Claretian Formation

FIRST PART

The period that we begin now, because of its length, has been divided in two parts. The first part, which constitutes Chapter 4, covers the Superiors General; the second constitutes Chapter 5 and includes Documents, Chapters and Dispositions.

I. Fr. Nicholas García

Fr. García in his teaching amply and deeply delved into the vocational and formative theme. In addition to the specific circular letters on vocation and formation, he very often and from many angles made continuous references to this theme in other circulars.373

In principle, I present the vocational and formative circulars with some references to others. For pedagogical reasons, I present them by themes and interrelated.

1. The Theme of Vocations

In his circular letters, Fr. Nicholas insists on the urgency of raising abundant vocations and on the need to cultivate the gift of vocation in order to remain faithful to it and to advance on the way of perfection.

1.1. A grievous vocational problem

1st. An especially important relevant situation compelled Fr Nicholas to enjoin the work for vocations. After the 1937 Chapter and following the events that befell the Congregation, particularly in Spain, which determined an important decrease of personnel, he wrote the circular letter “Sobre algunos acuerdos Capitulares (1937),374 in which he stated that in order to avoid the congregational collapse:
“(…) it is imperative that all the Sons of the Congregation strive to foster vocations, so that the Institute may not only attend to the many works it has at hand, but also widen its sphere of action and extend its influence to all peoples and ministries. In a special way it should aim at evangelisation of new peoples, taking charge of Missions among non-Christians; in so doing, we will do justice to the glorious name of Missionaries we so proudly bear.”375

2nd. Later he wrote the magnificent circular on Missionary Vocation (1938).376 Fr. García drafted the circular in the name of the General Government which, following the orientations of the latest General Chapter and stimulated by the examples of our Fr. Founder and of Fr. Xifré, “painstakingly studied this serious matter” of vocations.377

3rd. The concern of the General Government,378 and of the Chapter of Albano as well, for the theme of vocations has a concrete historical context, which Fr. General himself presents to the whole Congregation when he speaks about the need for “missionary workers.”379

1.2. Working for Vocations

Fr. García, well versed in the congregational tradition and with admirable broadmindedness and foresight, at the moment of promoting and admitting abundant vocations, returns to the idea of Fr. Founder and of Fr. Xifré. For
this reason, he proposed that the Major Organisms establish and multiply Postulancy and Prepostulancy schools and even houses where children and young adults could be admitted in preparation for Postulancy.380

Fr. General ends the circular with an ample conclusion that could very well reflect the master lines of a plan of action for vocational pastoral ministry.381

1.3. Taking Care of the Gift of Vocation

Receiving from God the gift of vocation is not enough. We must painstakingly cultivate this gift in order to remain faithful to it and advance in the way of perfection. This gift appears as a seed and must be developed until it becomes a complete and perfect plant.382

1st. When vocation is not cultivated, vocational temptations appear, “bad inclinations revive.” The joyful acceptance of the demands proper to the chosen vocation is lost or, worse yet, such demands become unbearable. One begins to dream again about secular life or to think that outside one could do more and better things.383 Hence the importance and the need to nourish it in order to protect and develop it. It is a very special grace that can be lost if it is not cared for faithfully and responsibly.384

This nurturing must be continuous, beginning from the first moment that vocational signs appear, and lasting for life:
“This nurturing of vocation begins even before the individuals are received, as one cultivates and prepares the ground as a seedbed”385
“(…) the nurturing of vocation must be constant; not only during the Postulancy, or during the Scholasticate, or only in the first years of public life. Vocation must be nourished throughout one’s entire life.”386

Vocation must be cultivated with “delicate care” and preserved in an atmosphere of faith. Supernatural faith is the suitable atmosphere for vocation to be born and should also be the suitable atmosphere for its consolidation and development.387

2nd. The means that express and foster the painstaking cultivation of vocation may be personal or community. Among the personal means, the following may be highlighted: appreciation and love for one’s vocation; determination to develop it; care to preserve it and to shun the dangers that threaten it; keeping it in its proper environment and living the religious and congregational spirit.388 From the perspective of the community, as a task for every member, and especially Superiors, Economes, Prefects, Professors, etc., the most appropriate means are: religious observance and an exemplary atmosphere of the community in regards to spirituality, fraternal charity, hygiene, industry and routine.389

