1. From the outset, our Father Founder, as well
as our General Superiors and Chapters, have shown an explicit concern for the
quantitative and qualitative growth of the Congregation. Throughout our history, as circumstances have required,
they have offered criteria, orientations and norms for organizing the promotion
and selection of vocations that asked to enter.[1]
2. At present,
in the wake of the social changes that we have gone through, after the conciliar and postconciliar
renewal of the Church and the Congregation, and the publication of the General
Plan of Formation (GPF), it was fitting that we deal expressly with theme of
vocations in a more updated perspective. In this way, formation in the
Congregation, as well as our formation project contained in the General Plan of
Formation, would be adequately completed with a Vocation Directory of our own.
3. The Claretian
Vocation Directory (CVD) is a pedagogical and pastoral tool aimed at
helping the Major Organisms, communities and members of the Congregation in the
work of animating and promoting vocations. It proposes to animate and orient
our work in the field of vocations and to help in drafting provincial and local
projects of vocation ministry.
4. The CVD has a deeply Claretian thrust. Methodologically, it develops what is established
in the Constitutions (58-60), the Directory (170-185) and Chapter VII of our
GPF in a more ample and organized way. It takes into account the Church’s new
approaches and guidelines for vocation ministry, and incorporates the
Congregation’s heritage in the field of vocations, the criteria and
orientations of our postconciliar renewal, and the
numerous experiments that are being carried out in the Congregation.
5. The CVD is directed to the Congregation, and
its addressees are all Claretians.
All the members of the Congregation must be committed in the work of fostering
vocations for the Church, as well as for the Congregation and the Claretian
Family, and all of them must take painstaking care of their own vocation. In a
special way the CVD is addressed to those in Major Organisms who work in
promoting, selecting and welcoming vocations, and to our formators,
who care for vocations by forming them.
6. In its structure, the
CVD consists of a presentation, some historical notes, and introduction, eight
chapters and various appendices. The first seven chapters deal with the
fundamental aspects that need to be focused on in the methodology of Claretian
vocation ministry. The last chapter deals with and expands on the care and
attention that we should put into the cultivation of our own vocation, a strong
tradition in the Congregation, later summarized in our renewed Constitutions.[2]
The appendices offer bibliography, texts and formulas that may help our brethren
to better understand the orientations of the CVD and correctly put them into
practice.
1
7. Vocation is an inspiration or inner movement
whereby God calls a person to a determined state or form of life. It always
presupposes the absolute freedom of God who calls and the human freedom of the
one who reacts to that call. Every vocation contains the history of an
ineffable dialogue between God and human beings, between the love of God who
calls and the freedom of the human beings who respond to that call in faith and
love. God’s gratuitous gift and human beings’ responsible freedom are two
indispensable aspects of vocation.[3]
8. Thanks to this freedom, a vocation is, on the
part of human beings, a decision, an option that they take upon themselves in
their own life. It is not just any option. It is an option that commits a
person’s whole life and at the same time conditions all his or her other
important decisions.
9. There is in every human being a specific
vocation entailed in the mere fact of existing. The first vocation is a call to
life, a call contained in the dynamics of the creative act of the Father. A
human being comes to life because he or she is thought of, loved and called by
a Will that has preferred him or her to have life as opposed to non-being. The
first and most important decision of a person is to accept life as a gift, task
and mission, and to acknowledge the divine presence in that life.
10. God, who is the origin of life, implants in
each human being his or her own creative dynamism. In virtue of this dynamism
they feel called to grow in the knowledge and acceptance of self, to seek the
truth that sets them free,[4]
to walk and live authentically, and to collaborate in the work of the truth.[5]
Human vocation entails growth in one’s life as a person.
11. In the world. The
human vocation, the call to life, has an ecological character. We could even
call it an ecological vocation. By
this vocation, human beings are called to care for, subdue and transform the
cosmos by their labor, and to enjoy it. In this way they reach fulfillment as
human beings and are enabled to give a conscious, free and creative response to
the great questions of life.
12. With others. Every vocation, as a life project,
is an existential way of self-realization and self-gift. It is a way of
self-realization, because persons achieve their realization by fully living
their vocation. It is a way of self-gift, because through their vocation
persons find the way to relate generously with others, to love and be loved.
