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1991, at short notice, I was asked to leave the mission of Sierra Leone to go to
Madrid. I flew from the quiet and
familiar country town of Lunsar, to the very busy and populous borough on the
south of the capital of Spain. I was assigned to formation work in our major
seminary and to help the work of missionary animation.
At the beginning I felt confused and upset, I was not used to life in a
metropolis and I missed very much the life of the mission, the warm welcome of
African people.
Master, we have worked all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will cast the nets.
Our missionary animation was mainly among young people. At the end of the 60’s and at the beginning of the 90’s young people in Spain went through a deep crisis of identity and frustration after being let down by the politicians. In that period young people hoped for a new Cultural Revolution, a new ’68. They dreamed a new way forward, to escape from unemployment, from cultural and religious stagnation. They had enjoyed democracy, now they sought a more meaningful and profound involvement in the political process.
The politicians in power belonged to the same generation of young people that had fought for democracy and freedom. Now part of the establishment, they failed to understand and support the new generation.
The failure to achieve a new vision of society left young people in a state of disillusionment and apathy. That little had changed in the political world, meant that things became irrelevant for young people.
We wondered whether there was still a place and interest in the mission of the Church in such an environment. In our community meetings we tried to find an answer to this very important issue and we looked for discernment and solutions. A member of the community suggested that we should offer plainly and with courage our experience of God as religious people and sense of what the mission means for our own Christian lives. Others suggested that the word of God was not barren, it was still alive and full of sap.
We remembered the words of the prophet Amos: “The days are coming, says the Lord Yahweh, when I shall send a famine on the country. Not hunger for food, not thirst for water, but a famine for hearing the word of God.” (Amos 8:11)
We were sure that the Spirit of God was breathing life into the world and that Jesus was not a redundant and meaningless figure of the past. He is the risen Lord and still walking among his people and summoning us to follow him. Sociologists of religion tell us that authentic spirituality is available to and claimed by every new generation. We took some comfort from finding ourselves in the embarrassing situation of Peter and his fellow fishermen: “Master, we have worked all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will cast the nets.” (Luke 5:5)
In faith, we cast our nets and we started calling our young friends for a meeting once a month to share with them our experience of faith and to study the challenges of the Church in the different continents.
Month by month we realized that the Church is much larger and committed than our parochial experience. The Church was witnessing to Christ in Africa with the small Christian communities; in Latin America with commitment to the full liberation of people; in Asia the same Church was in dialogue with other religions. Throughout the world missionaries and Christians were bearing witness to Christ by sharing the problems of the poor. They were bringing them a new vision of a world and a society of equal opportunities. The missionaries were there to make the world a single family.
In this process we discovered that the world is not simply in the hands of the powerful countries, or destined to be shaped by the agenda of the new liberal capitalism, but it is in the hands of the most powerful God who has his own agenda. Our task is to discover his plan and cooperate to make it a reality.
In the course of our journey we were asked for weekends of prayer and silence to listen to the Word of God. SO, little by little our community became a place of missionary spirituality. After three years we felt the need to deepen our experience so we started a new three year program: a journey through the Word of God to get closer to him, to understand his plan for the world and to find out our place in his project.
During the first year we looked at figures from the Old Testament: Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, Amos, Ruth, Jonah. The faith and the historical commitment of their people; the struggle to find a solution to their social situation; the turning of their minds to the Covenant with the one true God of the Exodus who helped them achieve a new and personal experience of God.
Moses, in his struggle to free his people from the slavery of Egypt, found that God wanted the same liberation and that He had heard the people’s cries and came down to set them free. We used the Bible not as a history book, but as the Word of God. We opened the Bible with faith and in a prayerful way. Our personal meeting with the word of God was through the ancient method of the Lectio Divina.
Jose Ignatio, a
worker, when he started to enjoy the Lection Divina method, shared his
experience saying: “Before the word of God was difficult for me to
understand, and it was boring and I was scared away.
Now I feel myself identifying with Zacchaeus, I ran because I want to be
seen by Jesus and be called by name.”
In the second year we suggested a new approach to the Gospel of Luke.
The main purpose was to contemplate Jesus as the master who still calls
us to be his disciples.
So we would ask ourselves: who is Jesus? Who are his
disciples?
For those who
wanted we suggested also the opportunity to start the experience of the
Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius for daily life.
Our meeting with Christ is a very personal and unique saving experience. Antonio from the
University of Madrid said: “As soon as I started the daily Spiritual
Exercises, I found myself hooked, fascinated by Jesus and his project and now I
can’t ignore it.”
The experience of the third year was centered on the reading of the Acts of the
Apostles. After their encounter
with the Risen Lord, full of the fire of the Spirit the apostles boldly
announced Jesus to the people. We
looked into the style of life of the first Christian community who had the
courage to give up everything to bear witness to Jesus the Christ.
During this year, young people are encouraged to find their vocation and their place in the plan of God. This third year is the conclusion of a long journey to find out the will of God. It is surprising how young men and women take seriously their life and their commitment in the Church. Some of them have found their vocation in Christian marriage, others as married or single lay Xaverian missionaries, or they join other organizations. Two of them have become Xaverian Missionary priests.
I remember with joy when during the final evaluation of the activities a young woman told us: “You missionaries, go out to make known the word of the Lord. Now I thank you for introducing us to the same Word with the freshness of the missions.”
(From Xaverian News)