LET US WALK WITH THE HOLY FOUNDER TODAY AND TOMORROW!

MESSAGE FROM THE SUPERIOR GENERAL

First of all, I send you my personal greeting and best wishes, together with the wishes of the General Council, to all the chapter Fathers, gathered in the name of Spirit to discern a new path in the light of the witness of our holy Founder Father Luigi Guanella. The chosen theme of your chapter is very evident: Marching with the holy Founder today and tomorrow.

The Church reminds us very often: We are the bearers of the Charism, not of an ancient or obsolete charism, which is out of time. But we have received a charism which is born of the Spirit and alive in every time and place and it is applied to history, involving and promoting people of every time, nation and culture. Today, the Guanellian charism is very active unlike the other centuries and it is necessary for today’s Church and the world. Thus, we have received this gift from those who have preceded us on the journey of life.

This is the question in front of us; How will be the Guanellian charism tomorrow? Will it also be the same for the future? I would immediately answer ‘yes’, if it all and only depended on the Spirit. At the same time, it also depends on us, the privileged guanellians, but not only unique custodians of this charismatic gift. The happy and prosperous future of Guanellian charism will also depend on our way of life today, the way how we live the Guanellian style in first person. The charism will also depend on how we pass it on to the next generation in its integrity, but also in its actualization and conformity to the time and place where we live, which easily and quickly evolves and changes. Then, I would say, we are certainly traveling with don Guanella, but we are not going to do like him!

The Founder lived up to the task entrusted to him by the Spirit, Yes, he was a man of his time, with his skills and his personal intuition. He sanctified himself by living the responsibility of the charism that the Spirit had inspired in him. Our Constitutions number 1 affirms, "The Holy Spirit called the Founder, made him fervent in the charity and sent him to relieve the human suffering and don Guanella responded with the offering of his lifetime" (Decretum Laudis). 

But today’s guanellians must imitate Don Guanella by discerning and applying. The gift we have received today from the Spirit should be applied to our personal mission and that of the Congregation. In fact, today also, as our Founder did yesterday, the Spirit asks for a personal and community response appropriate to the time in which we live, in the human, cultural and religious context in which we are immersed and of which we are an integral part.

Here lies the fidelity, the newness, the beauty, the importance and applying the Guanellian charism in the Church and in the world today! And a Provincial Chapter, like yours, is called to make this reading, to discern the meaning, the charismatic value in the light of the geographical reality in which it lives and testifies to its charism of charity. So, You are capable, in these days, to find some lines of action and paths of life for a creative fidelity, not obsolete, repetitive!

Yes, we have so many references at our hand: first one is the Gospel and then the Constitutions and Regulations, the Magisterium of the Church and even the urgencies that the world around us invoke from us. We may be available to the Call of the Lord with dedication, but without this historical-cultural reading and above all, without personal involvement, like Guanella being faithful to all the trials without criticism and gossip, we would risk to carry on a fidelity to the charism and a mission that says little to the people who live next to us; We would risk to speak a different language to the men and women of our time and then they may not understand our language. So what shall we hand over to the next generation that is true and foundational? 

Remember that the Founder was clear in wishing us with his prophetic words, “It is necessary to give hand, mind and heart, to the point of becoming a victim for the poor of Jesus Christ, because it is written that the Good Shepherd gives his life for his sheep" (R .1905).

This style which needs to be adapted should involve the whole reality of our life: from the moment of Call of God received in our life to share his project of life and to the formative journey towards the great stages of our life. This journey continues until the daily personal update and adaptation that history, the Church, the charism will ask from us.

I wish all the chapter confreres to have a strong experience of communion among you and a discernment that will bring a new creative charismatic prophecy to the whole Divine Providence Province and to the entire Congregation.

I give you my final words quoting number 2 of our Constitutions, "The Spirit also shares with us the grace and the evangelical inspiration of the Founder to carry on his ministry of charity in the Church"(C.2). Therefore, Be responsible for it!

Thanks for listening to me and have a good Provincial Chapter! 

Don Umberto Brugnoni, Superior General

Rome, September 28, 2021