FIDELITY TO THE SPIRIT OF THE FOUNDER

J. Bertolini, M.S.C,1965.

On the subject of our reflection one could establish a whole anthology of pontifical texts, above all those by Popes Pius XII, John XXIII and Paul VI.

As to the whole Church, a visible and living society, the Sovereign Pontiffs have also given to religious families, on many occasions, directives to carry out a courageous and wise adaptation to contemporary exigencies of evangelisation in a world constantly in the course of evolution. It is to be an adaptation made in fidelity, that is to say, having respect both to the essential and permanent realities of the religious state, and to the charismatic vocation proper to each religious institute. The Head of the Church could not allow to be led by caprice this chosen section of the People of God, which is the religious state. For if this latter is not a structure of the Church, it is a structure within the Church.

“It belongs to the Church,” says Lumen Gentium (45), “to govern with wise legislation the practice of the evangelical counsels. For by that practice is uniquely fostered the perfection of love for God and neighbour. Submissively following the promptings of the Hoty Spirit, she endorses the rules formulated by eminent men and women, and authentically approves later modifications. Moreover, by her watchful and shielding authority, she keeps close to communities established far and wide for the upbuilding of Christ’s body, so that they can grow and flourish in accord with the spirit of their founders.”

After having heard the talks given on the faithful adaptation of the religious life under the theological, biblical and juridical aspect, it has fallen to my lot to focus attention on “fidelity to the spirit of the Founder”, and, in the same perspec tive, on adaptation and renovation. At the outset I must make it clear that it is not, for the moment, question of an explicit treatment of our Founder nor of the end and spirit proper to our Congregation. However, I shall not fail to make reference to all of these.

I feel that we can measure the scope of this “fidelity to the Founder” only by trying to give an answer to this twofold question:

What is to be understood by Founder, Father and Lawgiver?

What is to be understood by “fidelity to the spirit of the Founder”?

FATHER AND LAWGIVER:

This twofold functional qualification attributed to the religious Founder is, as regards the venerated Father Chevalier, but the echo of the conviction of all our Superiors-General right from the time of his first successor, Father Lanctin. It is in harmony with the tradition of the Church con cerning Founders as far back as the very institution of the religious life. It is constant, and perhaps without nuances, in the official acts of the Magisterium, as in the discourses or messages addressed by the Sovereign Pontiffs to individual religious families. We find it, for example, in the letter of Pius XI, dated 14th March, 1924, on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Father Chevalier. The Pope, speaking of the merits of our Founder, refers to him as the “Father Legislator of your Congregation” (Analecta M.S.C. IV, 189).

This double qualification sums up the mission and the role of every founder worthy of the title.

THE MISSION OF THE FOUNDER

Making itself the echo of previous declarations, notably those of Pius VI, of Leo XIII, of Pius XI and of Pius XII, the Conciliar Constitution, Lumen Gentium, emphasises the charismatic and hierarchic origin of the multiple and diverse forms of religious life which, in the course of time, have arisen in the Church in answer to the new needs of evangelisation – “to serve, each in its own manner, the salutary mission of the Church”. (43)

At the charismatic origin of each religious family, Order or Congregation, we find the conjunction of one or several elite souls, “strong and generous”, to quote Leo XIII, and of a spiritual need of a given epoch. These elite souls, instruments of the Divine Will, are, ordinarily, certain among the faithful who discover, in the Church and under the impulse of the Spirit, a new manner of loving God above all things; of following Him in love according to the Gospel counsels; of serving the Church and witnessing to its mystery before believers and unbelievers.

Innovators in a certain sense, these Founders invent neither a new Christ nor a new Church; but, as the householder in the Gospel “who draws out from his treasure new things and old” (Mt. 13, 52), attentive to the conditions of their time, they experience the imperative need to respond to a mission and to a vocation, not only personal but social, thus giving to the Divine Founder of the Church a new witness of His redemptive mission: “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you”.(Jn. 20,21)

“Initiators of a love of their Lord which is ever-ancient and ever-new”, (G. Martelet. The Holiness of the Church and the Religious Life), they allow them selves to be moulded and guided by the Spirit of Pentecost.”

Their inspiration, while being evangelical and ecclesial in its content, is not at the outset however, hierarchic in its source. But, rich with this inspiration, the Founders one day present themselves, petitioning and submissive, to the hierarchic authority of the Church. There then passes between themselves and the Church what passed formerly between the monk, Anthony, and the bishop, Athanasius: the exchange in the faith of a spiritual gift and of a canonical approbation in order that “there may be received by the guardians of the Body what comes to them from the Head by way of the inspired members.”

Is not this exactly what passed, in 1855, between Father Chevalier and the Archbishop of Bourges; in 1860 and, above all, in 1869 between himself and Pope Pius IX?

Thus it is that Founders, whilst offering themselves to the Church in order to be at her service in a particular manner, look to her for the authorisation to love with the Heart of Christ and to love Christ Himself with the heart of the Church. But both the one and the other are acting, at the outset, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.

This mission of the Founder, does not however, stop at himself alone. His grace, his charism as Founder, reaches out to all his disciples. The Church recog nises in these Founders “men of the spirit”. She never wearies of urging their disciples and their whole religious family to follow them and to respond in fidelity to the personal and social vocation of their Founder.

