Building a province
A provincial community is not only a decision of juridical organisation. We are looking for a human community convinced of a mission that wants to be an offering of transformation in Southern Europe based on our Redemptorist charism.
For this reason, all the superiors, rectors and parish priests of the communities of Spain and Portugal met in Madrid, Perpetuo Socorro, on 9 January.
At the beginning of the Assembly, Fr. Provincial reminded us that the province will be one year old on 25 January, which indicates that we are at a very early stage in introducing new expectations and radical changes. Fr. Gennaro Sorrentino pointed out that it is a propitious time to listen to each other and discover ourselves so that the synergy can be awakened, giving substance to a new province with an evangelising impulse and imprint.
Luis Alberto Gonzalo Díez, professor at the Institute of Consecrated Life in Spain, gave a presentation on leadership based on spirituality and at the service of communion. He developed some aspects to be discussed and dialogued in the classroom and, above all, to facilitate the dynamisation of each community. He told us that a provincial community is not achieved by having brilliant leaders but by ensuring that every confrere can make decisions, knows his purpose, and has discovered the meaning of his life. Therefore, the leadership we are trying to build and learn is that which helps us to grow evangelically.
Fr. Luis Alberto’s presentation opened a vibrant dialogue in the classroom, focusing on the more concrete aspects that today are making possible and hindering the reality of communion. It is very significant how repeatedly a circumstance came up in which we may have to force ourselves at this time, and that is to work on ways of encounter, reconciliation and acceptance among ourselves so that the announcement becomes vibrant, credible and transforming.
In the afternoon, and along the same lines, Fr. Provincial, after his presentation based on 2 Cor 12,10, ‘when I am weak then I am strong’, the era of the infinite community, gave rise to a fraternal work and dialogue in which he asked about the renewal of our life in hope, the new design of missionary and reference communities, the transversal criteria of synodality… all in view of facilitating the rapprochement of visions, the sense of the new provincial community and the personal responsibility of the charge received in the name of the community.
Fr. Francisco Javier Caballero, CSsR