Human beings, as men and women, are called to join their destiny with others by
establishing relationships of equality, complementarity,
reciprocity and fraternity with them. Human beings truly achieve self-realization
when they commit themselves to the good of others.[6]
It is there that they find their own personal fulfillment.
13. Open to the Absolute. Each person is
called to live according to the image and likeness of God[7]
and to relate with God. Our existence as creatures is essentially open to our
Creator. Our highest vocation is to develop the divine seed that lies hidden
within us. We develop this seed by surpassing ourselves in opening ourselves to
transcendence and by fully realizing ourselves through manifold relationships
with self, with the world, with others and with God.[8]
14. Through Baptism.
The call to life reaches its fullness with a new and gratuitous call to become
–in Christ and through the Spirit—sons and daughters of God. This new call is
realized in the sacrament of Baptism. Through it, Christ becomes, by vocation,
the human project that all the baptized must realize in themselves.
He is the perfect and definitive model who manifests to humanity the fullness
of humanity and discloses to humanity its supreme vocation: a call to communion
with God in Christ Jesus,[9]
a call to be the kind of human being that God wants us to be. This should not
mislead us to dissociate the human vocation from the Christian vocation. Being a
Christian entails being human, like Christ,[10]
and being, in Him, a son of God. Consequently, the supreme vocation of
humankind is, in fact, only one: a divine vocation.
15. In and for the Church.
The Christian vocation, a gift of God, is a gratuitous election by the Father
in the Church, which is a con-vocation, an assembly of those called. The Church
takes shape as a mystery of vocation, a living reflection of the mystery of the
Trinity. The Church bears within it the mystery of the Father who calls all to
praise and bless his name and to fulfill his will. It holds within itself the
mystery of the Son sent by the Father to announce the
16. Through the action of
the Spirit. Under the guidance of the Spirit, the Church is called to
continue the work of Christ, sent by the Father to carry God’s plan to its
fulfillment, namely, to establish a definitive covenant between God and
humankind, by making them sons and daughters of the Father and by gathering all
those who were scattered into one New People.[12]
The condition of this People is the dignity and freedom of sons and daughters
of God. Their law is the new commandment to love as Christ loved, and their aim
is to spread the Kingdom.[13]
The Church and all Christians are called to announce the Good News of salvation.[14]
17. In freedom. The
call of God in Christ, a call of freedom addressed to each and every human
being,[15]
also invites them to a free response. God does not impose or coerce; he offers
and proposes. Human beings respond with a spirit of faith and with the same
freedom that God offers them in the gift of their calling. The grace of God
reinforces the response of human beings by empowering their capacity for
openness and response. Hence freedom is essential to vocation. In responding we
freely express out personal adherence. This free response finds its foundation
and incomparable model in Christ, who was the first to be called and sent,
always freely obedient to the Father’s will.[16]
18. Like Mary. God
called Mary for a special mission: to be the Mother of the Savior. Although she
was troubled at the angel’s proposal, she humbly accepted God’s will[17]
and surrendered herself totally as the Slave of the Lord to the person and work
of her Son.[18] The
freedom of the God who calls is manifested in the loving and special election
of Mary. In turn, Mary expressed her human being both in listening to God’s
call and in responding to it.
19. In
communion and diversity. The Church is the Body of Christ, made up of all
those who are baptized in one and the same Spirit.[19]
It is the Spirit who gives life to the Church, unifies it in communion and
mission, and provides and governs it with diverse charisms
and ministries.[20] For
this same reason the Spirit raises up diverse vocations.
20. All of the faithful, graced with gifts and charisms of the Spirit, participate in diverse forms in the
mission of Christ, which is also the mission of the Church: to announce the
Gospel, to worship God and to transform humanity according to God’s plan toward
the true image of man, which is Christ. This multiplicity of forms for carrying
out this mission is expressed in the diverse Christian vocations: lay,
ministerial and consecrated.
3.1.