“We exhort all religious,” said Pius XI, “never to lose sight of the example of their Founders. When these elite men created their Institutes, what else did they do but obey an inspiration from God? That is why all who reproduce in themselves the particular character which the Founder wished to mark his religious family, will, assuredly, never stray from their origins.”

“Their disciples, as the best of sons, will have it at heart to glorify their father by observing his counsels and penetrating themselves with his spirit. As long as they walk in the footsteps of their Founders, they will be faithful to their duty of state.” (Pius XI. Unigenitus Dei Filius, 1924)

It was just four days before this exhortation of 19th March, 1924, that Pius XI said of our own Founder that “he seemed to have taken his decision under a sign from God”. (Analecta M.S.C.) This was also the conviction of that man of faith, the devoted and faithful Father Piperon: “The foundation of a Congregation,” he wrote, with reference to the foundation of our own Society, “is not an ordinary work dependent upon the will of man which he can, according to his own good pleasure, undertake or not as if it were question of constructing a monument, laying out a property, or any other operation left to the free choice of human ingenuity. The Founder receives his mission from God. It is said to him as to Moses: ‘Look well, and execute according to the model which is shown to you’. (Ex. 25:40)” And this first witness of Father Chevalier added: “It is on fidelity to correspond with the light given by the Holy Spirit that depends the success or otherwise of the Founder’s enterprise.” (Annals. Issoudun. 1908. Also Biographical Notice of Father Chevalier, p. 123-4)

“Look well at the model which is shown you . . . and execute accordingly.” That is not easy. Founders are men as were the prophets. The charismatic mission of the latter can aid us to understand that of Founders, whilst allowing for different objectives. Both the one and the other are, in a certain sense, men ahead of their time. It is not difficult to recognise the Founders in the oracle of Joel predicting that in the latter times God “would pour out His Spirit on all flesh; then their sons and daughters will prophesy; their young men will see visions and their old men dream dreams” (Joel, 3,1-5; Act. Ap. 2, 17). Like to the prophets, Founders often present themselves as men of God, human individuals of whom the Lord has possessed Himself in order to make resound in the ears of humanity immersed in terrestrial problems, a word from another world. Very often these men have diffi culty in grasping themselves the import of the message confided to them. They are men who feel themselves impelled, but who at times hesitate, grope their way, stammer, or even, maybe, understand well the inspiration which has come to them, but cannot see very well the way to bring it to realisation.

Yet this spirit of prophecy which has taken possession of them is the same Spirit which animates, enlightens and orients the Church, above all at the great turning points of its history, as is that which we are witnessing today. It is this Spirit which gives to the Church the supernatural wisdom which allows her to adapt herself to the new needs of the world, to renew herself wholly whilst remaining eternally young. It is the same Spirit who has raised up the marvelous phenomenon of the religious institute under so many diverse forms according to the individual grace of each Founder: diversity of inspiration, diversity of physiognomy, but a harmonious diversity which throws into greater relief the homogeneity and richness of the religious institution itself.

This Spirit, nevertheless, does not permit that one enclose oneself into frames that are ready-made and unchangeable. He brings it about sometimes that one burst the frames, become maybe a little too rigid, in which in times past the original inspiration may have been expressed. He makes it obligatory to look ceaselessly at new horizons, to respond to other needs, to new exigencies. It is easy to understand then why Founders, as the prophets, have not always found life easy. Among their contemporaries, they are often regarded as somewhat of intruders. At times they are misunderstood, opposed and ever persecuted. Such and such a Founder sees himself thrown into the sea like Jonas, then cast up on to the shore; another, as it were, seized by the hair like Habacuc to be transported where the Spirit wills. God, too, makes use of secondary causes, these latter at times being the very sons of the Founder. Many names come to mind when we begin talking of the vicissitudes of Founders. Furthermore, it is not always easy to discern what they really willed themselves. And how many would not be able to avow, as did St. Francis de Sales, the Founder of the Visitation, ”What I have achieved is not that which I set out to do.” But, in spite of all, it is always fidelity to the original design that has guaranteed the ultimate success which the Church honours in beatifying and canonising so many Founders. We must not forget that, in the original thought of each of them, lie hidden potentialities which, as a result of a favorable evolution, impose themselves sooner or later. Or to make use of an analogy, all the petals of a flower are already present in the bud.

At the outset of every foundation there is, then, a charismatic inspiration which determines the mission of the Founder and of his whole religious family. And of this grace of foundation it can be said that it is at the same time both one and diverse. It is one in its general finality. The Founders – Anthony, Augustine, Benedict. Dominic. Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola and after them, all the others who in the course of the centuries are related more or less to the first – yes. all have manifested but one and the same response of love to Christ Jesus. In what has been called the following of Christ, each and all have sought solely the supreme end of creation-redemption: to build the People of God for the glory of God. One, this grace of foundation is nonetheless, diverse: on to the essential common back ground have been grafted different families, each with its own particular physiognomy, and its special works. These families have been approved by the Church but have had at times a character which was only local or transitory since responding to temporary needs. As a consequence, an evolution imposed itself in respect to the exigencies of the religious life which are always valid.

