Rome, October 1st, 2019
“Do not be afraid!”
Saint John Paul II
Dear Fathers, Brothers, Seminarians, and Novices,
During the month of October that begins today, the holy memorial of our beloved Saint John Paul II, the Great, the Spiritual Father of our Religious Family (he who always inspired, guided, accompanied, defended, and protected us), stands out.
Each of the members of the Institute is proud to acknowledge him as “Father” of our Religious Family, not only because of the bond of profound affection that unites us to him, but also because of the special relationship that throughout our history – and through the merciful plan of Divine Providence – has unfailingly united our Institutes to his person, as Vicar of Christ, and to his magisterium.
A proof of this is the fact that our proper law is filled with quotes from the Polish Pope’s abundant Petrine magisterium (in fact, there are more than one thousand explicit quotes from Saint John Paul II in the Constitutions and Directories). And the same proper law, in the Directory of Vocations, firmly and forcefully declares that “we consider [him] the Father of our congregation, given that his splendid teaching has always been for us a fertile spring by which we quench our thirst for fidelity to the Lord.”
Even more, our beloved Institute was born under his pontificate. And throughout the 21 years that it lived under his pontificate, the Institute experienced the paternal care with which he protected it from the different threats and dangers it faced when it had barely begun to develop. Because of this, we can truly say that Saint John Paul II begot us with his writings and magisterium and looked after us conscientiously, like the Good Shepherd who pastures his sheep with justice, always encouraging us to carry on and to live in hope, “without giving in to discouragement, fatigue, criticism. Because the Lord is with you, since He chose you as His instruments so that, in all fields of apostolate, you might bear fruit and that your fruit remain.”
So then, the history of our Institute is full of encouraging encounters with the Holy Pontiff and we are happy to recount the numerous interventions by which he always showed, not only his approval, but also his desire “that this Institute go forward.”
Those words that his Holiness said to some of us after a private Mass with him will always shine their peaceful light on our souls. After conversing with them about the Institute in an adjacent room, when taking his leave, he declared, “You give us more hope.”
Several years have passed since those comforting encounters with the now Saint John Paul II. Our little Religious Family has gone through periods that were not exempt from tensions and trials, but we cannot deny that they have been times of great achievements, of flourishing in vocations, of missionary expansion, of consolidation in the charism, and of strengthening in our spirituality.
Nevertheless, we are not unaware that the present times bring with them adversities and difficulties. But these trials should not discourage us. Because as John Paul the Great said, “We need to commit ourselves with fresh enthusiasm, for the Church needs the spiritual and apostolic contribution of a renewed and revitalized consecrated life.”
Therefore, the present letter is written with the same spirit that animated the letter written by the Council of Jerusalem to the Christians of Antioch, and we have the hope that the same experience that they lived will also be repeated today: When the people read it, they were delighted with the exhortation.
These poor lines also serve as heartfelt homage and eternal gratitude to him who taught us to be witnesses to the hope that does not disappointeven when “it seems that all hope is taken away.”
1. Christian hope
Our beloved Saint John Paul II once said, speaking to priests and religious, “For Christians, and much more for consecrated persons, hope is not a luxury, it is a duty. Hoping is not dreaming; on the contrary, it is allowing oneself to be caught hold of by the One who can transform the dream into reality.”
As a matter of fact, through the religious profession we are called to give proof of the transcendent Christian hope contained in our consecration. Do we not say in our formula of profession, “chaste, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, poor, manifesting that God is the only true wealth of mankind, and obedient, even until death on the cross, in order to follow more intimately the Incarnate Word,” wanting to show by it that our gaze is fixed on this heavenly treasure that neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal?
Therefore, as our Constitutions say, what is proper to each member of the Institute is “to fervently practice the transcendent virtues,” among which is found the theological virtue of hope. It is hope that allows us “to remain like pilgrims through corruptible things, in the hope of the incorruptibility of the heavens;” making of our pilgrimage in this valley of tears – which in many people so often excludes all transcendental dimension – an unceasing announcement of the kingdom that is being built, because the One who conquered the world has promised it.
