OUR GOD EXPERIENCE.

The general chapter of 2012 courageously looked at our present situation and also at the future of our Congregation. In its final message we read:

The fundamental reason for our being religious is our God experience. This is the deepest bond of our being Brother to one another and also of our being brother to many other people. This experience needs to be renewed and deepened constantly by a contemplative attitude in our life. This attitude makes our common daily experiences, our relating to others, our prayer and our community life places of experiencing  God’s real presence. A contemplative attitude requires regular times of silence and solitude in order to continue growing in our sensitivity for God’s reality.  

OUR FOUNDERS

I guess that especially our Co-founder Brother Bernard Hoecken would be very happy with this statement. He had great admiration for the apostolic zeal of our Founder Mgr. Louis Rutten, but was at the same time aware that a religious congregation is different from an efficient and effective workforce. Our Founder as a priest, with a great veneration to Mary, and a deep trust in the help of Divine Providence, felt a strong love for the numerous young, middle age and old people in need in Maastricht. This need was deeply recognized by Brother Bernard. However, he realized more and more that the quality and the continuation of a community that wanted to alleviate these needs, needed a strong spiritual foundation and also a strong bond between its members.

Brother Bernard in his writings and in his talks to his brothers stressed again and again the importance of what we now call our God-experience. He knew too well how difficult and challenging life often was because of the poverty, the overload of work, the need of formation and the resistance of society, to mention some circumstances that could discourage the brothers. Humanly speaking there was hardly anything attractive in the life of a brother. Only a deeper and long lasting motivation was able to continue the endeavor of the young community.

A  CONTEMPLATIVE ATTITUDE

In the text of the recent general chapter the expression “contemplative attitude” is used. This attitude must be renewed and deepened constantly. This is not so much an extra burden next to all the work that has to be done. The secret is that such an attitude gives a deeper and encouraging meaning to what is expected of each and every brother. It is a different way of living our common daily experiences, our relating to others, our prayer and our community life. All these can be places of experiencing  God’s real presence - and that means a source of great happiness in the brotherhood and an unexpected fertility of all forms of apostolate. Experience of God in our life means that we live more relaxed and trusting in the midst of so much (too much we may feel) work. It also means that our fellow brothers are seen as a gift to each one of us. We have not chosen one another, we are invited to wholeheartedly accept our fellow brothers as co-workers in God’s vineyard. That does not take away the differences between us and the difficulties caused by these differences. But we do not consider this only as a hindrance but, even when this is not easy, as a grace to one another and a challenge to live and to co-operate in a more selfless and in a more creative and fruitful way.

APOSTOLIC SPIRITUALITY

How do we experience this presence of God?

Many people think this only can happen in prayer, in being in a church or sometimes being in nature. But God can be experienced everywhere! Simply because He is the ongoing creator and continues to sustain our whole reality.

But to ‘see’ this, to expect this, to get glimpses of this is  not self-evident! We mostly are occupied with the outside of what we see and feel and hear.

And then one step more:  Experiencing God in difficulties? Experiencing God in powerlessness? This, indeed,  asks for more and deeper reflection - in an atmosphere of prayer, of openness to God’s silent voice.

For us Brothers this God experience can be closely connected to our apostolate.

Our daily involvement for the well being of others - in whatever situation we are - can be revealing to us - God’s reality, God’s love, God’s mysterious work, God’s fidelity.

We often do not see this at first sight. We have to learn to look ‘deeper’ - with a long and loving look: taking time to be still, listening and longing. Longing for God’s Spirit to ‘speak’ to us, to touch and move our heart, to clear and open our mind. Step by step we then can grow in wonder: how God is present and working in so many different relations, situations, activities. We call this ability and attitude an APOSTOLIC SPIRITUALITY. Our apostolic experiences, yes, our daily and often very common experiences, lead us to a growing spiritual depth, to trust, be joyful and confident.

Then we are not only praying FOR our apostolate and the persons we are relating to.

Then these situations and encounters FEED our prayer, FEED our trust and motivation, because we see how God is present and lovingly working in all this - for our own well being and the well being of others.

In order to grow in this apostolic spirituality we need to nourish a contemplative attitude - as the recent general chapter asks from us. This nourishing requires regular times of silence and solitude in order to continue growing in our sensitivity for God’s reality. 

When we as brothers lovingly spend regular times of silence and solitude, of contemplative prayer and sharing of our faith-experience, we will be sensitive to what God’s Spirit speaks to us, not only in the silence of our prayer, but also in the signs of the times, which we understand first of all in the daily reality of our life and apostolate. This basic attitude is the guarantee that we as brothers - and also as a Congregation - make (apostolic and other) choices and decisions in the right direction, according to God’s desire for our well being and for those who are entrusted to us.

IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS

As a Congregation we live in different countries (our provinces) and because of that in different situations, cultures, possibilities and challenges. So, next to a reflection on a general level, there is a constant need for a contemplative and reflective approach to the reality, there is the local and provincial circumstances - in order to ‘hear’ God’s call in the here and now.

If we as brothers live these basic values of our Congregation we may relax and trust that God’s Spirit will make us fruitful and happy - and contribute, with the words of our Constitution, to the ever more and ever new coming of the Kingdom of God in the world of today.

Brother Johan Muijtjens