PRESENTATION
Dear Confreres,
One of the objectives of the General Chapters in our Society, as spelled out in Con. 616, is to inspire “all to a new zeal for our religious-missionary life and activity.” This means that renewal is one of the aims of the General Chapters. The question is: What is the distinct contribution and character of the 18th General Chapter?
In the convocation letter of the Chapter, we read: “The objective of this Chapter is to foster a process of a spiritual rekindling, bringing us back to the Word of God as the source of our life, vocation, and mission and our religious missionary commitment. We visualize the forthcoming Chapter to deepen our spirituality drawing resources from the Gospel and the people and to grow in personal enrichment and spiritual animation” (2016 P01/2016). It is therefore evident that the 18 th General Chapter was not primarily meant to give a new direction for the Society. The course of the Society was already discussed and decided in previous General Chapters. Prophetic dialogue is our understanding of mission today, which we want to promote with our four preferential dialogue partners (15 th General Chapter). Prophetic dialogue led the way for us to review our life and mission in its five dimensions (16 th General Chapter). In the 17 th General Chapter, we designed action plans to implement prophetic dialogue within our Society (ad intra) and with our dialogue partners (ad extra). In the wake of the 18 th General Chapter what we need is a spiritual drive to help us move towards the implementation of the congregational directions. The 18 th General Chapter Statement affirms that “our Society became aware that we need to engage in the process of renewal of ourselves, our community life and our mission.” 1 We know that we can only move forward if we take more seriously the process of deepening our spiritual roots and renewing our commitments as religious missionaries of the Divine Word. And this is the distinct contribution of the 18 th General Chapter.
The main emphasis of the 18th General Chapter is spiritual renewal and transformation. Renewal and transformation is not about bringing forth something new. It is about making present and fruitful what has already been there. It is about rediscovering “the spiritual foundations that sustain and nourish our personal and community life and give meaning to our mission.” 2 This Chapter has helped us return to the very foundations of our Society, to our name. We are given the name, the Society of the Divine Word, and this name is our mission. 3 The practice of Bible and Life Sharing during the Chapter has shown us that a process of personal and communal discernment based on the Word of God is instrumental in making important decisions for the individual, the community, and the Society as a whole. From the reports of many provinces, we learn that this practice has been adopted as part of their assemblies and meetings. We realize that putting the Word of God at the center of our life is our way of seeing reality as a whole, of making discernments, and of planning our responses to different situations. At the same time, enriched by our missionary experiences in intercultural communities, we discover new dimensions of the Word of God. Our rootedness in the Word gives us new impulses for our mission. Our missionary involvement also draws us back to the Word of God as the source of our orientation, inspiration and strength.
Our spiritual foundation enjoins us to be rooted in the Word and to be faithful to the Word. For this reason, the General Council, together with the members of the Caucus, has decided to name its annual publication “Faithful to the Word.” Faithfulness is a characteristic of love. Faithful to the Word means loving the Word. To love someone is to give space and time to him/ her, to show deep affection and to be fully one with the beloved. Loving the Word, therefore, is letting the Word take the lead in our lives. God’s Word should be the guide in becoming what we are meant to be and in doing what we ought to do. The statement of the 18 th General Chapter says: “Making Christ our first love means experiencing in a personal way his love that leads to the transformation of the individual and community and impels the transformed person/community to be committed to the loving service of others in mission.” 4 To love Jesus, the incarnate Word, has the consequence that we need to make those to whom he was close, the concern of our hearts. The main interlocutors of Jesus—the poor, the marginalized, the broken, the captives, the sick, the oppressed—are our dialogue partners.
Faithfulness to the Word requires us to respect the Word of God. The Word is the Word of God; it is not our word. The Word of God is not an echo of the desire and interest of our hearts; and it should not be used as a justification for our ambition and projects. The challenging characteristic of the Word remains. The Word of God puts into question our way of thinking, doing, and living. The Word of God challenges our very manner of being.
Centering our life on the Word of God leads us to renew and transform ourselves and our mission. As Divine Word missionaries, we give witness to the Reign of God through prophetic dialogue characterized by the four characteristic dimensions. The four dimensions define who we are and what we do. We are people centered on the Word of God. By listening to the Word, we encounter God as the creator who entrusts to us the care of Mother Earth as our common home. In his compassion for the poor and oppressed, he encourages us to promote justice and reconciliation. The richness of encountering God and the experience in promoting JPIC we communicate with others, because we want to animate them to collaborate in the mission of God entrusted to us. Our spiritual renewal, therefore, needs to take shape in our four characteristic dimensions.
The Generalate’s annual publication Faithful to the Word is meant to articulate our commitment to these characteristic dimensions. However, this first issue is about Formation. The General Council has decided to make Formation one of the three focuses in this sexennium, together with Spirituality and Collaboration with the lay mission partners. Formation, especially initial formation, has always been a particular concern of the Society. According to the report of the Coordinator of Formation and Education during the General Chapter 2018, the Society worldwide has some 115 houses of formation with at least 2,300 formandi at different phases of formation. That formation is our priority is reflected, for instance, in that from 2012 to 2017, 41% of the Generalate’s subsidies (about 28.3 million USD) was earmarked for houses of formation. In the next years, we want to give more attention to find ways to prepare our young members for intercultural life and mission. Our formation is for the mission which we do as religious. Religious missionary formation should focus on human maturity, spiritual development, community life, academic competence and missionary commitment. As Socii Verbi Divini, who in the incarnation has become one with and close to the people, we are called and empowered to continue to be one with the people. Our initial formation should aim at close accompaniment of our young members, so that they become faithful to the Word and one with the people. A Divine Word missionary is one who bases his life and works on his friendship with the Word. At the same time, a Divine Word missionary is one who is close to the people, who feels their griefs and joys, who is open to collaborate with others, who is willing to immerse oneself in the culture of the people, and who is open to live and work in an intercultural community.
Our efforts after the 18 th General Chapter are devoted to renewing ourselves individually and communally. One way to renew ourselves is to take an interest in the publication of the Generalate, which is meant to guide us in our ongoing formation. We propose to use the method of Bible and Life-Sharing as a method in reading and discussing this annual publication. The contents of Faithful to the Word may serve as material for personal reading and communal reflection and discussion.
This publication is made possible because of the hard work and collaboration of many confreres. We want to thank Fr. Stanislaus Thanuzraj Lazar who accepted the office of Editor of Faithful to the Word. Our special thanks go to Fr. Pushpa Anbu Augustine and Bro. Carlos José Ferrada Montero, who contacted the formators to contribute for the first chapter. We thank all of these confreres who have shared their experiences of formation. We are also grateful to Fr. Andrews Obeng for his theological reflection in the second chapter and for Fr. Nevil D’Silva for articulating the practical aspects of formation in the third chapter. We want to express our gratitude to all the formators, for their dedication and love in this significant service to the Society. We are grateful to Frs. Pedro de Dios Martin and Brian O’Reilly for the translation and other confreres who are involved in this publication. Finally, we thank all of you, dear confreres, for making Formation as one of our priorities and in your willingness to renew and transform our SVD formation.
Fraternally in the Divine Word,
Fr. Paulus Budi Kleden, SVD and Leadership Team
1 In Word and Deed (IWD), Documents of the 18 th General Chapter SVD 2018, Rome, No. 6, 2018, 2.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 17 and 53. The Chapter document uses the expression, “our name is our mission.”
4 Ibid., 10.
