In greeting the numerous participants, including the Sisters of the International Union of Female Superiors General (UISG) – guests for this opening day of the meeting – the President of the USG and Rector Major of the Salesians, Fr Pascual Chávez, began from the conclusions of the theological seminar “Identity and Significance of Apostolic Consecrated Life”. “There is a need to continue the theological reflection which was started not so much so as to bring it to a conclusion as rather to accompany the lived experience or our brothers and sisters in their task of faithfully incarnating their own charism” he declared.
Afterwards Sr Mary Lou Wirtz, of the Franciscan Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (FCJM), President of the UISG, referred to the themes which particularly came to the fore on that occasion – the relevance, identity, credibility and visibility of Consecrated life– and pointed to the collaboration among the institutes and the orders as an opportunity to study more deeply the spirituality of their own charisms and to rediscover together objectives and opportunities.
The first talk was given by Sr Mary Maher, Superior of the “School Sisters of Notre Dame” (SSND), who had also spoken at the theological seminar. The primary subject of her talk was “the relationship between the Church and the world,” considered as a crucial issue also for the theology of apostolic consecrated life. The critical question for her was to be able to present in a world of its own time and therefore pluralistic and easily inclined towards relativism, the universal and saving message of Christianity.
Sr Maher proposed 4 elements as significant in the theological framework: theological perspectives on history; a biblical-spiritual foundation; sound theological perspectives on the world situation nowadays; an ongoing reflection on the theology of the mission.
The final contribution of the morning was given by Fr Paolo Martinelli OFMCapp: “Identity and Significance of Apostolic Consecrated Life” starting from the witness value of an encounter: “every genuine theology is of its very nature testimony.” Then after having referred to the current historical context – marked by globalisation, secularisation and something of a return to the sacred – the Franciscan proposed a theology of consecrated life which rather than finding refuge in specific areas seeks “the heart of the great treatises of theological thinking,” gradually clarifying the search for God, the charisms, the mission and the relationship between the Church and the world so as finally to arrive at the baptismal roots of consecrated life and the meaning of a apostolic consecrated vocation.”
Published 25/05/2011
