domingo, 13 de julio de 2008

25 years of fidelity to the Gospel


We celebrate 25 years of the constitution of the Claretian Seculars Movement and the approval of the Principles in Villa de Leyva (Columbia). That first assembly in 1983 ment “a great chance for following Jesus a through the compromise of building the Kingdom of God”. And stills being like that 25 years later. The Claretian Seculars keep on being Christians that try to make the mission of Jesus in the world our mission, we live the exigencies of the Kingdom and we give in the Church a service with the spirit of Claret, always in our secular identity .

The Principles still being nowadays an essential guide to answer our call. As the assembly of Florencia Varela wrote, “Its true that for the one who follows Jesus the only way of living is the Gospel. But the Principles is just a read of the Gospel and its radical exigencies, from the view of our vocation and mission; a read of all the Gospel where some details of the mission bounded with the Claretian Secular’s mission get more importance, which means the wish that God have of our work and our being in the Church by serving the Kingdom”.

After the two first assemblies, we’ve keep on working in this idea: going deeper in the service to the Word and its transforming action (Madrid, 1991), the Claretian Secular as contrast community (Campinas, 1995), the prophetic mission (Santo Domingo, 1999), our mission nowadays (Vic, 2003) and our spirituality (Mixco, 2007). Has been an important effort to decide the most urgent, opportune an useful for the expansion of the Kingdom, trying as Claret to pay attention on the signs in our time to give a right answer to the justice, peace and happiness of the man.

That’s a chance to renew our aim to evangelize. But for that first we have to have been really evangelized. The conversion and the change of life, personal, familiar and communitarian, is a must to get the evangelizing aim of the Christian. There is no evangelizing without a previous radical conversion, a transformation of the mind and the heart. . In the document of the Assembly of Guatemala “Formed in the forge of the Heart of Maria. A path for living the spirituality of the Claretian Secular today” we find the keys to, drinking of the sources of our spirituality be witness: “The experience of the fire is the experience of meeting with the God of life and history, that manifests his love in the world”.

Keeping our communities being evangelized and evangelizers requires a continuous attention in our formation, and the permanent option about the coherency of Christian life, to give a reason of our hope. We need to be witnesses in all our scenarios, to transform from inside all our realities: family, work, culture, economy, politics, arts, media, science, thoughts… And use all the modern ways on our hands to talk to the man of today in an actual language.

Is true that the Gospel has to be proclaimed at first place with our testimonies, but the Claretian Seculars can’t forget that, as baptized we have to announce the Word of Life: Jesus from Nazaret, Son of God, itself .

The communitarian dimension of the Principles stills being one of the alive pillars of the movement: add to the Kingdom means join the Universal Church, the great community of conversed that goes to convert everyone: “they have to know not only that they belong to the church, but they’re also the church under the guide of the Pope. Those are the Church”.

The internationality of the Movement helps us to feel the universality of the Church. Our communities in developed and poor countries helps us to have a more complete vision, to know as many problems as they have with justice, freedom, develop and world peace, which have to be bounded to our evangelizing mission. As Claret, the Charity of Christ hurries us to end the un-humanization of our world.

It’s time to thank. 25 years is a Young age for a Church movement. But we have to be conscientious that, in our poorness and limits, this is a Gift of God for the Church. Because our charisma is not the most important, even not the most famous, but is the one that the Spirit choose to give to the Church through us. That means the responsibility of approaching our talents, “You’re the salt of the earth. If the salt has no taste, What will be given back with the flavor?”.

It’s time of thank to our brothers and sisters in the way: Claretian Family, that teach, orientate and care as the brothers, and we share and care our treasure, the Claretian charisma.

We’re conscient that we got a gift by living the mother mystery of Maria inside Christ, which pushes us like in Pentecost to announce the Resurrected . This love and trust makes us walk with the happiness and the feeling of the one who’s in his mother arms.

We ask the help of Maria and San Antonio María Claret, to illuminate us in our evangelizing work, to transform the Claretian Seculars in rows that come into the world and take to the darkest places the Light of Christ.

In the name of the General Council, a fraternal hug in the Heart of Maria,



Constantino Rodríguez, sc
General Secretary

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