With regard to these diverse religious families, their Founders have always understood – and we must do so with them – that they had a twofold mission, that of FATHER and of LEGISLATOR. The better to be able to measure the scope of the fidelity of which it is question, it would be well to situate this double function on a doctrinal basis.

FATHER

This title “Father” reflects much more than a pious practice of filial vener ation: it is founded on a theological tradition.

We know that, right from the beginning of monachism, this title of “Father” was associated with the idea of spiritual direction. For the monks of the desert the father is the man of experience who realises in himself the plenitude of the monastic state and who, marked with the sign of the Spirit, can serve them as guide and head. As is the case of preaching which stirs up faith, as for baptism which introduces into a new life, likewise for spiritual direction which leads to sanctity, there is always a reference to the divine paternity.

Later, with the development of cenobitism, the paternity of the Founder takes on a different tonality: it expresses not only a personal perfection, but an authentic generation, All the cenobites are sons; they set for themselves the ideal of being “true sons of Pachomius”.

During the Middle Ages, the paternal role of the Founder was often exalted by the benedictine or Cistercian Abbots. “St. Benedict is truly our father.” affirms one of them. “He it is who, through the Gospel, has engendered us in Christ Jesus.” (Aelred de Rievaulx 4- 1166) This Pauline expression (1 Cor. 4. 14) occurs again in connection with St. Odon, Founder of Cluny, St. Bernard, Founder of Clair-vaux, and later in the Mendicant Orders in connection with St. Dominic.

If. from the 16th Century on, especially among the disciples of St. Ignatius, the Founder still receives the traditional appelation of “Father” or “our Father in Jesus Christ”, one has. nevertheless, the impression that the image has lost its force. The relationship between the disciples and the founder expresses itself very readily by means of analogies other than that of generation. It is to be noted in passing that this latter theme has been taken up again in our times by the Little Brothers of Jesus in connection with Father de Foucauld, though the latter, strictly speaking, did not found any religious institute during his life time. (Voillaume. AU* Coeur des Masses, p. 497)

Little by little the spiritual writers have tried to disengage the theological bases of this paternity, and in different ways. Certain among them, more sensible to the actuality of this spiritual generation, have seen the act of religious profession as a new birth, a father-son bond; a logical deduction from the theory, less accepted today, which presents religious profession as a “second baptism”.

For others, it is the initial institution of the religious family which throws into relief this paternal role of the Founder: it is because such and such a one has established a new religious family that his disciples venerate him as Father. It remains nonetheless true that each religious is inserted in such or such a religious family on the day of his profession. And in order to justify the assertion that the Founder truly engenders his Institute, there are others who lay stress on his personal merits, above all when his sanctity has manifested itself to such an extent as to be “canonised” by the Church. But is it exact to affirm that such a one has arrived, by his own personal merits, at founding the institute, even when it is made clear that it is question of merits “ex congruo”? For there is no proportion between the meritorious efforts of the Founder, holy though he may be, and the charismatic gift of the foundation. The very charity of the Founder is a divine grace.

By stressing thus the divine initiative, recalled so often by the Sovereign Pontiffs, the religious family founded appears less as the fruit of a purely human effort than that of a divine mission. From this theological point of view, then, the image of paternity yields place to that of mediation, as in the case of the prophets whose sanctity was not always very clearly in evidence.

The Jesuit, Nadal, affirmed: “When Our Lord desires to aid His Church, He acts thus: He raises up a man to whom He gives a special grace and strength in order to serve Him in a particular manner … a grace corresponding to his vocation . .. Thus He acted with St. Francis. God offered him an efficacious grace from which he personally was to profit and in which he was to make others partici pate . . .” (J. Nadal, S. J. Commentary de Institute Soc. Jesus) In our own days,, a disciple of Father de Foucauld, Father Voillaume, says likewise “that the particular grace of each founder” is “transmitted by him to his sons and daughters.” (R. VoiHaume. Letter to the Fraternities. 1957) For Nadal, this characteristic and particular grace of the religious Institute is also defined as “the special mode which differentiates us from other religious.”

We are able then to conclude: the Institute which a certain Founder has brought to realisation at a certain moment of history, is the sign of a ministry which, in the order of grace, prolongs itself in the members who, by their profession, are inserted in this religious family. God has raised up a man, and what He has raised up in this man He raises up still in the vocation of his spiritual sons, and more especially in those who have collaborated with the Founder during his life-time. These latter, indeed, have they not often contributed largely to the realis ation of the initiative of the Founder? We have only to think of a Father Piperon, M.S.C., a Father Jouet or a Father John Vandel, M.S.C. The latter, Founder of TOeuvre des Campagnes and of the Apostolic School, understood this well. Dis cussing with Father Chevalier his entry into the community of Issoudun, and pro posing to the latter some modification of the first Rules, he jotted down in his note book the following heading:

Some Notes for Issoudun

1. Nothing must be changed or weakened as regards the original idea which is from God; auxiliaries are given to aid and develop it.
2. The authority and the principal inspiration must come from him who con ceived the work – “of the Holy Spirit, from the Virgin Mary”. Contrary thoughts may come from humility; but they do not come from a design of God.
3. If a new idea attaches itself to the original one so as to form one with it, he who has contributed this thought has a certain right of paternity in the work; but this paternity must be subordinated to the first and absorbed by it…” (Manuscripts Vandel M.S.C. Archives, Paris),