We have consecrated ourselves as religious in this Institute and in the bosom of our Mother Church “in order to achieve greater perfection in our service to God and His people.” This perfection essentially consists in charity, but also implies, as the Polish Pope wisely taught, “to consciously tend to the perfection of faith […] and to consciously tend to the perfection of hope. Because the call of Christ is placed in the perspective of eternal life.”
Therefore, we religious are invited to “a solid and firm hope, as much in the moment of profession as throughout your entire life. This is what will allow you,” our Spiritual Father pointed out, “to give testimony, in the midst of the relative and fleeting goods of this world, to the imperishable worth of the goods of heaven.”
Saint John Paul II was without a doubt a witness to hope. His words, his works, his gestures, his recollected prayer in silence, his concerns, his numerous writings and his copious teachings gained for him the title of “the Pope of hope.” In fact, he is remembered by many “as a true incarnation of faith and hope;” and his Petrine ministry as that which has given our times reasons for hope and restored to Christianity its true face as a religion of hope.
How did Saint John Paul II understand Christian hope?
Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, written and published during his pontificate, he once said, “It is the virtue ‘by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.’”
Thus understood, hope is what “encourages the Christian not to lose sight of the final goal which gives meaning and value to life, and on the other, offers solid and profound reasons for a daily commitment to transform reality in order to make it correspond to God’s plan.”
Therefore, the Holy Father insistently emphasized the importance of this virtue, to which “one must pay particular attention, especially in our times, in which many men, and not a few Christians, struggle between the illusion and myth of an infinite capacity for self-redemption and self-fulfillment, and the temptation to pessimism after frequent disappointments and defeats.”
Today, as much as yesterday, “Many dangers seem to loom over the future of humanity, many uncertainties weigh on man’s personal destiny and he frequently feels incapable of dealing with them. In addition, the crisis of the meaning of life and the enigma of pain and death keep knocking relentlessly at the door of our contemporaries’ hearts.”
But before this depressing and adverse “environment,” the Incarnate Word is revealed to us as “truly ‘the God of hope.’” It is He who “brightens this horizon darkened by uncertainty and pessimism. […] He himself, in His person and in His work of salvation, is ‘our hope,’ since He proclaims and brings about God’s kingdom.” “He Himself, therefore, is the infinite source of your security and of the hope which sustains you in every challenge and circumstance,” affirmed Saint John Paul II.
For this reason, with tireless insistence, the Great Pope exhorted us to put all our hope in Christ: “He will guide you, he will grant you the strength to follow him every day and in every situation.”
Therefore, if we are to be consistent with our confession of the divinity of Jesus Christ, our hope must be unshakable. Because Christ “built up the Kingdom on a solid and indestructible base. Upon this solid base we must build our spirituality: solidified by trials, purified by tribulations, perfected by persecutions, and unshakable in the face of all the violent furies of hell, even if we must live in the time of the Antichrist.
We follow the One who, today as yesterday, has all power. Therefore, there is no room for fear. Nothing can make us reject the revealed truth and love of Christ.”
In this regard, it seems important to recall that part of our proper law that warns us: “do not let yourselves be overcome by a depressive attitude that sees more evil than good… make room in your soul for all things, without despising or minimizing anything, but with hierarchy and order.” And without losing sight of the eminently supernatural character of Christian life, “pay attention to the ‘signs of hope present… even though they often remain hidden from our eyes.’” Even though it is true that “our century is marked by very serious crimes against humanity and is darkened by ideologies that have encouraged neither the liberating encounter with the truth of Jesus Christ nor integral human development,” it is no less true that “God’s Spirit, who ‘fills the world,’ has not ceased to scatter abundant seeds of truth, love and life in the hearts of the men and women of our time. These seeds have produced fruits of progress, humanization and civilization, which are authentic signs of hope for humanity on its journey.”
