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1Meeting of the General
Council
and Provincials
To Brothers,
Nazarene Fraternities
and lay people of the SaFa family
Under the feet of the elegant castle
that dominates the medieval city of Sigüenza, with its
narrow and sheer streets, we meet the members of the
General Administration, the Provincials and the Director
of the Center of Spirituality presided over by Bro. Juan
Andrés Martos, General Superior. Between 6 and 14
October, it welcomed us the Community of which was
Novitiate house, and we could enjoy the solicitous
attention of the Brothers and the beautiful landscapes
of its environment.
During these days we have been able
to pray together, to meditate, to share information and
restlessness on the life and the mission of the
Institute in each one of our Provinces. The
communication and the listening have strengthened in us
the communion and the joint responsibility.
In welcoming, Brother General
Superior has remembered that the mission of the
Superiors and other Responsible people must guide to
build the community of love centered in Christ's
presence. Authority and obedience must be to the service
of people and of the fraternity. This demands many times
attitudes of humility and necessary courage to share the
fragilities and to foment the unity among everyone.
The main reason of our dialogue and
reflections have been the Project of Life of the
Institute for this six-year period given by the General
Chapter that invites us to leave from Nazareth to be a
living presence in today's world: significant,
educating, calling and jointly responsible that mentions
to a concrete way of existing, of being and of working.
The presence that we are
requested today can have different expression
environments: physics, educating, apostolic and
institutional, at any rate will be able to create spaces
humanizing and evangelizing and to spread to inculturate
the charism. The humanization ways and sanctity mark the
direction toward the Christian fullness.
We want to be significant presence
living grateful our Christian and religious vocation,
expression of the Father's kindness that has called us
to be with Him and to testify his love to all creature.
Our being finds his fullness in the community life and
in the relationships with the others, offering like
testimony the “spirit of body and of family.”
We are invited to be educating
presence that assumes the cultural realities and the
personal richness. The diverse ways of embodying the
charism in our Provinces express the particular face
that assumes in each country, region or continent where
it is present. The educational compassion that the Vble.
Bro. Gabriel lived printed to the dynamics of the
vocation the educational ministry with the proximity
features, simplicity and accompaniment of everything
human. Our vocation and reason of being, of Brothers and
lay people, is to make of our works “humanization
schools” according to the image of Nazareth.
We must be a calling presence,
in the certainty that our Nazarene spirituality, the
spirit of family and the educating and evangelizing
mission continue being attractive and calling. Above the
human motivation we must discover the impulse of the
Spirit that takes us to live a vocation of service and
commitment.
We value the growth of our jointly
responsible presence between Brothers and lay people
based on the mutual confidence and in the conscience of
our mission of Church. The privileged means to continue
growing in shared mission will be to deepen in the
elaboration of common projects born in the heat of the
dialogue.
We have dedicated time to the study
of the “Manual of Spirituality”, of the outline of the
“History of the Institute” and of the document “Safa
Family.” Works suggested in answer to a necessity that
was verified in the formative and pastoral task. We want
that these new documents that the Center of Spirituality
is preparing, contribute to the growth, invigoration and
maturation of our faith with Nazarene feeling.
With happiness, we verify that the
Spirit continues encouraging life in us. Some of his
signs are:
- Growing missionary spirit
propitiated by the foundations in places of new presence
of the Congregation. Everything has raised initiatives
and generosity in our educational communities.
- The interest that wakes up the
figure and the project of the V. Br. Gabriel. The places
that speak us of their historical and existential
presence, keep for us special meant by their symbolic
and educational content.
- An incipient interest for Brother's
vocation in some places that encourages illusions and
future hopes.
- Bigger sense of unity and ownership
to an only religious family that is taking to a bigger
joint responsibility and collaboration in our works and
to take the first steps toward the union of some
Provinces.
The fraternal coexistence of these
days has been characterized by the simplicity in the
relationships, the disposition to the work, the
collaboration in domestic tasks and the good will to
overcome, sometimes with sense of humor, the limitations
of the language. In our daily prayer we always had you
present, Brothers and lay people with whom we share
charism and mission, culminating each day with the
Eucharist.
It is our desire to continue growing
in family under the humble roof of Nazareth having
Christ, the Word made flesh, as center.