Ten years later, Father Vandel wrote in all humility to Father Piperon: “The Apostolic School is not my work, but a work of the Society.” (26th July, 1874) We know, furthermore, that the spiritual direction contributed by Father Piperon to our Society has caused him, in the tradition of the first Fathers, to be considered as the “spiritual Founder” of our religious family, he himself having contributed largely to its characteristic spirit, I note this tradition, in spite of the reflection, tainted with regret, of Father J. B. Guyot at the General Chapter of 1900. In his “Memoir on teaching devotion to the Sacred Heart”, this first Master of Novices who at that time had the charge of “Spiritual Father”, dared to avow in presence of Father Founder and Fathers Piperon, Maillard, Lanctin, Ramot, Meyer, etc. that –

“Our humble Congregation, hardly out of its infancy, has not yet been able to form for itself a spirit characteristically its own. Now the spirit is that which vivifies. The life, the future, the activity, the fruitfulness of a Congregation are in its spirit…” (Analecta M.S.C. 1900)

On this side, Father Piperon esteemed to such a point Father John Marie Vandel that he did not hesitate, in his Biographical Notice of Father Chevalier, to cite the following testimony of Father Lanctin: “The zeal and holiness of Father Vandel have contributed so much to the success and development of the Congre gation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart that he can rightly be considered as its second Founder.”

There would be much to say on the apostolic and, excuse the expression, “diplomatic” merits of Father Jouet in the establishment and early development of our Society and its works under the authority and paternity of Father Founder: the Approbation of the Institute and its Constitutions; the Annals and Archconfraternities; our Missions; the creation of our first Provinces, etc., even if Father Piperon, whilst affectionately acknowledging his merits, avowed at the same time that Father Jouet was no “administrator”. I cite Father Piperon: “What this dear Father expended in zeal and in talents, all that he undertook for the glory of Our Lady of file Sacred Heart is incredible … He went all over France, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Spain for the extension of the Archconfraternity . .. Father Chevalier found in him the most active of workers, the one who was the most devoted and at the same time the most useful for his works. It is undoubtedly to Father Jouet that we owe their success. In my humble opinion, he was in our midst a man of Providence, the right hand of our venerated Founder …” (Biographic Notice on Father Chevalier, p. 57) One could cite many other examples illustrating this theme of ‘paternity-mediation’. Far from being in opposition to each other, these two concepts are complementary. Both have a direct reference to the mission of Christ-Mediator in the Mystical Body, acting always “in the name of the Father”, “in the name of Him Who sent Me”, and He is the source of all paternity.

In accordance with this idea of Christocentric mediation and with his own’ comprehension of the Heart of Our Lord, Father Chevalier could, in all humility and truth, declare: “Our little Society is not the work of man. hut of God. It was born in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, under the powerful protection of Mary.” (Ms. of 1859) And again in a letter to Father Leblanc, S.J. at the beginning of his consul tations with him concerning the organisation of the Society: “I have always believed that God had designs of mercy on our little House . ..”

If then it is legitimate to found our fidelity on the idea of the ‘paternity-mediation’ of Founders, this conviction gains still greater weight when we consider the more concrete role which we expect of each one of them. i.e. the function of Legislator.

THE LEGISLATOR

The grace of paternity-mediation signifies for the Founder that he must organise his Institute, give it an end and orientation, determine its activities, infuse into it a soul which will inspire it in everything and animate each of its members, leading the latter to efficaciousness and to sanctity.

All this is expressed in a Rule or Constitutions.

We know the four great Rules recognised by the Church: those of St. Basil, St. Benedict, St. Augustine and St. Francis of Assisi.

In the course of the history of the religious institution, the detailed organis ation of the institutes, under the diverse aspects of the communitarian liturgical and apostolic life, has demanded practical precisions and directives adapted to the end and spirit proper to each religious family. This, under the influence of usages and customs, and then through a decision of Founders or reformers, has given rise to the Constitutions. These Founders amplified one or other of the primitive Rules, either retaining them or adapting them as a basis for the new Institute. Other Institutes, as that of the Jesuits, established their Constitutions without direct relation to the primitive Rules. From then on, Constitutions approved by the Church come into the foreground and become, so to speak, “the Rule”. For foundations of these latter centuries the custom has become prevalent of establishing this new kind of “Rule”.

The Church owes it to herself to command and to orientate, as much by her doctrinal action as by her legislation, every form of religious life. But whereas the primitive Rules, rather brief, were above all characterised by spiritual and ascetical directives, on the contrary, the Constitutions approved during the last two centuries have lost this original richness. Under the influence of a legalism which became ever more and more detailed, a kind of “uniform” came to be thrown over the particular laws of the Institute, something like waterproof sheeting which hindered increasingly the penetration of the breathing of the Spirit, or the emergence of the soul and specific character of the Founder and of his religious family. It is among these formulas that we have to search with a microscope to discover the end and characteristic spirit of the Founder to which each religious is asked to give a fervent fidelity! We would, however, love to be able to say to the young religious of our day when, on the day of their Profession, there is handed to them the book of the “holy Rule”, what our own venerated Founder was accustomed to say: “Esteem our Rules; they come from God. Love our Rules; they are an outpouring of the love of the Heart of Jesus for us.” (Father Chevalier: Con ference on the Directory. About 1900) Or again, “The Rule is the luminous cloud which directs us to the true Promised Land. It is the miraculous star which, if we follow it, leads surely to Jesus.”

