The reason for this phrase: It is the Pauline verse that the Superiors General of the Pauline Family chose on 20 August 2018 to mark this particular year of grace, the Vocation Year of the Pauline Family. Moreover, they are the words of an elderly Paul, now near the sunset of his life. Words that reflect the situation of the communities he has founded. Let us look at the context where the sentence is and what it can tell us to live this Year.
St. Paul addressing Timothy writes: “I remind you to stir up the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of hands” (2 Tim 1:6). This expression is found in the Second Letter to Timothy, one of the so-called “pastoral letters” (1-2 Tm; Tt). This is a rather late text, dating back to the end of the first century AD, which refers to an advanced phase of ecclesial life, now distant from its origins. We can define it as the spiritual and definitive testament of the Apostle.
Paul reminds Timothy that one day he laid his hands on him. And this imposition of hands transmitted to Timothy “a gift from God”. The Apostle tries to encourage Timothy, who, given his young age, had to be easily emotional because of the difficulties of every kind in which the Christianity of Ephesus was struggling. To overcome these difficulties, St. Paul appeals to the faith that he has already praised in him. By virtue of this faith, Timothy will be able to revive (rekindle: the image is taken from the fire that needs to be continually nourished, not to be extinguished) the vitality of the grace of God that has been invested him on the day of his consecration. This letter testifies to a very tiring and heavy ecclesial dispute. The letter speaks clearly of “difficult moments” and provides an exemplification of this difficulty that cross the ecclesial life: selfishness, love of money, vanity, inhumanity, pride, religiosity by appearance, etc. (2 Tim 3:2-5).
The ecclesial phase in which this letter is written is distant from the luminous moment of the origins, in which the fresh amiability of the Gospel aroused enthusiasm and courage, gave strength and holy unconsciousness. The Christian novelty, in its origins, was an unstoppable propulsive force. Even in the origins of a community, of a religious institute and of a vocation there is normally an initial moment which is a period of prophetic impulse in which charity overcomes difficulties and helps to overcome critical moments, faith manages to move big obstacles like mountains, hope is courageous and opens scenarios of the future even in the face of a present often crossed by difficulties and problems of all kinds: economic difficulties, difficult institutional relationship with the Church, inexperience, lack of internal organization.
At the stage of the origins of the New Testament, communities there followed a second phase characterized by the missionary zeal, by the apostolic creativity, by the rush of the Word in whose service so many announcers placed themselves with dedication and radicalism. With this “pastoral letter” we are not in either of these two phases, nor are we in the following third phase, that of structuring, of organizational consolidation, of the search for a community stability in view of a duration in time, of the establishment of bodies of authorities and of government procedures to keep united the community fabric that was becoming more and more extensive and articulated. The ecclesial phase in which this letter was born is a further phase, a fourth phase in which communities begin to manifest themselves: signs of fatigue and decadence, delusions and frustrations, divisions, deviations and abandonments, adhesions to erroneous doctrines and cases of moral decay. We are very far from the initial enthusiasm. It is a phase in which the time passed, the decades that advanced from the initial moment have created a distance from that luminous moment that makes fatigue and disappointment come to outshine the innovative and creative effort of the Gospel.
* José Salud Paredes, consigliere generale e presidente del SIF