Brothers of the General Council and
Provincials.
Sigüenza, Octubre of 2008
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2Easter 2008
The
command of Jesus
"love each other as I have loved you"
should
be the mark of the relationships inside the SaFa Family
"Go and tell
my brothers to go to Galilee,
and there they will see me." (Matt,
28,10)
Dear Brothers,
members of the Nazarene Fraternities,
of Communities of Education,
of Christian
Communities,
Catechists
and friends of the SaFa
Family:
I have wanted to head this
greeting with a verse of the Gospel according to St. Matthew because
it has clear communitarian resonances to share the happiness of the
Resurrection with all the Brothers and friends of the SaFa Family. May the certainty of the Risen Lord humanize our heart and all
the people in contact with our Institute, especially the young
people to whom we educate! This is my desire for this Eastertide.
To assume the message of
Easter in this atmosphere of an enlarged family supposes always to
leave ourselves and go to the meeting of the other people. In this context, the
command of Jesus "love each other as I have loved you" should
be the mark of the relationships inside the SaFa Family, always
needed of bigger relationship, confidence and work in common.
We have checked that today
there is a visible wound of relationships in the families, in the
work, among the diverse social groups and, of course, in the Church
as well. To narrow the relationships is a manifestation of the
Easter and a fundamental demand of our belonging to the group of
Jesus’ disciples. From Easter it arises with renovated force the
Christian fraternity in which Jesus considers us and invites us to
live as brothers, and to share among us the experience of God, the
faith, the Word, the charismas, the difficulties, the successes and
the failures of our life.
Of the faith in the Risen
Christ, the intimate friendship with Jesus is born and who lives in
communion with Him acquires a new sensibility to see and judge in a
different way. Jesus appears in several occasions to the people who
doubt and, in other occasions, to those who look for Him
passionately. The one who travels bravely and lovingly on the way
to Calvary, as Mary of Magdala, becomes merciful before the "calvaries"
of this world, where there are, as the 36th General
Chapter reminds us,
"high levels of
dehumanization joined to the loss of the value and sense of the
human dignity".
To humanize and to
humanize us we always should travel the way of mercy.
This mercy has to be translated also in new forms of welcoming us
and accompanying people and children and youth who have been trusted
to us. Hence, we should open our eyes to the coming of Jesus
among us and to deepen in his attitudes of humanity, service,
proximity, readiness, effort and work well done.
Jesus’ Passover makes us
also think in the group of followers. And this, for all our
communities and groups associated to the SaFa Family supposes a new
call. The first disciples feel impelled to testify what they
believe supported always by the members of their communities.
This is an evident reason to develop and reinforce the bounds that
unite us and to continue impelling the mission of the Institute.
I allow myself, brothers
and friends, to leave you these questions for a possible
reflection in these days: What does it suppose in short for us
to believe in the Risen Christ? Is truly the Resurrection the
foundation of our faith? Do we feel the urgency of announcing Jesus’
Resurrection? What situations are they testing our faith in the
Risen? Do we also wait to resuscitate some day?
That our lives certify the
certainty and happiness of the Risen Christ. Happy Easter of
Resurrection.
Brother Juan
Andrés Martos Moro, SG.
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3Christmas 2007
“Stay
with us, oh Emmanuel”
Dear Brothers,
members of the Nazarene Fraternities,
members of the Educational Communities,
members of the Christian Communities,
Catechists and
friends of the SaFa Family:
The Good News that is
announced to meditate during these days of Christmas
is the birth of Jesus to humanize all men. The human tenderness that
reflects the birth of the Child Jesus shows us the
God’s approach to man and enlightens the reality of
our lives and our history. Let us welcome with
gratefulness this joyful news and meditate the
mystery of the Incarnation in our heart.
Let us rejoice,
because the birth of the Son of God, made man, has
given us the opportunity to live as God’s children
and brothers among us. Let us receive with joy the
good news of Christmas and say with faith, “Today
a Saviour has been born to us, Glory to God in the
highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom
he favours!”