Lay Vocation
21. The lay vocation is defined in terms of baptism
and of the Church’s nature and mission. Laypersons are all those Christian
faithful who are incorporated into the Church by baptism and who exercise the
mission of the whole People of God in their life and in the world, in keeping
with their role in it.[21]
22. Secularity
and commitment. The proper and distinctive character of the laity is their
secular state. They live the mystery of Christ and the mission of the Church in
the midst of the realities of this world. Their identity consists of being men
or women of the Church in the heart of the world and, at the same time, men and
women of the world in the heart of the Church.[22]
Members of the Church, loyal to Christ, they are committed to upbuilding the Kingdom in its temporal dimension.[23]
In the world, lay persons are called to live the newness of Christian life and
to seek the common good, by defending the dignity of human beings and their
inalienable rights, and helping to create fraternal structures of peace,
freedom and justice.[24]
23. Services.
The laity are called to live the mission of Christ, Priest, Prophet and King.
In the midst of temporal realities they worship God by offering their life in
following Jesus and by working to transform the world. Within the ecclesial
community they participate actively in the announcement of the Word, in the
liturgical life and in the charitable action of the Church.[25]
24. Matrimony
and the family. These constitute the primary field for the community
commitment of the faithful.[26]
Their mutual love marks the beginning of a conjugal and family vocation that
should be the expression and the living of a love that is a free and reciprocal
self-gift, open to the transmission of human life, in order to form a new
family. The family is meant to be a school for human enrichment, which assures
its primary place in the humanization of persons and of society.[27]
In the family, which has aptly been called the domestic church, all can find
their own vocation and can realize it in the heart of the world, where they
disclose and discover the presence of the Lord.[28]
25. Lay ministries. Some of the laity can be
called to exercise specific ministries. The variety of these services depends
on the charisms they have received and on the needs
of the community. Lay persons who commit themselves to these services must
always maintain their insertion in the midst of temporal realities and in
keeping with their family responsibilities.[29]
3.2.
Vocation to the ordained ministry
26. The vocation to the ordained ministry holds a
specific place among the People of God. It is conferred through the sacrament
of Orders and is made up of three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate
and diaconate.
27. The ordained ministry is essentially a service
of the ecclesial community, which is a mystery, a communion and a mission. A Mystery, because it is
made up of all those who are born of the Spirit and graced with the love and
life of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. A Communion, because all
the faithful have been called to relive the very communion of God. A
28. Every ordained minister, according to his
degree, is present in the midst of the community as a minister of the Word, of
the Sacraments and of charity.[31]
3.2.1. Minister of the Word
29. The People of God, whom the ordained minister
serves, have been called together by the Word of the Living God, which is
brought to life on the lips of the priest,[32]
who is consecrated and sent to proclaim to everyone the gospel of the Kingdom,
thus continuing the work of the Son who was sent. Through the Word, the priest,
joyfully prompted to seek the salvation of his fellow human beings, maintains
the faith of all the members of the community and invites them to communion
with God and with their brothers and sisters.[33]
On the part of those called to announce the Word, this ministry calls for a
coherent witness of holiness in apostolic life.
3.2.2. Minister of the Sacraments
30. Through the celebration of the sacraments,
especially the Eucharist, the priest keeps the community united with Christ,
who gives life to the community by the power of the Spirit. The Eucharist,
around which the community gathers to celebrate the death and resurrection of
the Lord, is the source and culmination of all evangelical preaching.[34]
The Sacrament of Penance, from which the priest himself benefits, allows him to
be a witness of God’s mercy toward sinners, who are reconciled to God and to
the whole community by means of it. [35]
3.2.3. Minister of charity
30. The function of pastoral governance entails the
ordained minister’s complete dedication to the service of the People of God. This
service presupposes a love for his brothers and sisters. Through this love, the
ordained minister expresses the concern of Christ, the Good Shepherd, for the
community, especially for its neediest members, to the point of surrendering
his life for the unity and freedom of the Church, until it is led to the Father
through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Either personally or through others, the
ordained minister should see to it that each of the faithful should be led to
the cultivation his or her own vocation in accordance with the Gospel teaching,
and that to sincere and active charity in the freedom with which Christ has set
us free.[36]
3.3.
