Dominican Maturity Training
(AGC Trogir 2013)
134.[Exhortation] We are not born Dominicans; rather, we grow and gradually become Dominicans. Human, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional formation must occupy a special place so that we can carry out the preaching mission of the Order. Bearing this in mind, we exhort conventual priors and formators to reread and reflect on the texts regarding formation in LCO 164-176 and the Acts of the 2010 General Chapter of Rome 185-190,195-197, andto implement them.
135.[Exhortation] Dominican maturity is expressed in the joyful living of the evangelical counsels and the virtues, to which we commit our lives through our religious profession (cf. Letter of Timothy Radcliffe, Vowed to the Mission, 1994). We exhort our communities to pay special attention to reflection on and fidelity to our Dominican consecrated life, entering deeply into its contemplative dimension, the source of all our life and mission.
136.[Exhortation] Human and Dominican maturity require an atmosphere of respectful relationships, relational skills, mutual forgiveness, and confidence in the brother. We exhort superiors to carefully promote these conditions in formation communities.
137.[Exhortation] In Sacred Scripture, people's history is not forgotten but integrated into the history of salvation. Likewise, when a young man knocks at the door of our houses, we should also consider his history and ours. We should not be afraid to look at our past and that of young people. We should ask of them and of ourselves an attitude of openness and communication. We exhort superiors and members of formation communities to welcome one another with open hearts and minds.
138.[Exhortation] We exhort formators and members of formation communities not to favor ways and attitudes that impede the maturation of the young men we are forming. We must all learn to find support and mature answers to our problems within our communities, with an authentic and deep love for the Lord.
139.[Commission] Formation is a means to better serve humanity. For this reason, the desire to serve through preaching and availability for mission must be present from the start of Dominican life. We commission superiors, formators, and vocational promoters to take these criteria into account when engaging in vocational discernment, in order to prevent any sign of narcissism in the brothers in formation.
140.[Commission] We commission the priors and superiors of convents and houses of formation, that in agreement with formators, they encourage throughout the year - where this is still not done - informal meetings of professed brothers with those in formation, so that members of these communities might share and to get to know one another.
141.[Commission] Given the large number of elderly friars and of communities of increasingly higher median age, we commission the socius delegated to the formation of the friars to establish in the Ratio Formationis Generalis a section devoted to specific formation in how to fruitfully live this stage of life from a human and Dominican point of view, and to be able to preach from it and to it
142.[Commission] We commission the socius delegated to the formation of the friars, when redrafting the Ratio Formationis Generalis, to bear in mind n. 349 of the General Chapter of Providence: "We ordain that in our program of initial formation there be serious reflection and sharing on affective life and maturity, sexuality, celibacy and chaste love." (ACG 2001 Providence 349).
Diversity and Cooperation in Formation
143.[Exhortation] We note and appreciate the diversity of environments in which our formation is done, as well as the need it has to respond to the unique conditions of each of our candidates and brothers in formation. We exhort those in charge of initial formation to take into account the criteria and challenges outlined in the Acts of the General Chapter of Bogota as a guide to understand and work with that diversity (cf. ACG 2007 Bogota, 206-207).