Dear friends and Brothers, I
invite you to read calmly these days the story of
Jesus’ birth according to Saint Matthew’s gospel and
before the tabernacle of the community chapel or in
the neighbourhood churches; let us dedicate some
moment to deepen in the mystery of Jesus’ birth,
incarnation of all our hopes and overcoming of our
frustrations. The Incarnation of the Son of God
is the maximum expression of God’s love to the
humankind.
The 36th General
Chapter invites us to have as a constant reference
of our spirituality and mission the pedagogy of the
Mystery of the Incarnation where Jesus is made man
to humanize us. His
birth in a stable questions ourselves in favour of
the human beings who do not find place in the table
of the life dignity.
Let us accompany these days
the Holy Family in Bethlehem.
The circumstances of the birth were very hard for
them and, despite the problems, they travelled in
that context their own way of faith. Joseph and
Mary confronted the risk, the doubts and hesitations
and in this way they collaborated in the divine plan
of God. In the history of salvation, God
considers a constant preference for the small and
the weak thing and it becomes evident in the
circumstances that surround Jesus’ Incarnation.
Today also, like Joseph and Mary, the Lord
requests us a committed answer in his project of
salvation.
One year more, Christmas time
reminds us the important that is the family for God.
The Son of God wanted to be born in a family.
A family that had the sad experience of giving birth
to his son in a strange place, forced to complete
the law of the census, in spite of his situation.
A family that felt, as so many others, the anxiety
of the displacement, the happiness of the birth, the
fear of the return trip and the working days at
Nazareth.
Let us come back to Nazareth
and, imitating the Holy Family, let us value the
gift of our human and religious family. May they be families in where
love and life are taken care; families in where God
can dwell among us; families in where the faith is
cultivated, is lived and is transmitted, and
families in where the love for poor people is
irradiated with expressions of love and solidarity.
Let us look these days at our
surroundings with a Christian heart and let us
really discover how much poverty there is in our
world. Each one of us
will see what is able to do and what has to do in
order that the pain of the dehumanization does not
take possession of so many people, because it
depends also of ourselves that it arrives to some of
them the comforting touch of the love of God.
Let us wish strongly that the fruits of the Son of
God’s Incarnation make of our houses and Communities
humanizing spaces where one can listen every day to
the call of living in fraternity.
Brothers and friends, let us
remember in our prayers our Founder’s request:
“Lord, I put all my trust in you and I wait with all
my forces that you grant us the graces we need to be
saved by the Incarnation of your Son.” Let us
make ours this prayer and may it question on us with
the same faith and it hope that they allowed Brother
Gabriel Taborin to internalize the Mystery of the
Incarnation.
Brother Gabriel expressed the
love and proximity of God in the concrete faces of
the Brothers and the children of his time.
It is for us today to continue with this same
apostolic zeal the active love toward the children
and young people and toward the members of our
families and Religious Communities. Are we
willing to accept God in our hearts, in our plans
and in our style of living and acting so that He
also is born in our lives?
May this Christmas be for all
the Sa-Fa Family the commitment of receiving the
Child God among us and it allows us to come closer
to God, to the members of our own family and to the
Brothers of our Community.
This is my wish for all of you.
Merry Christmas and happy New
Year to everyone.
H. Juan Andrés Martos Moro, SG
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4Greetings from the General Superior
to the members of the Institute
Dear Brothers:
On Tuesday, 31st of July, feast of
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the General Chapter commended to me the
responsibility of serving the Institute of the Brothers of the Holy
Family as General Superior for the next six years. This fact has
reaffirmed once again my conviction that it is the Lord who leads
our history.
I thank the trust placed on me, a person with
limited qualities, and I also thank the signs of support and
congratulations received from the Brothers; with the aid of your
prayers, of your brotherly love, of your understanding and with the
help of the General Council, I hope I can correspond with dignity to
the mission that has been commended to me.
My sincere gratitude to the Vicar General, Bro.
Carlo Ivaldi, and to all the new Councillor Brothers: Aurelio Arreba,
Bonaventure Yougbare and Enzo Biemmi. Thanks for your availability
and generosity for the service to the Congregation.
I take the relay from Bro.
Lino Da Campo, to whom I want to express my
sincerest congratulations for the word that he has done during more
than thirty to the service of the Congregation from the General
Administration. Bro. Lino has helped us to grow as a family and he
has provided us with correct orientations which will continue being
a referent point for the activity of our Communities. I am sure that
we will go on relying on his valuable collaboration. Thank you very
much, Brother Lino.