And yet. if we are to believe a canonist of renown. Father J. Creusen. “When the Rules of an Institute are well conceived, they express precisely what the love of God and of the neighbour demand habitually of the religious of this particular Institute. Saint Ignatius wrote that the supreme and most efficacious rule is ‘the law of love which the Holy Spirit is accustomed to write in hearts . . .’ The end of the Constitutions then will be to teach the religious what the law of love demands of him.”

Who would dare not to recognise that a religious Founder had such a noble ambition? Under the motion of the Spirit, the mission of Founders is, then, to determine at the very outset a way of living the Gospel message and of participating in the very mission of Christ in their own epoch. Ordinarily. God shows them, sometimes in a direct fashion, a general plan, a fundamental idea, an orientation or a spirit which is to animate the whole of the work to be realised.

As to the task of organising the particular structures, and determining con cretely practical ways of responding to the end and spirit of the plan proposed or suggested by grace, God acts in Founders with the same liberty which characterises the outpouring of His gifts.

He may confide this task to the Founder alone, or to several individuals. He may share it among several, either in simultaneous contact with one another, or successively. Again, He may give to an individual Founder solely the general idea which will find its definitive form only after much trial and error, and with the successive contributions of collaborators or of disciples. Again, it may happen that God presents such and such a Founder with a very decided plan: an ideal and form concretely defined and outlined, leading to immediate action. In this case, the Founder will be called upon to legislate immediately. But the one to whom He offers only an initial project, an ideal which calls for a wise and slow maturation, as also the discovery of a means of execution, such a one will have to communicate this project, this ideal, to his companions, to his disciples. Or God may leave the precise working out of the plan and its practical details to secondary agents, that is to say to events, to the experience of life or to successive individuals holding the responsibility, in other words, of all those factors which give to a foundation a certain progressive development. One notes this in the case of a St. Francis as in that of a St. Dominic, a St. Ignatius, a Father Eymard, a Father Chevalier, and so many others. Even St. Benedict himself avowed at the end of his Rule that he “had described only those observances which lead to a certain dignity of manners and a commencement of monastic life.”

Often the first Rules present themselves as a resume of the personal experi ences of the Founder, and the source of the doctrine of the Founder must not be sought elsewhere than in the fidelity of the latter to the teachings of Christ and of His Gospel. Such is indeed the primary end of the religious life: to assure the following of Christ, God incarnate through love in order to save humanity and lead the People of God to the Father. The great Founders have not claimed simply to “create” new “forms of life” but rather to “translate into concrete institutions their own personal readings of the Gospel, their own intuitive grasp of the life of Christ, model and prototype of all perfection.” (cf. Besret, O.Cist. Criteres pour une Renovation) It is easy to understand the uneasiness felt by many religious of our time when many Constitutions seem to put the accidental before the essential, the negative before the positive, the means before the end, the details of administration before the exigencies of the Gospel, the minutiae of observance before true charity towards God and the neighbour. The first concern of renovation must be a “fresh reading of the Gospel with attention to all its demands.” And it is in so far as the Founders, in their primitive Rules, legislated under the influence of this concern to reproduce the evangelical life, that renovation is to be understood in its very true sense of “a return to the Founders”. We shall come back on this.

For the moment, another point is to be noted. If, in former times, one sought signs of the authenticity of the Rule or of the doctrine of the Founders in super natural phenomena such as visions or miracles, from the 16th Century on the criterion rests upon the hierarchical authority of the Church. As was said in con nection with the subject of paternity, there are always two things basic to every foundation: divine inspiration and the approbation of the Church – a charismatic vocation and ecclesiastical sanction. Doubtless, it is through the mediation of the inspired Founder that God speaks to His Church, but it is definitively the Church which has the mandate to discern whether the inspiration truly comes from God. To the Church, likewise, with its constant concern that respect be had to the original spirit of the Founder, is reserved the ‘placet’ for every renovation or important adaptation of the Rules of individual Institutes. What is very certain is that the Church exacts, and herself respects, a special and clearly defined end.

Certainly, it is not just to differentiate his Institute at all costs from others that a Founder seeks approval for his Rule or his Constitutions, submitting a particular form of religious and apostolic life, offering new means of evangelisation. It is because he has experienced, through an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the imperious need to put the accent on a certain aspect of the Gospel mission. It is because it is not in his power not to respond loyally to a personal and social vocation up to this time existing only in potentiality. Hence the characteristic and specific end of his Institute. This specific end will, evidently, vary from individual to individual, each contributing to it his personal and charismatic vision of God and of the world, his response to the exigencies and the needs of his time.

