Everything is connected… We are global family
Br. Pablo González Franco – Region of América Sur
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The second week of the General Conference was marked by one of the strong calls of the General Chapter: to walk as a global family.
Today’s world presents us with a turbulent time and space, with great challenges and deep crises that test the generosity and creativity of our responses. We feel that we are in the same boat, that we must look at each other, listen to each other and walk in the same direction.
Whether we are aware of it or not, everything is connected; whether we accept it or not, everybody is connected. Ours is the “inter” (interprovincial, international, intergenerational, intercongregational…). If everything is connected, a powerful metaphor of our connection will be the network that we weave among all of us. But for this it is necessary to maintain a lively and enthusiastic vision and a spirit of teamwork (collaborative and cooperative).
By reviewing the statistics on the number of Brothers and lay we get mixed feelings. The numbers are hard, but they urge us not to fall into flat, superficial and discouraging readings of the reality in which we live, but to look beyond and see the world “as God sees it”: to maintain the illusion in the vocation, to always introduce the qualitative (quality of our response to the Lord and to the world), to privilege development (and not only growth) and to renew the ardor in arousing and caring for vocations.
We want to listen, understand, propose and move forward, for ours is not the rest but the way (“the way is always better than the inn”). The last three calls of the General Chapter use the verbs build, walk and respond.
The memory of our Brothers’ causes invites us not only to look towards the holiness of those who preceded us (François, Basilio, Lycarion…) but to walk towards it, transforming ourselves into persons open to the action of God, and responding (even with the offer of our life) according to our time and context.
We want to rethink ourselves, to think of ourselves in a different way: to see where we are going and what we are going to pay attention to, how we are going to promote life… In this sense, the Brothers who preceded us are not so much models to be copied but a source of inspiration, always current, for our journey today as a global family.
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Br. Pablo González Franco – Provincial of Santa MarĂa de los Andes