October 2014 - Vol. 30 No. 10

We all are the Priestly People of God. Together, we are leaders in responding to the emotional and spiritual needs of Priests and Brothers.

In November, 2014, we begin a year of celebrating Consecrated Life. The Vatican has placed a three pronged focus on this celebration:

• Renewal for men and women in consecrated life

• Thanksgiving among the faithful for the service of sisters, brothers, priests, and nuns

• Invitation to young Catholics to consider a religious vocation.

As an international religious community of priests and brothers, the Servants of the Paraclete will be featuring articles throughout the year in Priestly People that

highlight all aspects of religious life.

Who is to say that any one of us has earned our way to where we are, to be doing what we are doing…? Are we not all working out of the labor of those who have gone before us? Is it not true that we are bringing forth the fruit of those before us who have poured out their labor years, generations, and centuries before us? And is it not true that we are also living and working in situations, circumstances beyond the imagination or dreams of these past generations. Their work lives on in our labors in ways they could not have imagined. It is also true that their labor lives on because those who followed in their footsteps had the courage, the imagination, the creativity to explore and discover new ways to express their vision.

Life is indomitable; it reaches for the light, the air, for freedom, to be and to become and reveal the fullness of the truth that lies hidden within their original dream. Life will not be suffocated, but stubbornly seeks ever-new horizons from which to unfold new possibilities hidden deep within.

The charisms of the founders and foundresses carry within them the eternal truths of the Divine Spirit of the Creator. They have their origins in the eternal “now” of the Divine – to be unfolded and revealed through time and across cultural boundaries.

Over the past decade or so the Servants of the Paraclete have been challenged to transplant the seed of the charism of Fr. Gerald into a variety of new cultural environments. We watch, hope and pray that it will be received, nurtured to bear fruit in ways that go far beyond what we could have planned or imagined, or what Father Gerald could have imagined. Like anxious parents we watch and hope as we allow the cultural soil of Vietnam, Ghana, Nigeria, the Philippines, and more recently Italy, to receive and bring forth new ways to minister to priests and consecrated men. Who can say what new forms, new expressions are nested within the hearts and souls of the men who are coming to us for formation as consecrated persons? What influences, forces, experiences are emerging out of their experience of what it means to be a religious, a priest in the opening years of the 21st century? We too probe and explore the hidden possibilities for bringing new expressions of Fr. Gerald’s vision.

To be a part of this, to be living and ministering in the Church at this time is to find ourselves in the midst of a

transformative and transforming moment in history. Our challenge is to be open, free, bold, and adventurous in our vision, our dream of what it means to be priest, consecrated religious. More specifically we are called to explore what it means to be a Servant of the Divine Paraclete, a Servant of the Fire of Pentecost, a Servant of the flame of love that flared forth from Cross of Calvary. We are called to be Servants of the Word that inflamed and enkindled the soul of the Community of Acts and sent them forth into the world to announce the coming of the Fire of divine Love in Jesus, God’s Christ. It is to recognize, acknowledge, and accept that we are in the service of a force, a power, a life that does not recognize cultural, religious, humanly contrived boundaries, humanly perceived horizons that attempt to hold in, confine, limit, and the expressions of The Holy Mystery of Divine Love Incarnate in Jesus.

To be working in formation today is to be uniquely blessed and challenged in ways that are both thrilling and daunting. Young people who come into religious communities today bring with them their unique constellation of dreams, hopes, expectations that are often lying quietly dormant, or stirring restlessly deep within. Formation is a sensitive and precious time in which to sort out the chaff from the wheat; to sort out and discern the variety of voices shouting and whispering within, to hear the clear, authentic voice of the Spirit. Pope Benedict XVI reminds us in “Jesus of Nazareth, From the Baptism in

Forever New, Always The Same

the Jordan to the Transfiguration” that Sacred Scripture operates on the principle that every human being has the inherent ability to know truth, to be able to distinguish right from wrong. We are all created in the Image and Likeness of God and therefore share in a participation in Divine Wisdom. Sacred Scripture awakens us to this inner wisdom that springs forth like living waters (Jn. 4:10). Few, if any of us, acknowledge today that we have immediate access to the fountain of living water within…We would rather allow others to tell us what to believe. And yet, the truth is that each person coming for formation brings with him or her immediate access to this fount of Living Water within. Scripture enables us to awaken to, and respond, to the eternal word already nesting deep within the folds of our inner life.

Today, as I interact with men from Ghana, Nigeria, the Philippines and Vietnam, I keep in mind that stirring within them the voice of God is calling. Deep within the multitude of voices, there stirs the still, quiet whisper, sometimes a faint sigh, of the Divine calling to them to stop and listen. To hear and respond to the call to answer boldly, creatively, bravely the summons to surrender to the Spirit that knows no personal, cultural, religious or socio-economic boundaries; that “blows where it wills”, and leads us to where we would not choose to go, to do that which we would not choose to do. Their vocation is being born amidst the inner tumult, the bewildering, confusing multitude of voices crying for attention. Together we prayerfully listen for the quiet, sill voice of God’s eternal Spirit asking for life and action in our world. Formation is a time therefore to listen and respond bravely, not to hesitate, to hold back, to be fearful, but to courageously embrace their vocation and, like Gerald, to step beyond boundaries, horizons, and humanly erected barriers. The needs of the

Church in their country of origin are unique, special, one of a kind. The needs of priests experiencing difficulties do not admit of generic responses, but the response that can only come from compassion, understanding, and the intuitive insights that can only come from a person who knows and courageously embraces their own inner truth. Compassion, empathy, understanding, love, the hallmarks of Gerald’s ministry, require human flesh, yours, mine and all who are responding to that call from within. Vocational discernment is not laying on burdens, practices, traditions that come from the past, but is an awakening to that call as it speaks here and now in the hearts and minds of those responding to their call to follow Christ today. Wisdom is the blending of the authentic call and response of God with the understanding and acceptance of one’s inner experience interacting with the cultural environment within which the person lives.

Within the past two years we have been in dialogue with a group of Benedictine religious who have asked to be received into a covenant with us as Servants of the Paraclete. More recently we have designated a team of religious who will take turns living with them for three months at a time reflecting, praying, and discerning how the charism of Father Gerald can blend with their ancient Benedictine charism. This experience points out and emphasizes once again how a genuine charism transcends all humanly perceived horizons and frontiers and takes root in new soil to bring forth new expressions of transcendent truths.

The formator’s response therefore is to stand in respect and reverence in the presence of this sacred treasure being carried within the questing soul. The quest itself is an expression of the Divine within the human soul. Religious formation asks us to bow before the eternal fire of God’s word in them, to take off our shoes and ask, as Moses asked, “Who are You Lord?” To hear again in our time: “I am eternal beginning without ending; I am forever new always the same. The one in whom I live will never die, never be old.” To be blessed with the challenge of formation today is to be asked to acknowledge and respond to the eternal flame of Divine Wisdom burning within the young men and women seeking to consecrate themselves to the eternal quest for the Living God.

Fr. Ray Gunzel sP

Fr. Ray Gunzel sP is the Servants of the Paraclete Novice Master based in the Philippines. Recently he spent several

months in Siena Italy teaching and formatting a community of Benedictines who are seeking to be received into a

covenant with the Servants of the Paraclete.

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