Dear Brothers, dear members of the Lasallian Family:
My pastoral letter this year in 2023 is focused on our life together. It’s entitled: “Finite. Fragile. Free”.
This comes from the invitation of the 46th General Chapter to look at our own vulnerability with the eyes of faith. The Capitulants then recognized the need to overcome the vicissitudes, the difficulties of our life and creatively respond to the needs of our time. The search for new pathways arises from the consensus that we simply cannot do more of the same.
I believe that the best place to dream together as a Lasallian Family worldwide with diverse vocations may be in that little town of Bethlehem, where a fragile Child rests in a manger.
In this pastoral letter I am helped by the stories of people from the field. Sixteen scenes — I called them vignettes — 16 sketches to connect us with the experiences and stories of real people made of flesh, wounded and scarred, risk-takers all. They remain as pilgrims on different trails; none has reached their Promise Land. They grapple daily with imminent fears. They wrestle with God in their nakedness. They live in liminality. Yet they choose to live their humanity fully. Finite. Fragile. Free.
At the end of the pastoral letter, I am happy to share with you a brief video greeting from Pope Francis encouraging all of us to live this humanity, to be leaven among the most vulnerable.
It gives me much pleasure and much joy to greet all of you a very merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.
Brother Armin A. Luistro FSC
Superior General of the Brothers of the Christian Schools