First Circular Letter - ENG

Dear confreres
After the meeting we had with the provincial superiors, we announced that the celebration of the 20th General Chapter will be in April 2018.
It is convenient that we start our preparation for this important event of Congregation by referring to our Regulations: "The chapters should be conveniently prepared through an ample consultation among the confreres, so that the work of the chapter’s members may result more enlightened and effective (R 246).”
This preparation will be a time of grace and renewal for all of us, a time we will live through the following stages:
•       February-June 2017: General awareness and collection of the first contributions from confreres and communities
•       July-November 2017: preparation and celebration of the provincial chapters
•       December 2017: convocation of participants to the chapter
•       January-March 2018: immediate preparation for the Chapter
 
Each confrere has to participate:
§ ... with prayer so that the Holy Spirit will guide us in discerning and taking the decisions necessary to our personal and community renewal.
-        The prayer for the success of the chapter will be printed in several languages and be distributed in order to involve as much as possible all the people who care about the spiritual and material development of the Congregation
-        Each confrere priest will celebrate a Holy Mass on the 24th day of each month for the success of the chapter
§. .. in tune with the Church and the Pope. In recent years, the Pope has on various occasions expressed his expectations regarding consecrated life. It will be convenient to pick up some of his provocations and apply them to our concrete situation. We especially recall some of his expectations:
-        "Where there are religious there is joy!"
-        "I expect you to wake up the world!"
-        "Move out of referentiality (= being point of reference) and go into the existential and geographical peripheries (= outskirts) where the life of people is waste matter (= means nothing)."
In order to stay in tune with the Pope, we could pick up some passages of the Pope's Letter to the Religious, in particular numbers 1-2-3.
§ ... by reflecting on the issues that will be proposed.
The theme we have chosen for our 20th General Chapter is “Charism, interculturality and prophecy.”
§ Our goal is to focus on the essential aspect of our vocation as a response to the great gift that the Lord has bestowed on each of us by calling us ‘to participate in the charism and evangelical inspiration of the Founder and to continue his charitable ministry in the Church.’
§ A second topic will reflect on the changes that have occurred in recent years within society and Church, and particularly inside our Congregation. We will reflect upon it in order to know better and better the urgency of evangelization toward the people the Lord has entrusted to us. He gave us a particular charism that spurs us to meet the 'poor without distinction of race, nationality and religion.' The charism of charity is essentially universal and urges us to open ourselves to this world and make the charism visible also in new situations of poverty and with different sensibilities, according to the culture of those who have received the gift of the Guanellian vocation.

Interculturality must aim at communion among ourselves, first and foremost as a testimony that we form one family, united by the bond of charity, intended by the Founder both as life of God diffused by the Holy Spirit in our hearts and as love of people who enjoy living and working together.'

§ And third, we accept with enthusiasm the invitation of Pope Francis who calls religious life to embrace prophecy as significant element for our identification in the Church. This identification must be based on our being consecrated persons who live the Gospel by imitating Saint Louis Guanella. And so, we must ask ourselves on which criteria we must be known and on what we can actually contribute to the growth of the Kingdom of God in this world of ours. If we were to be recognized solely for the effectiveness of our social services, we will be failing in our duty to make visible what most characterizes us and attract others to embrace our vocation.
§ ... starting from our concrete experience.  
The most important contribution we can give to the Congregation - that celebrates its general chapter - must be based on a personal or community experience. We should give an honest reflection on our actual life and strengthen its positive aspects. On the same time, we should bring out those shadows that prevent us from living our vocation with creative fidelity. By pursuing that, we will be able to present to the members of the chapter the elements from which they can both discern and define the priorities that should be given to our near future, so that our religious life should be refreshed, and our apostolic and charitable services should be adapted to the challenges of today's world.
The first contribution consists in answering the following questions.
•       Which are your expectations (personal and community) in view of the 20th General Chapter?
•       Which are the positive aspects (resources, experiences, projects) on which the Congregation today may base his hope for meeting the challenges of today's world? ... And how to develop them for making our renewal effective?
•       Which are the major fragilities that prevent us from achieving the expectations Church and Pope have on us?
•       In addition to the proposed themes and to what is established in our constitutions (C 113) and regulations (R 249-250) what other topics should be covered in the next General Chapter?
•       You can always add more thoughts or suggestions you might consider important at this stage of preparation of our general chapter.

HOW TO SHARE OUR REFLECTIONS
-        With this and the subsequent circular letters we will reach the individual confreres through the NEWSLETTER which will be sent to your personal
    e-mail address. (Who did not receive it, please, contact the General House.)
-     In addition to personal reflection, the circular letter should be the object of the community reflection by answering the above questions during the community meeting.
-        Individual or community reflections must be sent to the Superior General's personal e-mail (crippa.alfonso@guanelliani.it) which ensures the confidentiality of contents and senders.
-        The contributions received will be processed, summarized, and made public for further reflection, until the working document for the General Chapter is finalized.
-        In the official website of the Congregation, a Page will be made available where all the material about the Chapter will be collected.
May the Lord accompany us on our journey.
In Charitate Christi
Rome, February 14, 2017