And since it is question of nothing else than serving the Church, the latter for her part is sovereign mistress of every active participation in her mission in the world. Each Founder knows that “where the Church is, there is the Spirit” (St. Irenaeus). Thus, in faith, he submits his idea, his plan, his Constitutions. For himself, as for his whole Institute, he receives from the Church the grace of the Sacraments and her teaching: “There is no authentic Catholic spirituality which is not ecclesial and sacramental” (Besret. Criteres pour une Renovation)

And one receives from the Church only to give better. “Religious are not con secrated to God by a consecration which takes into account only the individual and God. No, they are consecrated to God through Jesus Christ and in the Church.” (Besret) And this participation in the life of the Church, this insertion of the living member in the total Body of the Spouse of Christ-Saviour, must be clearly expressed in particular Constitutions. Every reform has reference, not only to the juridic plan of the laws, but much more to that of the spirit which must animate them. We all know the directive of Paul VI in his Allocution of 23rd May, 1964: “Every religious family has a task which is special to itself, and it is absolutely necessary that it remain faithful to this. Herein lies, for the Institute, the gauge of its fecundity and of the constant flow of heavenly graces. No renovation of discipline must be introduced which does not correspond to the nature of the Order or Congregation or which departs in any way from the sprit of the Founder.

“This renewal of discipline demands likewise that it be implemented by the competent authority and by it alone. For this reason, as long as this adaptation of observance is not completely finalised, the religious must not introduce novelties on their own account, nor relax the discipline or give way to criticism, but they must so act that, by their fidelity and their obedience, they will aid and facilitate this work of renewal. If things are so, your rules will be changed in their letter, but not in their spirit which will remain in its purity.”

What the Holy Father seems to fear above all is to see the religious Institutes depart from their specific task, and the characteristic seal imposed upon them by their Founder. The Pope, while desiring the necessary adaptations, insists that they “conserve faithfully the rules of the religious family given to it by its Founder.” “As for the matter of undertaking new enterprises and new works,” he says, “abstain from those which do not truly respond to the principal task of your Institute, or to the thought of the Founder. For the Institutes are strong and pros perous as long as their discipline and their works, and the way of life of the members, remain inspired by the pure spirit of their Founder,”

SPIRIT AND FIDELITY

“Spirit”, considered as the intellectual and moral quintessence of an author, of a work, of a foundation, is a concept which seems relatively recent, above all since the middle of the 17th century. But we can trace it back to the Bible. Of his master, the prophet Elias who was about to be taken from him, Eliseus, his disciple, asked as a last favour that he leave him his “spirit” (4 Kings, 2,9). And we have also Saint John of the Cross describing a grace by which the Founders of an Order receive light and power to transmit to all their disciples who come after them, their virtues and their “spirit”. This “spirit” of foundation presents itself as a particular form of supernatural charity, a charism, given by God to a Founder and transmitted by his paternal mediation to the whole of his religious family. By this grace of foundation the religious family is committed directly to the realisation of a special mission in the Church, the mission vested in the Founder. In the religious family and its members, this spirit becomes in a concrete and vital fashion a way of thinking, acting and being, wholly relative to the spiritual and apostolic mission which the Institute is to realise in the Church. Let it be clearly stated that this specific form is in virtue of the mission of Christ Whom this religious family must reproduce, give witness to, and make known.

The guiding light and the living soul of the Founder and his sons, this spirit, which can claim for itself neither a complete autonomy nor an absolute authority because accepted and protected by the Church, can change nothing of its essential elements without itself disappearing, and without at the same time destroying the raison d’etre of the religious family. Thus, without this spirit which characterises our Society, we ourselves would no longer be the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart founded by Father Chevalier. In this connection, Rev. Father Eugene Meyer could say with justification: “If anyone among us wished to aim solely at his own sanctification, he could indeed be truly a religious, but he would not be a Missionary of the Sacred Heart.” (Circular. Analects MS.C. D. 487)

A reality living and flexible, this spirit bears within itself, as every heavenly treasure, riches old and new. Progressively it delivers up its secrets and discovers its potentialities to the family which possesses it, which plumbs its depths in order to understand it better and to adapt its potentialities to ever new needs. For at each epoch, this spirit must be rethought in the light of concrete and contemporary situations.

On the other hand, however, it must never be forgotten that the spirit is expressed in the letter.

The letter is made up of the ensemble of rules, Constitutions, usages and customs – everything which determines and organises, above all, the exterior life of the members and adapts the means to the end. The letter ‘incarnates’ the spirit in the realities of daily life. It is the servant of the spirit whose full development it directs.

An adaptation in fidelity must respect this bond between the letter and the spirit. I shall not go into detail here with regard to a twofold danger: on the one hand that of underestimating the letter on the pretext that it is the framework and not the flame; and on the other the danger of attaching an exaggerated value to the letter through a blind conservation which fixes an institution in a rigorous fidelity to minutiae, crystallises the Institute in out-moded and inefficacious means and, in practice, prevents the realisation of its spiritual mission. An exaggerated attach ment to the letter often proceeds from a lack of fervour in regard to the spirit.

How to recognise this spirit of the Founder? If the Founder has been faithful to himself, and if the religious family has been faithful to its Founder, ordinarily, the contemporary Constitutions, despite their evolution, should permit the reading of this spirit in the letter of the text. But, as we shall see, the Constitutions alone do not suffice.

In order to discern this spirit, Pius XII gave a directive, which was also a caution.

“Each Society,” he said, “makes a point of conserving this spirit intact, as is its right and duty to do. It wants to see its members impregnated with it, and pre occupied in making it penetrate their whole life. The Church, for its part, and the Sovereign Pontiffs, in approving a particular type of religious life, intend that it be preserved in all its purity and hence they watch over it with care.

