gies, by the tech­niques of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, as though we were adver­tis­ing experts. How­ev­er, what we say should lib­er­ate peo­ple, not manip­u­late them as the media often do, who are more inter­est­ed in amaz­ing peo­ple than in offer­ing them truth.
The solu­tion lies in fol­low­ing the exam­ple of Jesus Christ. He always preached start­ing from human and con­crete real­i­ties, and tried first and fore­most to enter into a rela­tion­ship with peo­ple. The world needs wit­ness­es. To that end the Car­di­nal con­clud­ed his speech by point­ing out some con­crete sit­u­a­tions, for exam­ple in Syr­ia, Lebanon and the Philip­pines. In these real­i­ties, one must be qui­et­ly open to those in mis­ery, and open to the good that can be found in trou­bled peo­ple. In this the reli­gious can be prophets, pro­claim­ing the sal­va­tion of the Risen Christ and try­ing to be authen­tic and con­sis­tent about what they preach.
At 11:30 p.m., Mass took place in the Low­er Basil­i­ca of St. Fran­cis. Car­di­nal Luis Anto­nio presided, sur­round­ed by the Capit­u­lars, the con­fr­eres of the Sacred Con­vent com­mu­ni­ty and numer­ous lay faith­ful. His homi­ly was in both Ital­ian and Eng­lish and the sim­plic­i­ty with which he pro­posed the Gospel com­mand­ment to love one anoth­er real­ly struck a chord. The Car­di­nal asked those present to raise their hands if they were mar­ried. He invit­ed them to love their spous­es and chil­dren, as Jesus does—the one who nev­er aban­dons us. Then, the Car­di­nal turned to the reli­gious and joked about them not rais­ing their hands. How­ev­er, he invit­ed them all the same; to love as Jesus loves, that is, to always remain close with one’s brothers.
Evening Prayer was held at 5:00 p.m. After­wards, the Car­di­nal gave his sec­ond talk, this time on theme of mis­sion in the face of change. The Car­di­nal said that human life is always marked by changes; it is all about grasp­ing every moment of exis­tence as a pos­i­tive oppor­tu­ni­ty. Also, he said that being called to the respon­si­bil­i­ty of Min­is­ter Gen­er­al can be under­stood as a bless­ing, beyond all the hard­ships it may involve.
He then asked each Capit­u­lar to make an exam­i­na­tion of con­science: what changes in our­selves, in our broth­ers, in the Church and in soci­ety, do we desire or fear? In this his­tor­i­cal time, the biggest change has been the devel­op­ment of the Inter­net. Are we able to see the pos­si­bil­i­ties that it offers our mis­sion? There are many oppor­tu­ni­ties for renew­al for the Church; we must be capa­ble of dia­logue, shar­ing and express­ing new life to all people.
Final­ly, the Car­di­nal con­duct­ed a ques­tion and answer ses­sion. Very impor­tant­ly, he invit­ed us Con­ven­tu­als to be holy, amid the spon­tane­ity and prob­lems of dai­ly life in every social sphere.

Fri­ar Aure­lio ERCOLI, Chronicler