1.4. Love for the Congregation

A missionary should think, feel and experience that the vocation he has received and freely accepted in faith is truly a divine gift, the best for him; in this vocation he does the will of God and can completely fulfil himself. He should also be convinced that it is in the Congregation that he should develop his life in the concrete.390 This feeling should be kindled in all missionaries from the very beginning of the noviciate, and should bring them to live their vocation with joy;391 and to love and cherish the Congregation in spite of its defects.392 In order to achieve this, one must “live in conformity with it,” assimilating its life project and its mission, in keeping with the spirit and the style of our Congregation.393

Fr. García states that the esteem, love and concern for the Congregation are intimately interrelated. All these attitudes should bring each one of its sons to seek the best for the Congregation by all possible means, that is, to promote its good in all its dimensions, to propel its works and to foster vocations.394

2. Formation of the Missionaries

About the formation in our Congregation he wrote the two above mentioned circulars, entitled Formation of our students (1932)395 and Religious, Missionary and Claretian formation (1947).396

2.1. Aim of Claretian Formation

1st. Following our Fr. Founder, the aim of formation is, according to Fr. Nicholas, to form apt ministers or to form Christ in the missionaries with view to evangelisation. This means engraving Christ’s image in the whole person of the missionary and in all dimensions of his personality, until the image of the Lord fully glows in him.397

The missionaries of the Congregation cannot be content merely with their own sanctification; the aim of the Institute includes the glory of God and the salvation of all people. Conformity itself of the missionary with Christ has one more aim: it should serve to bring Christ to people, to form Christ in the faithful of the whole world, thus accomplishing the same work of Jesus Christ on earth. All efforts and works, the knowledge, the ministries, teaching, governance, etc…, should be directed to this aim. The missionary of the Heart of Mary should be humanly, culturally ad spiritually very well prepared in all dimensions of his personality, in order to perform the most varied ministries and functions that this aim demands. This idea “should be inculcated by the formators and engraved with iron and fire in the soul of the missionary, whether Priest, Student or Brother.”398 Therefore:

“The Missionary should not be formed for a life of retirement or exclusive contemplation. It is not enough that he be a good religious in the realm of discipline; he has to be formed for public life. He should acquire the virtues and science demanded by the sacred ministries. To this end must all Formators of the Congregation direct all their efforts. The seminaries must be organised for this end, according to our life’s possibilities.”399

Without a missionary formation the Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will not fulfil the aim of the Congregation, they will be neither apostles nor missionaries.400

2nd. For this missionary formation, formators should inculcate three things to those in formation. They should remove the impediments that hinder the fulfilment of our universal mission, basically attachment to family, country,
etc. They should prepare themselves for the ministries of the Congregation with a broad vision and a generous attitude. Thirdly, they should practically and prudently train themselves in those means they will need in their apostolic works (public speaking, readings that foster the missionary spirit, etc.). If the formators foster missionary spirit in our youth, “then from our seminaries, as from cenacles, will come out great Missionaries who will change the world.”401

3rd. The formation of the Brother must also be missionary since, like all Sons of the Heart of Mary, he too is a missionary in the full sense. In his life and action he must always have for his aim the salvation of all people. He lives and acts as a missionary by prayer, by sacrifice and collaborating in the apostolic endeavours of the Congregation by his work, his energies and his professional obligations.402

4th. The life and future of a missionary, his peace and vocational happiness, his eternal destiny depend on a good formation. His life will be centred and well rooted in a safe, firm and stable ground, because it will be based on the rock that is Christ,403 and his work and apostolic ministry will be effective.404

2.2. Formation founded on Christ Jesus

Speaking of spiritual life, Fr. Nicholas insisted on the necessity of raising the level of spirituality of persons and communities in the Congregation. Spiritual life, which should be fostered all through life, should be developed especially during the time of formation. This spiritual life must be founded on Christ Jesus:

“All formators should take pains to form in the persons entrusted to them the image of Christ Jesus, so that they can say with St. Paul: daily I suffer the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you (Gal 4,19).”405

For this reason, the task of formators is clear: “Christ must be formed in the Missionary.”406 The formator should help the young missionary to carry Christ in his body, in his soul and in his mind, in his heart and in all manifestations of his personality: words, deeds and actions. In consequence, the young missionaries are to be formed in their personal, physical, intellectual and pastoral life.