We should see all the events of our lives, individually speaking, and of our Institute as a whole, and even of the situation of the Church in the world, with this same supernatural vision. “Trust in the Church, because this means trusting in Christ who died and rose, who promised temporal indefectibility and doctrinal infallibility to the Church. It means trusting in the Holy Spirit, present in order to illumine minds and sanctify souls through grace, who acts in the secret of our consciences. […] Look at the consoling realities that today exist in the Church and in society with eyes of optimism and hope: these realities are great and many, and show that in the end, love conquers, that is, God conquers.” Therefore, “today it is not enough to reawaken hope in individual consciences; it is necessary to cross the threshold of hope together.”
The Holy Father invited us to this when he pointed out that hope “essentially has […] a community as well as a social dimension, so that what the Apostle says in the proper and direct sense for the Church can in a broader sense be applied to the vocation of all humanity: There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call.” This also applies analogously to the Institute as a single body. Which leads us to the second part of this letter.
2. Choosing hope
“Choosing hope and the future means, ultimately, choosing God, the future of history and of the universe, present in His eternity and guided by His providence. It means choosing Christ, the hope of every man.”
Having embraced our religious vocation in this beloved Institute is nothing else than having freely chosen to consecrate all our existence to the Incarnate Word. In other words, one day we chose to throw all our riches on the scale of the world to tip it towards God. Our choice was decisive; we belong to Him. We have chosen to give ourselves to God “in order to be able to be united with Him in perfect mystical hope,” and knowing that “all that is best here below is ugly and bitter when compared to those eternal goods for which we were created,” we renounced everything: “for all possession is contrary to hope, which, as Saint Paul says, belongs to that which is not possessed.”
We chose generosity and surrender in the face of covetousness and calculation; we chose to trust in love and grace, defying those who consider us naïve and even useless; we placed all our hope in the kingdom of heaven when many around us do business with the world and labor to assure themselves a comfortable and pleasant dwelling on this earth. We chose the “perennially valid philosophical heritage” in the face of false doctrines taught by the hypocrisy of liars who repeat or lead to old heresies. We chose the solid Christian spirituality that tells us to resolve to submit ourselves to carrying the cross, detached from all things and desiring nothing, in the face of the evanescent progressive spirituality that professes another religion than that founded by Jesus Christ and that, leaving aside the things of heaven, attends only to those of the world without relation to God. We chose as our motto, “with Peter and under Peter” in the face of those who dedicate themselves to separating souls from the great stream of life and communion that is the Catholic Church, following “other magisteria… [that] are ecclesiastically unacceptable and pastorally sterile.” We chose to be “essentially missionary” and to dedicate our best energies and all our existence (with all our weakness and poverty) to being artisans and signs of evangelical hope, encouraged by the eloquent exhortation of the Successor of Peter: Open the doors to Christ!
And so, echoing the words of our Spiritual Father, who once told us, “in the midst of this generation so immersed in the relative, you must be voices that speak of the absolute,” we consider as the most honorable employment to dedicate ourselves to be witnesses to hope, witnesses of the invisible in a secularized society. And for this we toil and struggle, because we have set our hope on the living God…
We would badly stray from the “supreme hope of the incomprehensible God” if in our Institute there are “no enthusiastic projects for the future; if the community is not presently involved in passion-filled tasks; if there is no gratitude for past gifts; if generosity in service decreases and the community falls into disordered comforts.” We would fail in hope if we breathe in our Institute “a climate of gossip, of suspicion, of criticism, of disordered passions, of tension…, if we do not look for unity in truth and in charity…, if by looking at the tree of difficulties, we lose sight of the forest of good things, if we make a tempest in a teapot to draw attention to ourselves, if there is no dialogue and solidarity…”
The Incarnate Word tells us: I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.
“Jesus directed these words of hope to His Apostles on the night before His Passion,” explained Saint John Paul II. “He repeats them today to you, priests and religious, consecrated souls…. Take courage! Jesus says to us, I have conquered the world.” And this is the fixed idea that we should always guard in the depths of our souls and that should stand out in our minds in order to decide and to act with bravery. Because only hope in Christ can give us that solid motivation that we need to hoist the standard of the cross, even though we should have to “suffer the weaknesses of many, without faltering because of compliments or threats; […] rise above the vicissitudes of fortune and failure, and be willing to give up [our] life, if necessary, for the good of the Institute in the service of Jesus Christ.”
It is true that these times are not easy in many respects, though elaborating on this would be beside the point. Nevertheless, as John Paul the Great says, “I want to address to each one of you an invitation to trust… Now it is up to you to be coherent, despite the difficulties. The spiritual destiny of many souls is bound up in your faith and coherence.”
Filial trust due to our Lord is indelibly united to the virtue of hope. Because having hope is having “trust in the future, a trust that is not based on human ideas or predictions but on God, the ‘living God’”
In 1988, Saint John Paul II addressed a message to priests and religious in Reggio Emilia, Italy. There, the Holy Father pronounced – in our opinion – one of his most paternally comforting and hopeful discourses for religious. We transcribe it here almost entirely, hoping that it will be read meditatively as addressed especially to each one of the members of the Institute and to our Religious Family as a whole. It reads as follows:
“If Jesus asks you to trust Him it is because He trusted first in you. He trusted in you when with a sign of absolutely gratuitous love He called you to follow Him more closely, to give up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for His sake and for the sake of the Gospel. He trusted you when through a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, He consecrated you, and in the diversity of gifts and of ministries, He appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain. He trusted you when he chose you and sent you to be heralds of His kingdom in this land […], witnesses to His resurrection, a prophetic sign of those new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
“Your mission, like that of the whole Church… is not easy. We find ourselves before new situations that yes, on one hand, open promising and unhoped-for possibilities for announcing the Gospel, but on the other hand, seem to make men lose trust in all that is Christian, and even human, in the world. But we should not be afraid. The mission sprang from Jesus’ Passover and it is the same mission that the Father entrusted to Christ and that Christ, before ascending into heaven, passed on to His Church. It is a mission of salvation that derives its strength from the presence of Christ and from the power of the Spirit.
“Jesus did not hide the difficulties of the mission from His Apostles: rejection, hostility, persecutions that they would have to face. If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. And there is not just an open persecution, which made and continues to make martyrs, there is a subtler, and for this reason, more dangerous, snare […]. It is that which does not want to make martyrs, but rather ‘free’ persons, ‘free’ meaning free from all religion and morality. It does not suffocate the idea of God with blood, but rather by accumulating consumer goods and satisfying natural instincts. It does not fight the Christian idea, but ignores it, relegating it among the myths of the past. Precisely because He foresaw all this, before entrusting His mission to the Church, Jesus gave us this consoling assurance: And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.
“This is the certainty that guides and sustains the mission of the Church; this is the certainty that should guide and sustain your mission: the certainty that, in Christ Jesus, God is with us, yesterday and today, today and tomorrow, until the end of the world. And if God is for us, who can be against us? What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
“This list of obstacles, though with different connotations, is also true for us. We also have experienced the tribulation that comes from remaining only a few and overloaded with work; we know the anguish of so many of our brothers who have abandoned the faith; we know the current persecution, as we said before; we have experienced hunger […], not for bread, but rather for generous souls to follow us; we have experienced nakedness, the emptiness in so many of our homes and of so many of our initiatives; we know danger, above all that of infidelity, in a world that rejects stable commitments on principle; we know the sword, the culture of death that seems to have invaded human society, putting in the lives of others grave danger for economic or ideological reasons, even destroying life in the mother’s womb.
“And now? Paul’s response is concise and determined: in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through Him who loved us. Precisely because He loved us, and loves us, He is with us. And His is a paschal presence that not only helps and strengthens, but also gives a new, diverse, and unexpected meaning to the difficulties, hostilities, and apparent failures. What seems to be an obstacle for the mission, in the light of the faith, turns into the secret of its fruitfulness. The presence of the paschal Christ gives us the certainty that, when we seem to be defeated, precisely then we are victors, even ‘overwhelming victors.’ It is the disturbing logic that flows from the cross. On the human level, the cross of Jesus is an evident failure; but precisely from this comes that explosive novelty that changed the face of human life and history.
“Jesus had already announced it: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. In view of this parable, Paul could exclaim, Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
“Here is the secret of our trust: when we are weak, then we are strong; and the weaker we are, the stronger, because the more we let the presence and power of the paschal Christ shine through. And with this paradox, the Church has been advancing for two thousand years, and will continue… With nothing else but with this paradox.
“Entrusting the Church with His mission, Jesus did not just guarantee His own presence until the end of the world, He promised and transmitted the power of His Spirit. […] From then on, the Spirit is acting in the life and history of humanity. […] He is acting in the world. […] He is acting in the Church. […] He is acting in your communities, though they be small and poor, precisely because they are small and poor, so that they be rich in faith and great in charity.
“The Spirit of God is the Spirit of life, capable of making life burst out even where all seems dead and dry. This is why we can and should trust. Not just can, but should. […]
“But hope, in order not to decline, must be fed by an intense life of prayer, of listening to the Word of God, of contemplation. The increase of work in the vineyard of the Lord, right when the number of laborers is diminishing, can make us forget that before all we were called to be with the Lord, to listen to His word, to contemplate His face. The contemplative dimension is inseparable from the mission, because according to the famous definition of Saint Thomas, also employed by the Council, the mission is essentially contemplata allis tradere, to transmit to others what we have first contemplated at length.
“From this the need for long periods of prayer, of concentration, of adoration; the need for assiduous and meditative reading of the Word of God; the need for a contemplative and, consequently, calm and relaxed rhythm in the celebration of the Eucharist and of the Liturgy of the Hours; the need for silence as the indispensable condition to making a profound communion and thus making of our whole life a prayer. As consecrated persons we should not just pray, we must be a living prayer. One could also say, we should pray, apparently not praying. We should pray, not having apparently time to pray, but we must pray. It is another paradox. Humanly speaking, this is something impossible: How can one pray, not praying? But Saint Paul tells us that the Spirit prays in us, and so the thing becomes a little different…” Here ends the citation from Saint John Paul II.
“Hope sustains and protects us in the good fight of faith. It is nourished by prayer, and most particularly by the ‘Our Father’, ‘the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire’”.
“When no one listens to me anymore, God still listens to me. When I can no longer talk to anyone or call upon anyone, I can always talk to God. When there is no longer anyone to help me deal with a need or expectation that goes beyond the human capacity for hope, He can help me. When I have been plunged into complete solitude…; if I pray I am never totally alone.” “Familiarity with the Word made flesh” gives us that great hope that does not die, not even in nights of loneliness.
3. Model of our hope
The Mother of the Incarnate Word and our Mother, “like Abraham and more than Abraham, believed, hoping against hope, and abandoned herself trustingly to the word of God and the power of His Spirit.” Because of this “[Mary] is present in the midst of the pilgrim Church from generation to generation through faith and as the model of the hope which does not disappoint.”
Therefore, as members of this Institute, we should never fail to commend ourselves to her and to ask her for “the courage to be with her at the foot of the cross and to accept the logic of the cross; the courage to cry with the strength of the Spirit: We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful; as unrecognized and yet acknowledged; as dying and behold we live; as chastised and yet not put to death; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things.”
Mary is the Mother of hope. And she reminds us again today of those words of her Beloved Son: Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid and invites us to do all that He tells us. She herself, our Most Holy Mother, helps us with maternal love so that our hope will grow and strengthen, being herself “sign of certain hope”.
She [the Virgin Mary] is not a mere spectator to our struggles, but gets fully involved in our lives, whatever the particular circumstances may be or the complexity of the reality. The extent of her loving maternal care has no limit. She wants to be our Refuge. Our beloved Saint John Paul II said, “Mary embraces all with particular solicitude… She prays with us;” she feels our struggles maternally and thoroughly understands our sufferings and hopes. For this reason the compassionate presence of the Mother of the Incarnate Word in our lives, which is not supplementary but fundamental and integral, should fill our hearts with holy trust, like that of a child who hopes for everything from the goodness of his beloved mother, so that in this way we may advance ever more profoundly and generously on the way of the cross, which is “the only way of life.”
There will be many who put their hopes in “their worldly riches and honors; […] others in their great employments and dignities;” there will be others who hope in “their talents; they may rely upon the innocence of their lives, the rigor of their penance, the number of their good works, or the fervor of their prayers;” as for us, we hope for everything from this august Lady, whom God Himself “has chosen to be the dispensatrix of all He possesses” and through whose virginal hands pass all celestial gifts.
The Virgin Mother of God is, according to Saint Basil, “after God, our only hope.”
* * * * *
Dear All:
Following the example of Saint John Paul, the Great, who faced great adversities throughout his life and knew how to fight with the spirit of a prince, may we too – amidst the storms which assault us – persevere in hope. By the practice of this virtue, we show our profound faith in God’s mercy and bear witness to that love that is more powerful than evil and stronger than death. We must be like Moses, who, as the Letter to the Hebrews teaches, persevered as if seeing the one who is invisible.
Let us trust in Him who called us: God Himself. Let us trust in God “who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us.”
Let us not forget that our way is to spend our lives so that others can have life and hope. Therefore, it is our duty to perseveringly continue in hope the mission that the Church has entrusted to us, bearing in mind that “We only need to pray, work and wait, knowing that this world is passing away.”
Today we want to make of those heartfelt words that Saint John Paul II addressed to consecrated persons in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a message especially addressed to the present and future members of our congregation. From heaven, Saint John Paul II seems to say to us again, “Institute of the Incarnate Word, arise! shine! […] Walk firmly, decidedly; the Lord holds you by the hand and will light your way lest you strike your foot against a stone! […] If your Institute remains faithful to Christ, it will be able to light up the world so that it walks on the path of solidarity, of simplicity, of human and Christian virtues, which are the true foundation of society, of the family, of peace in hearts.
“From this comes your evangelizing commitment, your mission to be light in order to illuminate those who are in darkness. You have been called, dear brothers and sisters, to feel within yourselves and to live the motto of Saint Paul with all its consequences, which should become for you a daily examination of conscience: woe to me if I do not evangelize!.
“[…] May your heart, then, be filled with the joy and hope announced by the prophet Isaiah. With the words of the Psalm, praise the Lord and tell his glory among the nations. Yes! Christ crucified reigns! By His cross and resurrection, Christ is the center of creation, the Lord of history, the Redeemer of man. He has given us to the Father, He has given us a new life that comes from God and is participation in His own Trinitarian life of donation.
“May the Most Blessed Virgin of Lujan become for you the Virgin of the ‘yes,’ the Virgin of generous faithfulness and of total donation to the mission; and may she also be the Virgin of the Hope that you must announce and communicate to all men, by first making it reality in your own hearts. So be it.”
Let us trust in the powerful intercession of the Holy Pontiff – who knows perfectly all the details of the governance of the Church, which he governed in the past – since we have in heaven an intercessor and protector who is full of lucidity and courage, of intrepid vision and ardent charity, who will always hear us and who from heaven repeats to us, do not be afraid!
Let us walk firmly and joyfully to the mission like men who have found true hope in Christ.
May the intercession of Saint John Paul II as Spiritual Father of our Religious Family, at the feet of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom he so tenderly loved, help each one of us to live, repeating to God day after day as he did, through Mary, with complete trust: Totus tuus!
In Christ, the Incarnate Word, and His Most Holy Mother,
Fr. Gustavo Nieto, IVE
