COUNCIL of CONGREGATION 2010

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To all Assumptionists…

Dear brothers,
 
Last year we sent you a letter recommending a number of practices to enable us to respond to the critical financial situation of the Congregation and more broadly to the economic challenges being faced in all of our countries.    We decided it would be good to write again this year to tell you what has been accomplished in the twelve months since our last meeting.
 
We are doing so in the context of the 200th anniversary celebration of our founder’s birth.  Do you recall the financial problems he had to deal with in his life, and most especially during his “years of crisis” in the 1850s? More to the point, do you remember how he responded? He was neither obsessed by the problems, nor defeated by them. He continued to be a zealous apostle, never lowering his sights or down-sizing his missionary ambitions. Instead, he learned how to be a prudent and better manager and most importantly how to rely more on the Lord of the harvest. These were times when Emmanuel d’Alzon developed the kind of zeal and faith that characterize the greatest of saints.
 
This is the context in which we must continue to confront financial questions: a context of faith and missionary zeal and also a renewed sense of solidarity and of mission shared by the entire body that we call the Assumption. 
 
(…) we are grateful for the opportunity we’ve had this year and last year to reflect on these important questions, but we also realize that our work is far from finished. In fact, it has only begun. Not only is it inaccurate to think that the world’s economic problems have been solved, it is also an illusion to think that the Congregation has the means to meet all of its needs. It doesn’t have them today, and we foresee that the discrepancy between needs and resources will grow in the years to come. Major changes need to be made, and in every Province we have to be very serious about finding new sources of income.
 
All of this has to do with the material aspects of our life, but it also touches upon the very heart of our commitment to follow Christ. Our discussions and the work you have done during the year have enabled us to make progress in giving flesh to our living out of the vow of poverty, but now we must pray that the Lord will help us to continue confidently in this same spirit.
 
Fraternally,
 
Members, 42nd Council of Congregation

Rome, 30 April 2010

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