According to Fr. García, a missionary must take good care of his spirituality. Otherwise, he will not seek “in omnibus gloriam Dei et animarum salutem” [In everything the glory of God and the salvation of souls]. He will seek himself and his own interests, his comfort and pleasure; he will seek quae sua sunt, non quae Jesu Christi [his own interest, not that of Jesus Christ].407 Giving oneself to God is not enough; one has to be constant and persevere in self-surrender. Only those who maintain their surrender, wholly consecrating themselves to perfection, perfectly fulfil the aims of the Institute. Only they give glory to God “in omnibus”: only they sanctify themselves in truth, and only they are efficient instruments in God’s hands for the salvation of souls.408

2.3. Formation under the Action of the Holy Spirit and of Mary

Formation must be achieved under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, as the first agent of formation.409 God, through his Spirit, forms the image of Jesus Christ in the souls. The Holy Spirit, who formed Jesus in Mary’s womb, imprints the image of Jesus Christ in the formandus. The same Holy Spirit forms the priest, God’s masterpiece, and the religious. In this way, integral formation is also charismatic and congregational. The Holy Spirit, who inspired our Founder, engraves in all missionaries “the Claretian idea” and enables them to live the congregational project.

Only with the insistent prayer of the entire Congregation to the Holy Spirit, but especially of those responsible for formation shall the Claretian charism be realised, incarnate in mind and heart and be put into practice.410 This prayer should also be addressed to Mary, Mother of the priest, of the religious and of the missionary. She, who formed in her womb and nourished Jesus until he became a perfect man, will also form the missionary in her Immaculate Heart and will nourish him with the necessary graces until he reaches the fullness of Christ.411

3rd. For this reason, the Missionary should be, by vocation and by profession, a man of God. He should live for God, in God and with God and, consequently, he should be a man with a high level of prayer.412

Only this type of missionary is able to change the world.413 Specialised and professional formation by itself is inefficient if it does not go hand in hand with a holy life, a life of intimate union with God and docility to the spirit; a life of seclusion and prayer; a life adorned with virtues, unselfish, enriched with constant study.414 This spirit should be pervasive in the Congregation; in it should our young missionaries be formed.415

2.4. Integral Formation

According to Fr. Nicholas, the complete formation of a person implies the integral development of the whole person, of his entire being (in his physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual and social dimensions).416 Formation is the cultivation, development and perfection of the faculties and gifts God has given to a person, both in the natural and in the supernatural order. Everything has been given to the human person in a germinal form and needs to be developed until it reaches its fullness. Formation tends to perfect and complete health, physical faculties, senses, imagination, memory, intellect, will, spiritual life (life in Christ, faith, hope and charity) till it reaches its fullness, the perfect human person, according to the maturity of the fullness of Christ.417

2nd. As Sons of the heart of Mary we have also received the gift of missionary vocation. As we grow as persons, we must develop our religious-missionary-Claretian being. For this reason, the life of a missionary, if he wants to respond to his vocation, demands a complete and perfect man; fulfilling his mission entails a harmonically developed organism, a saintly heart and a highly formed intelligence.418

Consequently, the aim of our formation must be the development of the person in all its human, supernatural and vocational broadness. And this aim, which should be the formative objective in all stages of formation, must be an important concern of those who have the responsibility and charge of the formation of our young missionaries.419

2.5. Personalised Formation

The Claretian formation, anchored in Christ, must be firm and immovable. The person in formation should acquire a type of personal virtue that will depend neither on circumstances nor on times, places or persons. Thus nothing and no one on earth will separate him from the love of Christ and from the missionary life to which he has consecrated himself. He should not only be dead to worldly things but he should also be ready to give up everything for his vocation: his only thought is to live for Christ, give glory to him and gain souls for the Kingdom.420

Fr García will constantly insist on this viewpoint in his formative orientations for all stages:

“Virtue must be personal, (bona qualitas mentis [a good mental quality] as defined by the philosophers), intimate; it goes with the person; it does not depend on the circumstances or on the times, places or persons, occasions or temptations. Virtue accompanies the person everywhere; it is a habit, a second nature; it does not easily disappear, it usually acts according to its own principles; violence is needed to act against it. It encounters no difficulty in carrying out tasks, and even does them with pleasure, delectabiliter.”421

