Claretian Formation

Initiation in the Ministry of the Word

Project of Initial Formation

for hearing and assimilating Sacred Scripture

in a Claretian key

English Translation by: Joseph C. Daries, C.M.F.

General Prefecture of Formation

ROME 1998

Presentation

After completing the General Plan of Formation (GPF), the General Prefecture of Formation proposed to draw up a series of subsidies to facilitate its application to our formation communities in their different situations. One of these subsidies is the Formation Project of Initiation in the Ministry of the Word (IMW), the specific aim of which is to help our formandi to assimilate the Word of God along the lines indicated in SW.

1. The XXI General Chapter insisted that the formation of our missionaries should be a process of initiation in the ministry of the Word, understood as an authentic way of being, acting and signifying.1 Hence, during formation a very relevant place had to be given to a savored and exegetical knowledge of the Bible, and to initiation in the Lectio Divina and other kinds of reading, so that the Word should become one of the hinges of the process of formation.2 All of this involved an array of challenges to Claretian formation, which the drafting of the IMW was meant to deal with.

2. The methodology for its drafting was participative on the Congregational level and was developed in various phases.

In the first stage (July 1994 to July 1995), the Congregation’s Provincial Prefectures of Formation were involved. They contributed concrete formative proposals based on their own experience and on the reflection of the formative communities themselves. In September of 1995 a Commission3 expressly appointed for the task synthesized the proposals sent in by the prefectures and drafted a guideline text to be studied later.

In the second phase (November 1995), the text that had been drafted was directly analyzed by the Provincial Prefects of Formation gathered in Rome. They made numerous corrections, observations and suggestions that the Commission later incorporated, greatly improving the text. This work of integration ended in April 1996.

Throughout the different phases of drafting, various experts also collaborated quite effectively, and their contributions enriched the quality of the project.4

3. The IMW is a pedagogical tool which, besides offering concrete formative guidelines and orientations, is open to further development and enrichment. In the first place, so that it may be better understood, the IMW should be accompanied by a reading of the Claretian bibliography presented at the end (Appendix 9), especially of those biblical studies that have delved more deeply, with scientific rigor, into the Claretian key. In the second place, in order to increasingly define its gradual character, formation centers must keep working on what is distinctive in each formative stage, which is an essential dimension of every process of formation. Finally, it is necessary to keep promoting all those initiatives in the field of experience that can make it more intelligible, adapted and profitable in the distinct cultural areas into which the Congregation has spread.

I would like to end with heartfelt thanks for the collaboration of all who have directly or indirectly made this project possible. In the name of our formation communities, we offer our recognition for the service they have lent to Claretian formation.

Jesús Mª Palacios, CMF

General Prefect of Formation

Rome, 1 January 1997

Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.