“If it is agreed that Major Superiors be accorded the right to tell their religious what the spirit of the Institute is, the question arises: Where is to be found the objective expression of this spirit? Major Superiors cannot decide this according to their own taste or impressions, even if in all good faith and sincerity. If the Major Superior happens himself to be the Founder, and if he has received from the Church the approbation of his own personal ideas as the norm of a state of perfec tion, then it is always permissible to refer to his own intentions. But, in the contrary case, recourse must be had to the idea of the Founder which is expressed in the Constitutions approved by the Church. A subjective conviction does not suffice, even if supported by such and such a passage of the Constitutions.

“When a Superior proposes to the members of his community (he genuine spirit of the Founder, he exercises his right, and the members must, in conscience, obey him. The rights and duties of both parties are. in this regard, correlative. The Church and the Popes intend always both to defend the rights and to urge the duties, but within the due limits. In order to avoid trouble for all concerned and to preserve peace, it suffices that each recognise and practise this norm which, for centuries, has been the practice of the Church and remains still in vigour.” (Acts of the Holy See. 1958. p. 50)

One recognises the firmness of the Church. Once she has accepted the thought of a Founder and authenticated it by the approbation of the Constitutions of the Institute, she acknowledges that it is she herself who has founded canonically this Institute. It was under the impulse of this conviction that Father Chevalier, in the Audience of 1874. asked Pope Pius IX to aliow himself to be regarded as the “Founder and personal Superior” of the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. (Piperon. Notice. 109)

One notes also in the above text of Pius XII, the concern to safeguard the authority of the Founder, an authority based on a charism recognised by the hierarchy, a charism given by the Spirit of Christ, in the Church, for the Church, and as a consequence, submitted to the hierarchy which has the mission u[ dis cerning it, accepting it and protecting it. and which on this account accords ,o the institute founded, its juridical insertion in the Church.

It must be recognised, furthermore, that the charism of the Founders, personal and social, is not accorded as such to all the Superiors who come after them. It is first of ail in docility to him who is named Father and Legislator that the Superiors and the members of the whole religious family follow Christ. The Superiors have as their first mission to maintain this fidelity to the spirit of the Founder throughout new situations, governing in his spirit according to the grace transmitted by his mediation, and according to his teachings. They prolong the charismatic direction of the Father of the family.

Another point. When one speaks of a return to the Founder, it is important not to allow oneself to be carried away by the illusion that each individual can play at being Founder. It does not suffice merely to ask: What would the Founder do in the present situation? The latter started from zero. He had his hands free to bring his institution to a concrete realisation. But the Superiors who come after him do not start from zero. They have on their hands existing institutions, a whole tradition, and religious who have been “engendered” or “inserted in the family” by their profession and according to the Constitutions. They have the responsibility not only of the vocations to come, but also of the members already committed for life, before God and with the ratification of the Church, in a well-determined religious family.

Pius XI, as we have seen, spoke explicitly in 1924 of “the grace of the Founder’1 in order to incite religious to fidelity to the characteristic spirit of their Institute, and the recent Popes from Pius XII to Paul VI. in order to stimulate renewal in the religious life, have insisted on fidelity to the origins. “Is it not because, in the supernatural economy, the special grace of the beginning continues to be offered, and that it is here above all that the will of God for the Institute today is to be encountered? Certainly, the initial grace has led, in the course of the centuries, to realisations which are no longer of our time. But this same grace persists – reaching the contemporary generations of religious which, In the Provi dence of God, it has raised up. And, in this case, it will be useful to recognise and accept it.” (Bergh)

Let us then be realists!

If on the one hand, in order to discern the real spirit of the Founder, it is legiti mate to have recourse to his first legislative writings, it is not a question of confining to these latter alone his spirit. These writings are to be read in the context of the personal experience of the Founder and must be read in the light of the other writings of the Father of the family. His message would be impoverished if not understood in the context of his life, and of the conditions of his time.

On the other hand it does not suffice to consider merely the life and writings of the Founder. Recourse must also be had to the whole contribution of a tradition, born under the influence of the initial grace, of the experience of his disciples. No religious institution is a finished act, imprisoned in the past, above all in the limited past of its foundation. Rather is it a living organism which requires perpetual modi fications or adaptations. Without speaking of the imperfections inherent in all legislation, the evolution of time, quite as much as fidelity to the Founder, sooner or later exacts the reassessment of certain issues and that new options be made. It is then indispensable, and not merely useful, to confront the new demands with the primitive intuition of the Founder. Such a procedure allows the latter to stand out hi clear relief and assures the required fidelity to his spirit. This is the import of the caution of Paul VI: “Your Rules will be thus changed in the letter, but the spirit will remain in its purity.” Citations from the Sovereign Pontiffs to this same effect could be multiplied.

If Pius XII urged the Institutes to follow the example of their Founders in adapting their enterprises to their times, it is lawful to think that a failure to adapt would be contrary to the spirit of the Founder. A genuine adaptation is, then, a sign of fidelity. It prompts certain modifications of the Constitutions and of the obser vances in order to effect a better realisation of the spirit of the Founder in given cir cumstances. Mgr. Ancel has this opportune remark to make: “True adaptation has not its origin in a diminution of life, but rather in an increase of fervour. The more ardent is the life, the better it adapts itself. In consequence, it is only those religious societies which are really fervent which can make a true adaptation.” (Acta et Documenta. p. 124) We have here an argument in favour of the primacy which must be accorded to the spiritual renewal. That goes a long way beyond the simple revision of the Constitutions!

