Update on FIC Formator's meeting, day Eight, Thursday 15 September 2022.

We started our activities today by having morning eucharistic together with the members of the Saint Louis community. We had a bright morning that made us have an enthusiastic feeling to go through all our activities today. Thank be to God for this beautiful morning.

As usual, we start our meeting at 09.00 o clock, and for the first session Bro. Johan Muijtjens explained his presentation on "Fidelity to the Founder's Charism and Sound Traditions". It is about the development of the FIC charism or how to live our charism today. The contents of his paper are 1) The charism of our Founders, 2) The FIC Congregation, 3)The spirit of our Founders and our Heritage  especially the analysis of Article 10 of FIC Constitutions, 4) History and Development, 5) Effects and shifts, 6) FIC in the midst of all the situation and of " The Joy of the Gospel (Pope Francis, 2013), and he finally invites us to reflect on it with some questions and suggestions. His presentation is very rich and very helpful for us to reflect on the development of the charism of the Congregation and asking our self what can we do in this time to maintain our charism and do our mission. The main thing is about "evangelization". Msgr. Louis Rutten felt a strong urge for evangelization, the proclamation of the Good News of God's Love - especially to the poor and needy. 

The second session was the finalization of the Profile of Formators. Bro. Valentinus Daru reminded us what we have done on the first day when he presented his presentation on the Profile of Formators should be. After the presentation of the two working groups, we discussed the results of their presentations to have one final of the Profile of Formators. The qualities of good formators are, for example, a good listener, a good communicator, living an exemplary life, a mediator, teamwork, being empathetic, a man of prayer,  a sense of humor, cultural sensitivity, etc. We were not able to finalize the profile of the formators and the General Council will do that after having the formator's meeting in Indonesia. 

We conclude our Formator's Meeting with the written evaluation and or oral evaluation, and a concluding speech by our General Superior.  On his closing speech he gave a meaningful message to us, as I quote: “As leaders and formators let believe that no space and nobody is free of God. We can find God in everything; everywhere, and in everybody no matter the circumstances. As formators it is important to emphasize that the mystery of God’s creative presence is in every person, every place and every situation.  Our duty is to help (like midwives) bring to “birth” God who already and always present in the life of every person.”

He invites us also to be pilgrimages to the original foundation: the history, vision, mission and charism of our congregation.  Let us constantly read, reflect, meditate and teach others the intent of God, the history and the spirit and leadership of our founders. None of us is called to reinvent the “wheel” of this congregation. However, we are encouraged to creatively build on its “foundation.” An act of this sort will please God; will honor our founders; will lead many to conversion and surely captivate many young people to join us. We are encourage to daily rediscover the Word of God and the evangelical values of the vows in contemporary reality. As an international family, we need to discover and maintain a common ground that is truly spiritual, and that is a true brotherhood for all.

One special thing that we really appreciate very much was the presence of Bro. Johan Muitjens. He gave us lots and deep contributions during the meeting. We are grateful to God for his blessing and guidance during the meeting and that everything went well. All participants were happy with the atmosphere, process, and the result of the meeting was satisfactory. 

As reported by Bro. Theo Riyanto