|
|
 Greetings to the Lasallian youth participating in the sixth Asia-Pacific Lasallian Youth Congress
December 2001, Sydney Australia
Brother Álvaro Rodríguez Echeverría |
 As I said in the message I sent to you before our meeting, it seems to me that the theme for this meeting is very stimulating and appropriate: Enter to Learn. Leave to Serve. This theme responds to the main points of our Founder's spiritual adventure. His encounter with God transformed his life and made him change his plans and put his life at the service of poor, young people and, based on them, at the service of all young persons.
In this way we can say that the two Lasallian places for meeting God are REALITY and God's WORD. De La Salle always started from a contemplative view of reality. Here we are talking about a double contemplation. On the one hand there is God's plan for salvation discovered in his Word and in prayer; on the other hand there is the historical contemplation of the abandonment of the children of artisans and the poor. Both contemplations have the same goal: to place the means of salvation in reach of young people who are far from it.
There are, then, three activities: seeing reality, enlightening it with the Word of God, and committing oneself to a transforming action. This sketch is what every genuine young Lasallian should live out. An encounter with God will never involve an escape from the world, but it will involve dedication and service. In light of the Word the Founder describes God's saving plan: "God is so good that, having created us, he wills that all of us come to the knowledge of the truth" (Meditation 194.1). Lasallians are not to make distinctions. Our spirituality is a unifying spirituality. The Gospel and the great religions reduce the main points to loving God and one's neighbor. We are called to be children and brothers and sisters: divine affiliation, human fraternity. We can dynamically combine this relationship in four ways:
Affiliation without fraternity would be a lie: "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars" (1 John 4:20).
Fraternity without affiliation could give rise to an anonymous encounter with God, which for some will be revealed on the last day: "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?" (Matthew 25:37).
The lack of affiliation and fraternity would result in an existential failure - a life without meaning.
The integration of both dimensions results in full realization, the fulfilment of God's saving plan.
De La Salle integrated these two dimensions in his own life and he invites all of us Lasallians to integrate them also. For this the Founder gave us some very concrete means born of a "spirit," which are a vital impetus, interior strength, and new life. We are talking about the spirit of faith, symbolized in our Institute seal, which is translated into zeal for the salvation of the world.1. Contemplating his image:
First of all the spirit of faith invites us to contemplate life, events, and history as places of the manifestation of God. We are talking about looking at everything in the light of faith or in the light of God, and discovering it present in his Word, in men and women, in the poor, in nature, in history, and in ourselves.
2. Seeking his will:
Secondly, the spirit of faith invites us always to seek God's will and to do everything with a view to his saving plan. Because I have experienced in my life the loving and liberating action of God, therefore I decide to share with my Brothers my lived experience and to commit myself to God's work as De La Salle liked to say.
3. Trusting in his love:
Thirdly, the spirit of faith is trusting always in God, abandoning myself into his hands. And I can do this because the Lord is always there, in my innermost self. That is why De La Salle insisted so much on the presence of God and I can do this as well, because the Lord is not only present, but he also leads me and mankind as well. This is one of the principal Lasallian inspirations: God looks for us first, before we look for Him; God is already present, it is God who guides us. It is up to us to open ourselves to Him, recognizing Him by faith.
The Founder shares with us how he experienced this guiding presence of God in his own life: "God, who conducts everything with wisdom and tenderness and who is not used to forcing the inclination of men, wanting me to commit myself entirely to caring for the schools, did it in an imperceptible way and over a long period of time, so that one commitment led to another in a way I had not foreseen from the beginning."
CONCLUSION
Dear young Lasallians, the first part of the Congress theme "Enter to Learn" reminds us that we are here to learn. To learn from one another. To learn from those who will share their insights with us. To learn from our Founder. But above all and by means of the above, to learn how to deepen our relationship with God.
The encounter with God in Lasallian terminology is not so much the effort I make to find Him, but like De La Salle, it is to allow myself to be found by God and to let Him take the initiative. To know how to contemplate his image, seek his will, trust in his love. In the words of Saint John Baptist de La Salle, we are talking about abandoning ourselves totally into his hands "like a man who puts himself out on the high seas without sails or oars" (Meditation 134.1).
Every young Lasallian, just as those all who participate in the charism of Saint John Baptist de La Salle, is called to be a SIGN of God for the world. It is for this reason that the second part of our theme is "Leave to Serve." We know that the world today pays a great deal of attention to the idea of image, so that today the area of communications in great measure directs public opinion. Even war today has become a spectacle which we can view as it is happening; even food has a symbolic function as a lifestyle if we think about Coca Cola or McDonald's and all their propaganda. Today the important thing is not the quality of clothing but its "brand name."
The primary victims of such a system are precisely young people and the Founder used to say that young people learn more by what they see than by what they hear. A world like this needs signs that can reverse this phenomenon. You young Lasallians should be signs for other young people. You are called to show God's love as you live out Gospel values, or those of your own religion, particularly fraternity, which makes visible the image of God, not as someone who is proving a theory, but as someone who is a witness of an encounter that has transformed his life. |
|