Vocation to the consecrated life
32. The vocation to the consecrated life is a
distinctive way of living the faith as a response to a call from God, and a
consecration by the Spirit for the following of Christ that leads us to the
Father (Confessio
Trinitatis). This consecration is a sign and
expression in the Church of the love of God that unites all human beings (Signum fraternitatis). Moreover, it is a vocation that puts
the consecrated person at the service of God that goes to the extreme of love,
as Jesus did (Servitium
caritatis).[37]
This kind of life bears witness to and represents before the world the style of
life that Jesus led, and it makes present the realities of the world to come.
33. The Holy Spirit has raised
up a multiplicity of historical forms of the religious life throughout the
ages, thus making the mystery of Christ perennial in the Church and in the
world, in time and in space. Outstanding among these forms in the East and in
the West are the monastic life, the
order of virgins, hermits and widows; institutes dedicated totally to contemplation; the apostolic religious life; secular
institutes; societies of apostolic life and new forms of religious life that keep appearing even today as a
sign of the perennial youth of the Church.[38]
Because of their connection with the Claretian family, we would single out the Religious Life and Secular Institutes.
3.3.1. The Religious Life
34. Consecration.
The religious life is based on and is in continuity with our baptismal
consecration. On His own initiative, God calls certain persons and sets them apart
by dedicating them to Himself in a particular way. At the same time, these
persons receive the capacity to respond to God’s call, in such a way that they
are able to express their consecration in a deep and free self-surrender.[39]
35. A sign of
witness. The Religious Life presents itself as a sign which:
-
Proclaims the preeminence of the Reign
of God and shows forth the power and
sovereignty of Christ.[40]
-
Bears witness to the new and eternal life
that Jesus Christ brought to us in his paschal mystery.
-
Imitates add represents, in the Church and in the
world, the life of the virginal, poor and obedient Christ.
-
Manifests before the faithful the
presence of the Kingdom.
-
Attracts the members of the Church to
fulfill their Christian commitments.
-
Prefigures the future resurrection.
36. Community
life. Religious consecration establishes a special communion between the
religious and the Triune God, and in God, among the members of the same
Institute. Rooted in the same religious consecration, they share their life and
mission on the basis of the same charismatic gift. The foundation of this unity
is their communion with Christ, which is expressed in a stable manner in
community life.[41]
37. Apostolic
mission.
38. By reason of their special consecration, the
members of Secular Institutes live their union with Christ in the midst of the
world and manifest it by undertaking secular activities and lifestyles.[43]
Although Secular Institutes are not Religious Institutes, they have as a
constitutive element the profession of the evangelical counsels, acknowledged
by the Church. They live their profession in the context of temporal structures
in order to be a leaven of wisdom and witness of grace within cultural, social
and political life. By realizing this synthesis of secularity and consecration,
they insure the incisive presence of the Church in society.[44]
39. The Claretian Congregation is included, as an
apostolic Institute, within the form of religious life that is dedicated to
apostolic and missionary activity in keeping with the charism
received and transmitted by Saint Anthony Mary Claret.
4.1.
Claret
40. Claret, our Founder, under the action of the
Holy Spirit and blessed with a distinctive apostolic vocation, dedicated his
whole life to proclaiming the Gospel by all means within his grasp.[45]
He devoted himself above all to preaching popular missions, traveling
throughout
41. To continue this work, Claret gathered about
him priests and laity, men and women, forming a vast spiritual and apostolic
movement. The Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Claretian Missionaries),
the Religious of Mary Immaculate (Claretian Missionary Sisters), the Secular
Institute of the Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Cordimarian
Filiation) and the Lay Claretians form the Claretian
Family in the strict sense.[50]
4.2.
The Claretian Congregation
42. Anthony Mary
Claret founded the Congregation of Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of
Mary in order to attend to the salvation of people by means of the preaching of
the Gospel. He associated with himself some other priests who were imbued with
the same spirit as his own,[51]
to be dedicated to the ministry of the Word, so that together they could accomplish
what he himself could not do alone, given the scarcity of preachers in his day.