Formation, in this sense, must be based on the free choosing of good, of what is best, for one’s vocation and for the interests of God and of Jesus Christ. In addition, it should be supernaturally motivated and confirmed by practical exercise and by experience.422

2.6. Enthusiastic Formation

Only a missionary full of charity triumphs against the difficulties of missionary life and bears apostolic fruit.423

The lukewarm person does not know or live the radicalism of his vocation, and is satisfied with the minimum in the fulfilment of his missionary commitments. He lives entrenched in his mediocre, comfortable and imperfect life. He goes through prayer and the reception of the sacraments reluctantly, out of routine, with no intention of improving or being converted; developing an egocentric tendency, he seeks in his acts only vanity, flattery, prestige, etc…424

For this reason, the missionary formation should be an enthusiastic and fervent formation, permeated by apostolic love:
“The missionary formation, however, should not be cold. The Claretian Missionary must be a man that spreads his flame wherever he goes and, because of him, the world must be aflame with love. Only the fervent missionary will triumph over the one thousand and one difficulties of life. The lukewarm, the person with an apathetic spirit, who does not enthuse over the great ideals, will never do anything profitable and greatly risks his vocation and even his salvation.”425

2.7. Apostolic Formation

As Fr. Nicholas reminds us, in order to attain a goof missionary formation, in addition to apostolic zeal and detachment, it is necessary that the students “enable themselves for the ministries of the Congregation426 and the brothers for the community services.”427 And following the criterion of the Constitutions, he states that those who are not qualified to teach the people the message of salvation should not be ordained.

In order to attain the apostolic objectives, they should prudently practice delivering speeches in order to familiarise themselves especially with the art of public speaking. They should train themselves throughout their studies, beginning from postulancy itself, in writing literary or academic essays in order to develop their mind, to think for themselves, to improve their writing skills and acquire an adequate mastery of the pen. All of these are essential parts of missionary life.428 And all this they should do, not only under the direction of professors, but also on their own initiative.

3. Formative Stages

3.1. Postulancy

Vocational discernment, begun at the moment of entrance, should be continued during Postulancy. The vocational indications from both the candidate and his family should be continuously clarified with view to the perseverance or the abandonment of the postulant.429 Postulancy is, properly, a period of vocational discernment with various successive moments:

“Postulancy is a sort of preliminary trial or probation to ascertain if the postulant has a vocation. Three operations constitute the function of the Postulancy: screening, dismissal, and spiritual, intellectual and social formation.”430

However, the most important thing is to continue the process of giving the future missionaries an efficient, well-grounded, integral and consistent formation that will enable them to tackle the difficulties of the future.431 The spiritual formation should be based on the holy fear of God, a filial, not servile fear. The fear of God is a starting point for the postulant to be totally converted to his new life, break with sin and seek perfection and fidelity in everything.432 In addition to the holy fear of God, the postulants should, by means of discipline and self-denial, get used to renouncing themselves and to be submissive in order to prepare themselves to overcome the difficulties of obedience and community life.433

Piety should be cultivated as a necessary condition for the postulant to persevere in virtue, particularly in the virtue of chastity. He should grow in an ever deeper piety toward God, the Heart of Mary, the Fr. Founder and the other saints of the Congregation; a piety that should manifest itself in the sacramental life, as well as in the respect to all Superiors.434

Their intellectual formation should prepare them for “the struggles of intellectual life;” therefore, it should be active, creative and extensively exercised by didactic means.435

Social formation, through the acquisition of habits of education and respect, will adequately prepare them for community life and for apostolic ministry.436

3.2. Novices

The Noviciate stage is deemed fundamental for the future of the Congregations and for a mature life and the perseverance of the religious.437

1st. The noviciate is a time for the novice to carve in his soul the image of a missionary, to conform his personality to the traits that define the Claretian Missionary. The traits of the image of a missionary were outlined by our Fr. Founder in the definition he left us in the Constitutions. For this process, the novice must cast himself into this mould, he must be open to the project of the Constitutions in order to know it, internalise it and personalise it.438 The novice, from the perspective of these demanding conditions:

“(…) upon arriving to the profession, or at least in the first years as professed, should have gone beyond the purgative way. Because he must be ready to comply with the duties as a religious and a Missionary and to give a morally sure hope that he will not turn back. For this reason the Congregation also demands tests in the Noviciate. (…) The Founder wants a deep foundation for the enormous structure of holiness that the Missionary must build. The Founder excludes from the Congregation the Novices that have affections that offend God and cannot correct them.”439