An adaptation made in fidelity requires discernment and prudence, as Paul VI pointed out to the Salesians (1965). “It is essential to distinguish the forms which are essential from those which are merely accessory; the interior forms which give life to your works from the exterior ones, susceptible in themselves to an ever-greater perfection and to new applications; forms which are basically valid, from those which with the passage of time become weak or inefficacious.”

A few other points call for attention:

• The charismatic character of a religious institution does not infallibly guarantee its permanence. Many religious institutes have declined and disappeared. Normally these failures and setbacks come from a loss of contact with the charism of the beginnings. It is for this reason that the hierarchy never ceases to recall the various religious families to their origin and to their specific end. At times, with the certitude gained from mature reflection that what was originally the work of the Holy Spirit no longer gives proof of being so, the hierarchy intervenes to suppress or dissolve certain Institutes which have become devitalised and without efficacy in the Church.

• As religious life blossomed in the Church under the action of a charism freely imparted by the Spirit to the Founders, there is also a diversity of charisms to be respected: all stirred up in the members of the different Institutes by the same Spirit and which, by the development of the initial grace given to the Founder, contribute at the same time to maintain faithfully the originality proper to each Institute and to promote its development.

• It is not by a yielding to sudden crazes, to transitory fashions, to superficial retouches, without reference to the nature and the permanent exigencies of the religious life, that we shall succeed in allaying the restlessness of our generation. The new is not always the best; the old is often charged with experience and grace; every modification made without recognising the spirit of the Founder is a dangerous commitment of the future of the Institute.

• Before modifying a point of Rule or customs, under the pretext that it needs adaptation, it would be wise to see how this custom or this point of Rule came to be introduced in the first place, how it responded to the spirit of the Founder, what was its value and significance. Likewise, before introducing a new element, judged necessary or useful, it would be not less opportune, not only to ask if it responds to the spirit of the Founder, but also, in the measure possible, to consult our historical evolution. For example, in acting thus with respect to certain wishes expressed at the time of the last General Chapter, we would discover that the very things asked for already existed in the past, in the lifetime of the Founder, and that they had become overshadowed, or even set aside, and that at times despite the will of the Founder. I think, for example, of the privileged place accorded prior to 1900 to the missions among the infidels, in the works of the Society, or to the place reserved to the parochial ministry, or to the formulation of the general end. A renovation can sometimes be a reconversion. In this connection, I supplement this text with an expression of the thought of Father Founder prior to 1877.

To conclude our reflections, I quote a resume of a letter of the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious to Mgr. Dubois, Archbishop of Besancon, in July, 1964, on the occasion of a Congress at Angers, Cardinal Antoniutti here calls attention to the fact that religious life exacts the liberty to embrace it as the Lord and the Church propose, and in consequence, the liberty to live it such as it has been embraced at the profession made according to the special end of an approved Institute.

” The Church intends that the liberty of the Institutes and of their members to live the religious life such as they have consciously embraced it, be respected “Providence has enriched the Church with a great variety of religious families, each of them with a specific vocation and a determined mission to fulfil, according to particular means. To this fidelity correspond both a structure and a characteristic physiognomy: spiritual, apostolic and juridic. “Certainly Holy Church is materially preoccupied that each Institute renew itself constantly, in order to respond faithfully to the vocation and the mission proper to itself, and thai, as much with respect to a return to the Sources as for renewal and adaptation to fresh exigencies. Nevertheless, the Church has no intention of imposing changes in Constitutions or in structure* of a life freely chosen at profession, which are rooted in the characteristic nature of an Institute, itself having the declared and definitive approbation of the Holy-See.

“The stability of the religious state, and the bond contracted a! profession, must guarantee to the one who embraces a determined type of religious life the liberty, the right and the obligation to remain faithful to it even until death. It will happen that competent authority may see the necessity of deciding upon changes and adaptation as regards the secondary elements of each Institute. No-one can exact that an already-existing Institute be modified and trans formed in opposition to its spirit willed by the Founder and sanctioned by the Church.”

Here, then, is the justification, in order to effect a renovation in fidelity, of an open and loyal dialogue with the whole of the religious family: each member of our Society, in virtue of his profession, has the right to recognise himself in the end. the spirit and the organisation of the Society as a Missionary of the Sacred Heart, according to the vocation and the mission of Father Chevalier, his Founder, Father and Lawgiver. To him alone, our title manifests fully the thought, the spirit and the fundamental orientation of our religious-apostolic Society: all is centred on the Heart of Him Who has been sent by the Father for the salvation of men.

By vocation, the Missionary of the Sacred Heart has the mission to reproduce according to means, the mission of the Word Incarnate, sole Mediator and Redeemer. And the dimensions of this mission are expressed in our device: “May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved”. Our Founder never ceases to repeat to us: “By these words, we recall our most lofty mission, and strive to dedicate utterly to it our strength and our life.” (Circular. 1899)