43. Throughout its history the Congregation has
kept alive its awareness of being born in the Church as a community called together
and consecrated by the Spirit by the mediation of Saint Anthony Mary Claret. As
an heir to his missionary spirit, the Congregation feels responsible for updating
his missionary initiatives and for promoting those that he could not personally
carry out. The living of our charism incorporates the
spiritual riches and cultural values of the people among whom we live.[52]
44. The
Claretian Congregation is a Missionary Institute of Consecrated Life.[53]
Its style of life and supreme rule is the following of Christ as set forth in
the Gospel.[54] By
its charism it is a truly and fully apostolic
religious Institute.[55]
Claretians fully live their consecration to God in carrying out their mission.
In it they are fully conformed with Christ the
Missionary.[56]
45. Our project of missionary life implies being a
disciple and following the Master, living the evangelical counsels in common
life with Jesus and with the group of those who have been called, being sent
and announcing to the whole world the Good News of the Kingdom. Our being
anointed by the Spirit to announce the Good News, and our communion with
Christ, the prophet par excellence,
make us sharers in his prophetic function.[57]
46. The presence of the Virgin Mary is essential in
Claretian missionary life. We consecrate ourselves especially to the Father, in
Christ, and entrust ourselves to the Heart of Mary in order to live the
evangelical and apostolic life.[58]
Being a son of the Heart of Mary means being a missionary and an apostle. A son
of the Heart of Mary is a man filled with love, who sets its fire wherever he
goes and whose only concern is how he may follow Christ the Missionary and
strive for the salvation of humankind.[59]
47. The
Claretian charism of servants of the Word, which is
expressed in various forms in keeping with the conditions of times and places,
entails the following demands:
-
Serving the Church, present in many particular
Churches throughout the world.
-
Announcing the good news of freedom to prisoners and
the oppressed, of health to the sick, and of attention to the poor and needy.
-
Proclaiming a word of
denunciation,
which may arouse opposition, persecution and even death, as
the greatest expression and witness of living and proclaiming the demands of
the Gospel.
-
Evangelizing older Christian
cultures in
order to maintain and confirm their faith.
-
Evangelizing environments that have lost the faith or
have become dechristianized.
-
Announcing the Gospel to those who have never heard
of Christ.[60]
-
Transforming the world according to the designs of
God.[61]
48. In the Congregation, our service to mission is
exercise by means of the ordained ministry (priests and deacons) and of the lay
ministry. Both forms of Claretian vocation have their own distinctive and
differentiated traits, as pointed out in our Constitutions.[62]
These traits offer elements for discernment that must be taken into account,
both in vocation ministry and in the initial and ongoing formation of the missionaries.[63]
Bearing the foregoing points in mind, all members of the Congregation share the
same vocation, live in the same community and fulfill
the same mission in keeping with our own order and function.[64]
In the Congregation we must strive “to
build among all of us –Brothers, Deacons, Priests and Students—an evangelical
and evangelizing community.”[65]
[1] See Historical Notes and Appendix 1.
[2] See CC 51, 58, 60, 64, 67.
[3] See DPC, 36.
[4] See Jn 8:32.
[5] See 3 Jn 8.
[6] See GS, 12.
[7] See Gen 1:26-27.
[8] See DTVC, the word Vocación, pp. 1825 ff.
[9] See GS, 22.
[10] See DTVC, p. 1852.
[11] See GS, 21; PDV, 35.
[12] See Jn 11:52.
[13] See LG, 9.
[14] See EN, 14.
[15] See Gal 5:13,
[16] See PDV, 36.
[17] See Lk 1:38.
[18] See LG, 56.
[19] See 1 Cor
[20] See Rom 12:4-7; 1 Cor
[21] See LG, 31; ChL, 9.
[22] See DP, 786.
[23] See DP, 787.
[24] See DP, 524-525 and 792; EiAf, 90, 92.
[25] See AA, 10l LG, 11; ChL, 28-29.
[26] See ChL, 40.
[27] See GS, 52; ChL, 40.
[28] See EiAf, 92.
[29] See DP, 813-814.
[30] See ChL, 8.
[31] See
[32] See
[33] See PDV, 26.
[34] See
[35] See ibid.
[36] See
[37] See VC, 17-22; 41-58; 72-83.
[38] See VC, 5-12.
[39] See EERL, 5-6.
[40] See LG, 44, 46; RD, 7-8, 14; EERL, 1, 30, 32-37, 52-53; VC, 25, 33, 84-85.