2nd. He asks the Novicemasters to form the Novices and get them used to living in union with God. To this end, the novices need not only external recollection, but also inner silence or “mental solitude,” since God is not present in noise, in commotion, in distraction. In the same way, the novices should live in the presence of God. To this end, he should inure them to living alone with themselves, since God rests in the innermost being of the person.440

He asks them to form the novices in the prayer life proper of the congregational spirit: “The Novicemaster should clearly explain the character of the Congregation: mixed life, to wit, a life of contemplation and much prayer, which is indispensable and cannot be left aside, and of much action, (…).”441

The novices should also know obedience very clearly, and practice it.442 Moreover, even candidates to the Congregation should be admonished, from the very beginning, about the type of perfect obedience they should live in the future.443

For this reason, the Master should do his best to train the novices in self-denial444 and get them used to discipline. He should train them in “the submission of their own judgement and will,” and in the subjection, with internal and external discipline, to the norms of the Congregation that our holy Founder left us in the holy Constitutions, as well as those that are contained in the ordinations and dispositions of the Superiors. This discipline should be personalised, i.e., it should emanate from their personal conscience and from their own conviction, and must be free and spontaneous.445 If they are not suitable, they should be separated from the Congregation.446

3.3. Professed in Formation

1st. All the missionary virtues, Fr. Nicholas García said, should be required both from Brothers and Students during the formation period. Brothers should progress in virtue and should be “industrious and humble.” Students in Theology should practice virtue with ease and on their own initiative, and should seek “with eagerness the third degree of humility, so graphically described in the Constitutions when speaking about interior mortification.”447

The formators should inspire those in formation to choose out of love “what is lowliest and hardest; to glory in the cross, like the Apostle.” They should set before their eyes, as their ideal, the definition of a Missionary that our Fr. Founder left us and the chapter of the Constitutions that deals on interior mortification. They should make sure that those in formation really strive to put this into practice, in such a way that

“when the occasions arise, it can be seen that they willingly embrace not only interior, but also exterior humility, since merely mental virtue has little practical efficacy.”448

2nd. The missionary should be full of zeal for the salvation of all people. To this end, Fr. Nicholas reminds us, he should be detached and have an open mind to be able to adapt himself to all persons, of any temperamental, social and cultural condition. In this way he will be able to “make himself everything to everyone, to gain them for Christ.”449

The missionary should be intellectually open to the culture of the people. He must see in that culture an indispensable instrument for the realisation of his divine mission towards people.450 He must attain a very high cultural level through literary, scientific, social, pedagogical and ministerial instruction. With such instruction he will be able to communicate the contents of faith “to the most cultivated intellects” which are, at times, the most in need.451

The formation of the Son of the Heart of Mary should follow this line. In addition to being religious and missionary, it should be professional. The student should study not only theological and philosophical, but also technical and literary culture.452

4. We Are All Responsible for Formation

In addition to the responsibility in the vocational area, “the formation of its members” is another one of the great responsibilities of the Congregation.453 For this reason, formation is a joint task of all of us454 and the Congregation, aware of its responsibility, wants to give its missionaries a “perfect formation,” making use of all possible means to this effect.

1st. In general, the Congregation plans the formative process, organises formation structures, appoints the most qualified formators and assigns to formation the best materials available in the spiritual and academic order.455

2nd. The superiors of the Congregation have a special responsibility in this task.456 The superiors general animate and encourage formation in its most central and global aspects, and are the conscience of the Congregation.457 The provincial superiors have the work of directing formation in the organisation of formative structures and, among other things, they have the grave responsibility of making a good selection of formation personnel.458

3rd. The formation community (formators and persons in formation) has a decisive role in the formation of missionaries.459 In order to accomplish their function, the formation centres must be well governed and organised.460 The formation houses should be havens of peace, houses of studies, offices of virtue and the heart of the Congregation. They should be cenacles where new men may be formed with the help of the Holy Spirit. If the Congregation has missionaries of great spirit, who carry the name of God to the whole world, it owes it to the
formation houses. For that reason:

“All the hope of the formation of students of the Congregation is set on the formation houses.”461