Discernment with many voices

10 Jul 2018

#action, #community, #prayer, #sharing

On Tuesday, May 29th, I and the other members of the novitiate community lived a day of silence, prayer and sharing.

The day began at 8 with Lauds. At 9:15 am we received indications on how to live the first part of the experience: an hour of individual prayer, sharing in groups, and finally community sharing. We divided into three groups: first year, second year and the formation team. The aim was to identify consolations and desolations, the beautiful and arid moments, the joys and difficulties which the community experienced during the last year. Such as Moses saw the Lord behind him after his passage, so did we reread the year to understand where and when God had given something of himself.

First individually, then as a group. This moment allowed us to notice points in common, and to identify important elements that one group had underlined and the other not. It was enriching.

After lunch the same method: individual prayer, sharing in groups, then sharing all together. But the purpose was different. We did not reread the year, but with what had emerged in the morning review we searched for decisions to recommend. Here too we found convergent points and others less so. Each gave his own contribution, aware of being in search of the common and shared good.

It was something new for me. Prayer and sharing not simply for my journey, but with an attentive gaze upon the experiences of the community and listening to what the Lord wanted to tell me for the best of the community.

There is still a third step: to entrust everything to the prayer of the Novice Master so that the Lord shows us the way to go. This discernment does not want to arrive at concrete decisions by summing up the contributions of individual novices or formators. The exercise aims to identify, with the help of the Lord, recommendations which are deeply shared and community oriented that can show on which steps already made to insist or what new steps to take. The superior then collected and noted the consolations and desolations that had emerged, the proposed recommendations, and now brings them before the Lord with this intention.

The exercise shows the steps of the Ignatian way of proceeding: prayer, sharing, individuals’ proposals; trust in the superior, who receives all this, in turn prays and reflects, and finally decides.

We ended the day with the Eucharist. There Jesus listens and gathers in his embrace the fragility and the resources, the struggles and the strengths of the whole community.

Sullo stesso argomento

All in the field…for a full life!

by Daniele Angiuli

Community life is like a big soccer game. That’s the image that flashed through my mind while playing on the field with my teammates, amidst the running and the shortness of breath, the falls and the sweat. Each in his own position and at the same time in close relationship with the others: those in attack, ready to run toward the goal and score for the team; those in midfield to retrieve balls and act as “bridges” between players; those in defense to prevent opponents from advancing; those in goal to catch the ball and avoid the net.

There is no one role more eminent than another but all are necessary for the success of the game, just as in the community everyone is important and everyone can contribute. It is essential that each person does his part without declining to others, knowing, however, that he can count on the help of teammates. All called, as Luciano Ligabue says in “Una vita da mediano,”” to cover certain areas, to play generous” to be “there in the middle” of life.

I believe that in the field the only valid personal pronoun subject is “We.” Even in community life it is necessary to move from the ‘individualism of the “I” to the communion of the “we,” to think and act in the plural as Pope Francis often reminds us. If every player on the field started to go it alone, to run like a loose cannon, he would fail in his goal and even if he managed to score a goal, he would not achieve the real “goal”: teamwork, full communion with his teammates. So too in community life in the novitiate: it is necessary to look beyond the tip of one’s nose, to notice who is beside us, his need, to have the courage to step back and pass the ball to the other, always for the true good of all.

Every team has its own coach: he is responsible for preparation and game strategies. He is the first one who cheers for his team, trusts each person and insists that they give their best, according to their abilities. I like to think of the figure of Jesus as the real coach, as Carlo Nesti had already guessed in his book “My Coach’s Name is Jesus.” He encourages, spurs, believes, hopes in each of us and in the work of the whole team; he wants our “joy to be full” (Jn. 15:11).

It is difficult at times to live according to the demanding proposal of this great Coach, but not impossible. We need to put ourselves in the school of the Gospel, which prepares us to be athletes as the apostle Paul tells us: “Do you not know that in the stadium races all run, but only one wins the prize? You also run so as to conquer it! However, every athlete is disciplined in everything; they do so in order to obtain a crown that withers away, we, on the other hand, one that lasts forever. ” (1 Corinthians 9:24-25).

By living on “Jesus’ team,” our community, like every Christian community, will truly experience, in the midst of difficulties, the taste of a full existence, the flavor of true communion.