Typography and Year

Known the way,

run!

Blank

Known the way,

run!

Typography and year

PRESENTATION

For me it is a great joy to be able to present to the Religious Family the Plan of Formation asked by the 2001 General Chapter: above all, joy because the task has not only been taken to heart by the sisters of the commission, to whom we show our gratefulness, but has offered the occasion for a broad involvement, so becoming an opportunity of formation already in the phase of its construction.

Let’s thank even the Providence that was with us in this way of search and writing!

The formative engagement has always been a “passion” for Father Louis and for Mother Theresa, who were able to express some brave choices for the time in which they lived. In their turn, the sisters who preceded us got in the following of this tradition with creativity and according to the changing of times. Now it is to every one of us to keep this “passion” alive, so that God can be glorified and the poor brothers can be served with love and competence.

So let’s welcome this text as a “talent” to trade in the present of God and of history. By it we are urged to renew a way of life to live every stage of our existence in a following of Christ that is always “new”, faithful and really Palazzolian.

So, by the grace of God, we will be consecrated women more and more passionately fond of God, more and more warm and fraternal among us, more and more able to recognize the cry of the poor.

That cry that wants to be listened by a careful heart and by a brave creativity and so to become more and more, in the Church and for the world, “readable” signs of God’s Mercy and tenderness for everyone, under every sky.

I wish to everyone in particular and to each community the grace to be able often to deal with the formative lines the Plan indicates, always to spot these ways of daily holiness that make us grow as persons who are fond of God and lovers of every fragment of the humanity we have met.

Then, the engagement of inculturating these formative lines in the several and various situations in which our mission takes place, will increase its effectiveness and foster the consolidation of a constructive sense of belonging, now necessary more than ever, to feel we are a “Family” everywhere we are called to be and work.

My wish turns into a reciprocal prayer because, as our Founder used to repeat, we have to be:

“Really concentrating on God to glorify

and on our poor people to save”.

Mother General

Bergamo, May 22nd, 2007.

138th of Foundation

INTRODUCTION

Why a new Plan

The need to reorganize formation in its models and processes, largely underlined in present religious life, has urged us to revise a Congregation Formative Plan to answer not only the new needs, that come from the pluralism of contexts and of cultural and geographical situations, but as well the stances pointed out by the Documents “Directives on formation in religious institutes” (1990), “Vita Consecrata” (1996) and “Restarting from Christ” (2002).

In fact, we have accepted the appeal of the Pope that, in the Apostolic Exhortation “Vita Consecrata” at n. 68, invited “to elaborate a ratio institutionis, that is a formative plan inspired to the charism, in which the way to be followed, fully to assimilate the spirituality of one’s own Institute, is presented clearly and dynamically. Today the ratio answers a real emergency: to pass on the Spirit of the Institute so that it can be lived in its authenticity by new generations, in the difference of culture and geographic situations”.

Our religious family has considered these spurs from the Church in the 17th General Chapter, which decided, then, to make a formative plan be elaborated. The General Council has then entrusted a commission of sisters coming from the different Provinces with its drawing up.

All the communities of the Congregation participated, urged to offer their contribution. With no doubt, this “work” has represented and represents, for the whole Institute, an occasion of charismatic, personal and community growth.

The exigency of formative quality and fidelity to people, to society, to Church, have guided and enlightened us in drawing up the formative plan preferring some priority choices and guiding principles:

-  permanent formation as horizon of all the formation, so pointing out the necessity of formation in the human, Christian, charismatic, community, ecclesial, diaconal and intercultural contexts for all the Poverelle Sisters at every age;

-  internationality and interculturalism that are in our Institute;

-  aspect of femininity, that is a formation that consider the peculiar characteristics of our identity of women.

A formation of quality, which accompanies for all the span of life, is the key of the renewal and of the vocational vitality of our Religious Family and, at the same time; it is a strategic priority to inculturate the charism and to foster its development.

Chapter I

Christian and charismatic identity of

every one of Poverelle Sisters

Poverella, who are you and where are you going?

Founders’ sentence

Christian and charismatic identity of

every one of Poverelle Sisters

Poverella, who are you and where are you going?

1.1  FROM THE ORIGINS OF THE INSTITUTE

Our Founders, Father Louis Palazzolo for 17 years and mother Theresa Gabrieli for 38 years, have shown a positive attention to the complete formation of Poverelle Sisters.[1]

It is interesting to ascertain how and how much, in the days of our Founders, the persons were followed and supported in their way of “Palazzolian” religious life since their entrance into the new Congregation. With a good reason we can talk about permanent formation. The Epistolaries by Palazzolo and Mother Gabrieli are a clear evidence of it.[2] Or rather, both were worried to offer the young aspirants and not, a good human and Christian formation.

It is enough to think of the educational program systematically under way for the young women of the Charitable Institution, for the “Teachers” in particular, many of whom then entered among Poverelle Sisters.[3]

Considering the years in which our Founders – who were undoubtedly the most qualified educators of the first Poverelle Sisters – lived, interesting aspects can be remarked to realize a formative Plan. It is easy to find standards, attitudes and pedagogic choices that can be still effective.

Besides, it can be seen how formation was considered in the two inseparable fronts of hetero-formation and self-formation. In fact, while they were offering their input of spiritual guides, with advice, means and helps for the way of growth, to aspirants and to all the sisters, they instilled the conviction that the whole life asks for a new and continuous way of conversion, then for a permanent formation, without breakdowns and refusals to collaborate.

For Palazzolo and Gabrieli it was clear that when the formation, that is the person’s growth, stops, the standstill and the “distortion” begin. The expressions addressed about this to the Sisters are meaningful: “One must walk … run … fly … start again … get up again … and up with a will…”[4].

