General Chapter: 16^th August 2024; Day 13

Bro. Wim Luiten

After a good night rest we were all prepared to start our 13^th day of the General Chapter.

We came together to start the day with our usual morning prayer around the theme “consecrated  for Mission”, prepared by the General Council and led by brother Raphael. We listened to some reflective readings from Vita Consecrata # 72, stating what is expected of all consecrated people who profess to serve the poor. The readings provided inspiring words for our deliberations during the day.

After a good breakfast together we started the first session with the proposal on the reflective document on chapter 1 of our Constitutions. After some explanations and excuses we came to an unanimous decision that chapter one of the document was still very much needed by the formators and the brothers who use these documents daily for inspiration.

We also decided not to wait for a revision of our Constitutions before working on the reflective documents. Any revision of the Constitutions will take a long time to accomplish. This first chapter of the reflective document on our Constitutions cannot wait as it is needed  by those working in formation.

We went on to discuss a proposal on the establishment of an international Formation House (CFC) in The Netherlands. The idea to have a period of formation for our candidates or professed brothers together is a good idea as this will expose them to an international setting and get them acquainted with English, our congregational language. In this way we could promote our internationality and unity. However, this is possible in an English speaking country, and an environment they will be exposed to other young religious. For practical reasons, this cannot happen in the Netherlands. The proposal as was presented was not excepted by the majority in the chapter members. 

One of the proposals  tabled for discussion was about the establishment of a museum and spiritual house for the Congregation or in each province. Such a venture could best be pursued at the provincial level, since doing this in the Netherlands is not realistic. The RHN rather has a lot of spiritual heritage, which are being offered to provinces, for instance, heritage items from the history room in Maastricht. This is because of the difficulty of getting a place of storage for such items.   

Proposals 20 and 21 carry the same idea, namely promoting a better understanding and living of the spirituality and charism of the Congregation. They were therefore merged, necessitating an ad hoc committee to revise them.

The last proposal was the possibility of our brothers from other provinces coming to the Netherlands to give support to the elderly Brothers there. Eventually, the chapter stepped this down to a recommendation for the implementation of the incoming General Council. Here again, a committee was composed to revise this proposal.  

During the final session of the day, delegates were offered the opportunity to give their  evaluation of the past week. In general all were grateful with the deliberations and expressed that we have worked seriously. All was done in a brotherly and synodal way. Thanks also to the moderator, translator and secretarial staff.