Sister Franca Mondini smsm, from the Province of Italy-Rwanda, has worked mainly in Burundi and Rwanda and also for some years in pastoral ministry in Senegal. Having a very good knowledge of the languages of the Great Lakes, she lived in the refugee camps in Rwanda and Tanzania during the difficult years. Then she started a centre that welcomed those suffering from AIDS.
My first reaction to this topic was a feeling of shame and confusion because I can see the infinite distance that exists between my usual attitudes and those that should be the “Marist way”: to think, to speak, to act like her, and to live as it were here life (SMSM Constitutions 49), in order to live in the Church and in the world.
I also need to recognise that the concern to live these attitudes, or at least to begin to live them, has slowly matured in me, because for a long time I limited myself to a vague attachment to the Virgin Mary, being convinced that this would suffice because I am Marist.
What made me aware of the problem was firstly the reading of the deep and substantial texts of Father Coste sm and more recently the latest documents on our Pioneers and on the Marist spirit prepared by SMSM sisters and studied during a time of renewal.
Again more deeply, the circumstances of my religious and missionary life caused me to reassess my life. Interior “flashes” at times projected a light onto the situation in which I was living and I “felt” that my response, our responses were still far from the Marist way.
I believe, at least as far as I am concerned, that one is not “naturally” Marist. That is to say that the attitudes of silence, of discretion, of detachment, of the acceptance of secondary roles, of disinterestedness, of self-effacement in the hidden life are neither common nor easy. It is very rare to spontaneously move in that direction. However the Lord allows life itself to push us, even to force us to make choices that are more in keeping with our calling. It is then that, more or less willingly, we discover the Marist way.
The first situation: becoming older! Sooner or later it will happen to all of us. And then naturally we no longer have the first place (nor the second or even the third sometimes!). And silence and the hidden life become obligatory. And we remain there on the sideline, very much on the sideline.
Another situation that obliges us to make choices that are closer to the Marist spirit is the new situation of mission. There were many sacrifices and privations in the life of our first sisters. But there were also quite a few satisfactions. They were, or rather they felt, useful, almost indispensable. All was in their hands: education of children, formation of the women, care of the sick, help for the poor. Now this has changed. More and more governments want (and rightly so) to use the people of the country. More than before, we need to be specialised, to have qualifications. The local clergy and sisters are taking over. It is true that we have always hoped for this, but...
Another reality that challenges us: comparison with other congregations. Often (not always) they have more vocations, an average age that brings more hope, more capacity to meet the present challenges…
In all these situations the “Marist way” becomes essential for us and we learn slowly to become in a certain way “hidden and unknown”, to lose certain roles, to no longer be the leaders, to humbly disappear when it is necessary.
And gradually our acceptance becomes responsible and free and also perhaps a choice of love.
I believe that Mary gives us a little wink. She seems to be whispering: “you have finally arrived, but you needed a hand!”
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