I am not sincere if I do not confess you my
doubts and hesitations. From the beginning I have had the feeling of
assuming a responsibility which is above my capacities but, when the
objections crowded into my head, I am comforting in hearing the same
voice: “My grace is enough for you” or “I will be with you always”.
From this point of view of faith, it springs the serenity and
confidence that it is possible to take responsibility for the
mission of Brother Superior General, and even it is more bearable.
I must express, Brothers, that I have no so much
knowledge of the Institute, as my apostolic activity has been always
reduced to the boundaries of the Our Lady of Assumption Province;
but from now on I start working for your necessities and I offer you
my time, my energies and my spiritual company for the next years. I
will try to visit you as soon as possible. It is my wish that we can
walk together in the fidelity of the Lord with a better mutual
knowledge.
For the activity of the life of the Institute, I
ask for the co-responsibility and collaboration of all of us, in the
broadest sense. I invite you to make use of this participation in
any of these phases: defining necessities, describing problems,
giving solutions, assuming tasks of responsibility or accepting
possible decisions. To collaborate in any part of the process of
activity and govern of the Institute, I consider it an excellent
exercise of religious fraternity.
Every time has its identity signs and the
Religious Life has its own ones nowadays. I encourage you to live
with happiness the consecrated life and to be, simply, Brothers of
the Holy Family. Let us do an effort for being men in love with God,
identified with our mission and with the desire of being his
witnesses among the children and youth, and all the people who are
in contact with us. Our greatest wish is an Institute living the
newness of the Kingdom; let us collaborate to construct a society
where this newness could be possible.
Let us live with humility our vocation of
Brothers of the Holy Family, and let us offer this style, learnt
under the humble ceiling of Nazareth, to all the people related to
us. Let us manifest the sense of our hospitality and welcome,
identity signs of our spirit of family, and let us open our
Communities and, above all, our lives in order to testify that the
Kingdom of God is feasible. Let us make of our Communities Samaritan
spaces that show the values of the Gospel in the diary life of our
mission.
I invite you to find an encouragement for our
interior life in the task of our mission. If we find God in the
exercise of the teachers’ vocation, in the pastoral and liturgical
activity, in the catechesis, in the missionary action or in the more
various works of our communal tasks, we will live our vocation
fruitfully. Let us receive the renovation attempts that call
insistently to our doors and let us risk ourselves in those fields
and styles of life that from the evangelical poverty are commanded
today to the Religious Life.
The Brothers are the great wealth that the
Institute has. For that reason, in this greeting, I want to express
my appreciation for the eldest Brothers who show with their life the
truth of the commitment; for the Brothers in full maturity who bear
the compromises and responsibilities of the Institute; and for the
youngest Brothers who, in the middle of their doubts and
difficulties, dream with an authentic religious life. Receive my
friendly greetings and I am open for your necessities from this
moment.
I also want to remember in this greeting the
young Aspirants, Postulants and Novices of the Institute, to whom I
invite not to be fear in following Jesus Christ in the Religious
Life and I propose them as horizons of their vocational discernment:
to aspire to live as Jesus did.
And I also give thanks for all the messages of
congratulation and for the promises of prayers that I have received
from all the Safa family. They are a beautiful sign of our sharing
fraternity. I want to thank all the members of the Nazarene
Fraternities and those who share our mission and spirituality, their
joining to our charisma and their desire of strengthening the ties
that unite us to serve the world and the Church.
I put, under the protection of the Holy Family,
the task entrusted to me, and I wish that, under this patronage and
through the devoted meditation of the Incarnation mystery, we
continue learning the wisdom that will guide us in the life. To
learn in the school of Nazareth is the best wish that I can express
you.
Brother Gabriel Taborin lives with us. If we
translate this certainty in attitudes and behaviours, his charisma
will go making fertile little by little our evangelizing compromise.
His charismatic legacy and the life of our departed Brothers may
encourage us and bear our religious life of Brothers of the Holy
Family.
Sincerely yours,
Bro. Juan Andrés Martos Moro, SG.
Valladolid, 1st of August of 2007 |
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