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Life and Mission of our Priest Fraternities in America

Information from each country

Country:

Number of priests in Fraternity:

Less than 40 years old: More than 40 years old:

Number of Local Fraternities in each Region:

Area 1: Spirituality

Our Priest Fraternity Jesus Caritas has a few of its own means to develop our Life in the Spirit, following the footsteps of Br. Charles. I list the most important and I ask you to rate them with the following: Very well developed, regularly developed, developed a little, undeveloped

Daily Eucharistic Adoration

Day in the Desert

Monthly Fraternity Meeting

Review of Life

Prayer of Abandonment

Annual retreat

Month of Nazareth

Life and Mission of Brother Charles

Area 2: Fraternity

Our Priest Fraternity has as its fundamental structure the small community of priests (5 or 6 brothers) who meet once a month and who intend to live the fraternal life not only on prayer days but in various ways throughout the month and with other local fraternities of the region and country.

2.1 How do you try in your country to strengthen fraternal bonds within the local fraternity and with other fraternities in the region and country?

2.2 Is there on-going communication between local fraternities? What means are utilized?

2.3 Do fraternities accompany one another to remain faithful to appropriate methods of spiritual growth? How?

2.4 What coordinating structures do local fraternities have with each region in the country?

2.5 How does the regional level encourage the meetings of local fraternities?

2.6 What roles do the National Responsible and Regional Responsibles play?

Area 3: Pastoral Mission

As diocesan priests, inspired with the charism of Br. Charles, we know that our mission is the evangelization of those most abandoned and distant from the Christian faith, principally through our style of life and our witness. “Apostolate of generosity,” “Cry the Gospel with our lives,” as Blessed Charles said.

3.1 In what ways are we working with the theme of our style of life as priest in our country? To what conclusions have we come?

3.2 In what ways are we working with the theme of our manner of doing pastoral work? To what conclusions have we come?

3.3 Following the orientation of Pope Francis to the “geographic and existential peripheries” are we reaching our evangelizing mission? How are we doing it? What helps and difficulties have we encountered?

3.4 Could we say that the fraternities of our country have made a ‘preferential option’ for the poor and their struggles, understanding that there are diverse forms of poverty? What are concrete signs of this option?

3.5 Do we have some kind of ecumenical or interreligious dialog in our countries?

Area 4: Connections with the Spiritual Family of Br. Charles

4.1 We know that the charism of Br. Charles is shared by laity and religious and with whom we form what is called the Family of Charles de Foucauld. In our country are there ties to this Family? Which? How have they functioned? What successes have we had?

4.2 We also have awareness of belonging to a Priestly Fraternity that is in various countries. What connections do we maintain with other countries? What connections with the International Council?

4.3 As diocesan priests we belong to a presbyterate. Do we have presence, participation and input to our presbyterate? Mention some significant examples.

4.4 As a Priestly Fraternity, recognized by the Holy See, we have an institutional presence in each country. Do we have some connection with the Conference of Bishops? What kind?

Area 5: Growth of our Fraternity

We are convinced that the charism of Brother Charles has made the Church better and will continue making it so in the measure that all the members of the Foucauldian Family are faithful to this charism. For this reason we are interested not only in the spiritual growth of our Fraternity but also numerical growth.

5.1 In what way has our Priestly Fraternity become known by other priests in our dioceses?

5.2 What perception do they have of our Fraternity, especially the youngest priests?

5.3 Has there been some opportunities to get to know seminarians and their formators? What results have we had?

5.4 What follow-up has been made to priests or seminarians who have shown some interest in knowing us better and eventually being integrated to our Fraternity?

5.5 Does the Fraternity have some definite policy to incorporate the priests who have made the decision to join us and to accompany them into a new local fraternity?

Dear Brothers:

I ask you to send your reports before October 15 in three languages (English, Spanish and French), in order to have as objective a vision as possible of what is happening in the fraternities of our countries. Thus I can forward them to the participants for study.

I also ask you to bring to the Assembly a Presentation in Power Point of the most significant aspects of Life and Mission of our Fraternities. Each representative will have a maximum of 20 minutes to share.

Many thanks,

Fernando Tapia, Priest

Coordinator of the Assembly

DOC: ENGLISH Questionaire Life and Mission first Panamerican Assembly

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It was a very simple occasion: the small and humble shared with Pope Francis the celebration of the canonization of the Universal Brother. Brother Charles died of an “overdose of humanity”. This, and no other, was the prevailing reason for proclaiming the holy man to be a saint, though he would never have imagined seeing his image in that “Bernini’s Glory” made with great love by the tuaregs on the great haima (carpet) which they erected near Tamanrasset, and composed of pieces of blue cloth and small rocks from the place: bits of the life of the men and women of this earth and pieces of the planet, the work of God; stones which are not hurled as weapons, but rather the heritage of a wonderful world that sustains and governs us, as Francis of Assisi used to say in his Canticle of Creation.

