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03.10.2019
If the times don’t require your best, invent other times. This is na invitation to rediscover the ability to imagine, to let oneself be attracted by dreams, to look at projects that have the strength to bring out the best in us. These words of Stefano Benni, an Italian writer and journalist, are an apt comment on the title of the next international session for formators, “Formed by Jesus to make the dream real”.
In fact, there are many issues on the agenda of this session for updating and revising the guidelines for initial formation. Looking at responses to a survey of over 50 formators and 70 young women in formation, there are questions and incredible opportunities that will be the subject of study by formators. In some cases, the wishes of those who accompany match that of those in formation. It happens quite often, thankfully. In other cases, what formation offers does not match the demand, i.e., the expectations of new generations. It is here that, with a little courage, better opportunities are found.
A relevant aspect of formation concerns discernment and openness for mission, a dimension that St. Ignatius sees as grounded in desire and movement in response to the attraction to the magis. the best part, to be precise.
In fact, living from desire produces a healthy restlessness, a thrust towards an outgoing life, looking toward new horizons and the future. For this, the engine for discernment and the Ignation missionary paradigm can only be desires.
For Saint Ignatius, and before him in Sacred Scripture, without desire there is no room for God to operate, for only God can send one on mission. But wishes are not an act of will. They are aroused in us and we are called by them. So what is the educational challenge? First of all, to take increasingly into account that today, those who knock on the door of our communities on different continents, are children of a generation that for decades has closed up its dreams in a box. The inability to dream and the lack of a future for global villagers are especially sad, because they affect youth, dreamers by nature, and are the result of several factors that we should analyze.
But what formation can we imagine for sharing the dream? Probably, it would be a worthwhile adventure that forms new members to discover the dreams they have within, a project that exposes them to strong and challenging experiences, awakening the desire for the magis, because desire and the expansive horizon it brings can be encouraged, can be formed.
In formation to the consecrated life, the “personal trainer” is Jesus. It is he who reveals the happiness of the unconditional love of God for each person. It is his dream of proclaiming this good news from border to border on the Earth that puts life on the road. From this dream was born “a community for dispersion, open to the deepening of the gift received, to the journey, to precariousness, to the encounter”, (Father Gianfranco Matarazzo, head of the Euro Mediterranean Province of the Jesuits). Therein is defined the project of consecrated life that initial formation can facilitate.
But if today someone might come to you or to me, not Jesus, we would be too intimidated, but rather the genie in the lamp who says, “Tell me your wish and today I will grant it “, what would we ask, we consecrated women, now professed for some years?
S. Mariaelena Aceti