From the educational experience of our Founders, we can seize some attitudes that are effective for the one who has the task of formation, and strategies and choices, made in carrying on this delicate and precious ministry, with consciousness and strong sense of responsibility, can be highlighted.

In short some attitudes, that have enlivened their service of educators, can be noticed:

·  a constant attention, which is humble and respectful[5] towards the person in her entirety, in her different physical, psychical and spiritual needs;

·  an attentive and deep listening, by the heart, to understand and then to be able to intervene in a suitable and beneficial way;[6]

·  a real “passion” for human life;

·  a progressive clarification of spiritual maternity in Theresa Gabrieli, sister and educatress with a mother’s heart;[7] and of spiritual paternity in Father Louis Palazzolo, careful, helpful and demanding father, for love;[8]

·  a constant patience: to be able to wait in industrious hope;[9]

·  an endless exercise of circumspection and wisdom[10], “not the human one”, but the “divine”;[11]

·  an authentic humility before the mystery of the person;

·  an ability to harmonize sweetness and firmness, forbearance and determination, industrious attention and flexibility;[12]

·  respect, delicacy and comprehension of the person;[13]

·  an offer of confidence, always renewed;[14]

·  willingness to constructive, frank and patient dialogue.[15]

PALAZZOLIAN PEDAGOGY

OF ACCOMPANYING

Each “Poverella” (Educatress or Superior) asked to follow her sisters in the beginnings of the formative way or during their period of formation, in the wake of the founders:

·  accepts the person and her mystery with her lights and shadows;

·  follows the search and discerns as well the plan God has on every person;[16]

·  helps to read the personal story and its process of growth in the logic of the Gospel and of the Charism;[17]

·  enlightens and shows the way; she does not substitute, but leads in freedom and respect;[18]

·  educates and makes energies and gifts come out;[19]

·  helps the person to take the “form” of Christ[20], by the “features” of Palazzolian spirituality[21];

·  enlivens the sisters’ life of faith by creativity and by all the means at disposal;[22]

·  leads the person to Christ, centre and last term of comparison;[23]

·  supports and encourages, promotes and corrects;[24]

·  is authoritative and wisely exacting in the name of Truth;[25]

·  gives evidence by her life.[26]

The pedagogical style is the one of the Gospel; the look is always fixed on the Person of Jesus. Palazzolo was very clear about this: “You will say to the novice that if she does not behave according to the spirit of Jesus Christ, that is like a simple, clear, clean, sincere girl, I cannot give her hospitality any more”[27].

This pedagogical style – that we consider as a “formative method” – has been made just in our religious family by the Superiors and the Educatresses who followed each other in time. Obviously the modalities, the interventions and the means have been changed according to the change of times, the incidence of culture, the personality of every sister engaged in the service of formation.

1.2  POVERELLA’S IDENTITY BETWEEN VOCATION AND RESPONSIBILITY

DAUGHTER IN THE SON

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ… For he chose us in him… In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will”.[28]

Children in the Son! This is the wonderful vocation of Christians integrated in Christ, by the Baptism. It is the Baptism that introduces in Christian radicalism; it is the Baptism that is a breakdown, a choice of no return, a choice that then must be daily made true in the dynamism of the agreement with the Lord Jesus, in the concreteness of life.

And the adventure of Christian “sequela” just begins by the Baptism; by it every Christian is integrated in Christ as a limb to the body, as a branch to the vine; and he participates in the condition, in the life and in the mission of Christ himself. In Baptism we have an “admirabile commercium” between the baptized and the Holy Trinity that comes and live in him.

So, living “sequela” is living Baptism and living Baptism is living and completing “sequela”. “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” who stripped himself, becoming a man, a servant, obedient till the cross.[29]

Here is a Christian identity that has never developed completely, but that asks for an endless conversion because it is a dynamic event, a personal meeting with Christ, meeting that is moulded in time and in the different stages of life. It is an event of conversion that includes all the spheres of personal existence: from the relation with God, to the relation with the others, with goods and with the world.

All Christian vocations, just because received from Jesus, allow the called one to live the “sequela” and to participate more and more fully to the life and mission of Christ. As everybody is called to become a saint, so everybody is called to become a follower, even if not all the people are called by Christ to follow him the same way.

In Christian vocation, the religious consecration leads to live the baptismal life in the form that Christ chose for himself; and just because it is an engagement that concerns the whole life and forever, the whole life is consecrated by it.

The Christian identity of every one of the Poverelle Sisters is characterized by faith, invoked and taken as a slow pilgrimage that, at every turn, reveals something new and maybe unexpected, in an experience of God that every day gets richer, every day is put to the test, it has to fight and is made humbler and stronger, till the last instant of life.

It is the way of faith that changes the consecrated woman in a believer “seeing herself in her truth by the eyes of Christ”[30].

In this itinerary each event, each reality, even the negative or unexpected ones, can become a providential instrument by which the Father moulds the Son’s feelings in the disciple and this one lets himself be moulded by Him and by his mediations, till when, as Saint John of the Cross says, “the lover is more and more like the beloved person”.

FEATURES OF
PALAZZOLIAN “SEQUELA”

“Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart”[31], Jesus says and Palazzolo strengthens: “Let’s love Jesus of mercy, pitiful Jesus, Jesus really in love with human beings”[32]. Every one of Poverelle Sisters is a woman who, perceiving the divine call, makes of Christ the choice of her life. When He calls to follow him he does not offer himself only as an example to imitate, but as the only “Way” to reach life. With a free heart, in the wholeness of her person, the Poverella lets herself be involved in a steady engagement in Palazzolian family, whose mission is distinguished by: