The new Superior General shares with the Vincentian Family his initial journeys after his election and some perspectives on his plans.September 11, 2004
Feast of St. John Gabriel Perboyre
To the members of the different branches of the Vincentian Family
Dear sisters and brothers,
May the grace and peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ fill your hearts now and forever!
Greetings to all of you. First of all, I want to take this opportunity at the beginning of my mandate to thank many of you for the offerings of prayers and support that you have given me through letters, e-mails and the like. I only regret not being able to respond personally to each and every one of the messages that I received. In these first few days here in the Curia I spent a great number of hours reading correspondence from around the world. It is truly a humbling experience and, at the same time, an inspiration for me to take more deeply to heart my responsibility as animator of the Vincentian Family.
I would like to share with you a little bit of what I have done since I began my mandate. The first thing was to get some rest. I visited with my family. We spent time together at the beach.
After my two-week home visit I returned to Guatemala on August 15th, where I was warmly received by the confreres, a great number of Daughters of Charity and even our confrere-bishop, Msgr. Ríos Mont, at the airport in Guatemala. It was quite a humbling experience. We went to the Provincial House in Guatemala and had an opening prayer service in our local chapel and then a meal shared by all with music, laughing and celebrating. It was truly a wonderful time.
The next day I left for our mission in Panama where I visited with our confreres, Daughters and members of the Vincentian Family. I participated in the ordination of one of our young confreres for the Central American Province. I had the privilege to celebrate with him his first Mass and he asked me to preach the homily. The first reading from Isaiah spoke about being sent to be a messenger of the Lord and being willing to go far lengths to let God’s name be known among all nations. Very appropriate words for a newly ordained missionary!
I returned to Guatemala where the local superior had arranged a number of activities for the confreres, the Daughters of Charity, and the Vincentian Family. I had the opportunity to share the Eucharist, meals and dialogue with each of these groups. It was certainly edifying for me and at the same time difficult. In the five years that I have been Visitor of the Central American Province I have come to know and to love many of the confreres, Daughters, and members of the Vincentian Family. There was parting with tears but at the same time hope that they will continue working together as a Family in the evangelization of the poor.
Since I have returned to the Curia, I have had the opportunity to do some reflecting and goal-setting for myself. What I would like to share in this circular, first of all, is that I want to take seriously my responsibility as animator of the Vincentian charism. I hope to be able to visit confreres, Daughters of Charity, and the Vincentian Family throughout the world. I want to spend time with the young people of the different branches of the Vincentian Family. I hope to see the works that the Family has with the poorest of the poor. They are our pride and joy, “a treasure hidden in a field,” where we truly come to live more deeply our charism, being faithful in following Jesus Christ, evangelizing the poor.
In my visits I will not want to say a whole lot. I want to listen to what you have to say. I consider one of the greatest challenges facing us is learning to work together as a Family for the good of the poor, for their evangelization. While respecting the autonomy of each and every one of the branches of the Family, we should not lose sight of the fact that we are born of the same charism. That same love of God that inspired St. Vincent to serve the poor has been entrusted to us all. To live faithfully our charism, we are called to be missionaries, which means we know no frontiers, whether they be geographical, nationalistic, or even family related.
If we are people of faith and followers of Jesus Christ, we know that it is important that where barriers exist, where wounds have been created, we are called to heal those wounds, to reconcile the differences that keep us apart and to put our energy into serving the poor.
Some practical points regarding my visits:
1. I am not a conference-giving person. My style is different. I hope that my presence could be less “academic” and with more dialogue, more of an opportunity to share, to listen, to express opinions. One of the things that I have learned after 19 years of ministry in Latin America is that as Church we are called to live our faith based on a model of “communion and participation.” That is more my style. When I come to you, it is not so much what I want to say to you, but rather what we can share together — our experiences of Jesus in the poor. In our dialogue with one another we can strengthen our efforts in their service.
2. I hope to be able to share the Eucharist wherever I go. I have a certain particularity about this point. I prefer to celebrate the Word of God that the Universal Church puts forth on any particular day. We are called to live out fully our being part of the Universal Church. St. Vincent wants us to be a people committed to the Church, working to bring about the Kingdom of God. When we celebrate the Eucharist, the highlight of our faith, we listen to God’s Word, the Word that the entire Church is listening to. We are in harmony with the entire Church and together as Church we allow the Word to revitalize our lives, helping us to bring about our personal and communal conversion and the conversion of the world in which we live.
3. One other practical point that I would like to mention before I conclude has to do with gift-giving. I imagine that in my visits there will be a desire to give me a gift as a remembrance of my presence. I certainly appreciate the thought but, as a symbolic gesture or remembrance of my visit, rather than a material object that at times could be costly, I would encourage you to give a monetary donation for the needs of the poor. If I am visiting someplace that is unable to give any kind of economic donation as a gift, the greatest remembrance would be the continuing desire on the part of the members of the Vincentian Family to give of themselves in service — and more concretely — to make themselves a gift of service to one of the missions where there is a need for personnel. I ask you to consider either financial help in and through donations for the poor or the donation of personnel so that we might be able to continue to give life to those most abandoned in our world.
I would like to conclude this circular by reiterating who I am: “a missionary.” I was inspired to be so by a missionary. I thank God for having had the opportunity to serve as a missionary. As Superior General, I will continue to be a missionary. I want to invite all of you to bring alive your missionary spirit so that together we may continue to serve the Lord, evangelizing the poor.
Your brother in St. Vincent,
G. Gregory Gay, C.M.
Superior General
of the Congregation of the Mission