Pope Francis enjoyed speaking Arabic with his Argentinian accent. The strong wind swept away his pages, which flew through the dunes, but he continued speaking in Spanish, and everyone understood him, all those present, each with his own language and culture, his different skin colour and his heart open to the festivity and the sharing. Jesus, the Master, has given us a lesson in universal brotherhood, – a Master crazy about his disciples and every human being; a free-spirited dreamer, who reiterates in every loving gesture his commitment to us. The Pope shared with us the bread of the very poorest, that which Jesus shared with his friends, – as he had done at the canonization of Archbishop Romero – , who always has been Saint Romero of America -, the one who only is accepted when he is poor and feels himself as one in need of the mercy of God and of his neighbour. It is that bread which brother Charles could not share in either great or small celebrations when he lived on the African stage, but he made it present with his life and his condition of being a neighbour and man of God, in the Nazareth of sharing with the people tea and dates, feeling himself in need of others, fragile and humble.

It was a great joy being with people from around the world, among the last come from everywhere. Believers and unbelievers, Christians and non-Christians who, above religious forms, seek peace, equality for all, and the common good. There was no showy decorations, no golden tunics nor cardinals, bishops or priests in flashy dress: no uniforms or weapons, even purely decorative ones. Jesus become human for us and made a friend of all by the will of the merciful Father and with sufficient capacity to hold in his heart all the poor of the world, all who flee war, all ill-treated by a system where the only god is economic gain, even at the expense of human lives; the permanently crucified Jesus of those who have nothing, risen in every man or woman who begins to be born.

And there they were, perfectly following the ceremony without large offerings, without the hypocrisy of diplomatic protocol or hypocrisy often dressed up as religion. People, without the right to speak, to means of well-being, to schooling or university, to free health care and medication, to ways of living in dignity with a roof or house, to some food and land of their own. They were there in their thousands, without making noise or great speeches. They who had never heard speak of Brother Charles or of Jesus of Nazareth.

There was Shilma, a refugee of a rejected ethnic group in a country of Southeast Asia, Myanmar. A mother of six children, without her people, without resources. The face of millions of people trapped by the great differences which men have set up to distinguish some beings from others. Her husband, Modid, attends daily to search in the camp for sustenance for his family; he suffers from all the effects of malaria

Golu, who is ten, collects rubbish in a part of India, and must support his family so they can eat once a day the rice that takes away the hunger, but fails to nourish as in Western countries or among the wealthy of his own country. Golu dreams of the day in which he will be able to study, and learn to live in the world with his full rights.

Margarita, from Mexico City, cares for her grandson who has been totally disabled for twenty-five years, fighting and working for her family; a woman of faith and convinced that prayer and trust in Jesus are her true strength. She prays to Our Lady of Guadalupe not only for her grandson, or her family or her neighbours; she prays for the poorest of the poor no matter what country they are from and where they are.

Aboubakar, a teenage from de Burkina Faso, small, malnourished, with HIV as the only legacy from his parents, smiling, impressed since he is not the only person in the world who has problems. His big eyes make me think of the eyes of the Creator.

Hadmed, seventy years, has spent half a lifetime in Yarmuk refugee camp in Syria. The war remains his daily companion, like the unending mp3 music in the ears of any European or American youth. Hadmed continues thinking of peace, peace in simple things and between people, children of the same God, who is prayed to in mosques, in churches, in pagodas or in synagogues.

And Terry, who strolls each day along the esplanade beside the sea at Cairns, in the North of Australia, each day dragging his one leg. He lost the other one because of his bad blood-circulation. Alcohol runs through his veins together with bad memories of having lost everything: family, work, friends… Each night he receives the kindness of volunteers at a home for the extremely poor. Despite all, he continues laughing and speaks to everyone of his hopes and realities. He is a great conversationalist. I’d say that the only one who does not hear him is Warrior, his old and deaf dog. He says he has no religion, but who knows…

I met Raquel, a Spaniard, a regular on the poorly lit streets of Cartagena, where she works to continue consuming heroin and cocaine. Raquel is transsexual and never found her place in the family, or in society. She sells herself as a means of survival, but what really gives her life is the embrace of her companions, her support when she is well and when she wants disappear from this world. She wears a Rosary round her neck, as a necklace; she says that it brings her luck and protects her. She is ashamed to enter a church, because she is looked at askance and she draws a lot of attention, but she prays to God and to Our Lady when she passes through the door.

I could go on recounting the lives and the thousands of faces of Jesus in this canonization of Brother Charles, presided over by the Love of God and calls to consider any human being as a brother, as an equal. We all teach each other to be worthy of the same Father. Some recited the Prayer of Abandonment, others closed their eyes and dreamed of a better world. Some understood that fraternity is a way of living and of growing in spirituality and in the commitment to give without expecting to receive in everyday tasks, others felt that they were not alone. We looked at each other and there was nothing strange between us, and we understood that the message of the life of this man, a man of God, transcends borders and religions, a life of faith and living without God. His message of universal brotherhood, his death and resurrection caused by “an overdose of humanity”.

Saint Charles de Foucauld, pray for us.

Mariano PUGA CONCHA

Santiago, Chile, June 2015

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