Saturday, July 19, 2014

Leadership in Capuchin Fraternities




When we are asked to take up leadership in a fraternity, we almost instinctively draw back in anxiety. We plead inability. It may be an expression of our humility. But it is more often an expression of our timidity; we are afraid to be hurt...afraid to be proved a failure. But let us have courage. The Lord says: “Fear not, I am with you”. Thus, we assume the responsibility in the name of the Lord.
When a person is taking up work as the superior of a community, the first thing he should do is to make an act of faith. My confreres are the greatest and the most precious gift that the Lord has given me, the greatest treasure that I have. Hence they deserve all my attention, love and care.
The need for Recognition: we all know that the basic human requirements are recognition, love and care. First of all, recognition of one’s worth. In fact, the most valuable thing a person possesses is a sense of worth. One is afraid most of all of being discovered useless. People are more afraid, they say, to be found useless than to be found wicked. All human beings are hungering for recognition. We may answer to this need in various ways: respecting their talents, recognising their performance, remembering their feast and birthdays, promptly replying their letters, giving recognition to their activities and achievements. We often take each other’s services for granted. Among people who are very close to each other, it is considered normal. And yet most long for a word of appreciation. Even a brief word sincerely said at the right time makes a big difference. A positive stroke never goes waste. People have such a dread of falling into anonymity, they have such a hunger for a positive feedback, that silence can be as killing as criticism.
Older persons are greatly encouraged if they are remembered for what they have accomplished in the past. If they are not able to do much at present, and if their earlier services are forgotten, they gradually become like fading flowers. If, on with them, someone is willing to spend time sharing their past with them, they grow vibrant again and reveal the sparkling side of their personalities.
The value of positive strokes: love and care for others are expressed in hundred of creative ways: when they are sick, when they have an anxiety or worry, when they are in some need. We must develop an eye for the constantly changing needs of our fellow friar. Let me emphasise only one significant manner in which we can express our love for another person; just tolerating his weaknesses, closing an eye to his weakest point. Most of us are fully aware of our defects from our childhood days. We have tried hard to root them out of our lives all these years, but have not succeeded. More or less the same defects remain with us. We need not be reminded every day what stuff we are made of. We are so grateful when someone looks in the opposite direction and takes note of our successes. A new strength comes into our life.
We appreciate it so much, when someone who knows our weaknesses fully, loves us just the same, takes us for what we are and has always on encouraging word for us. Many weaknesses are corrected by positive strokes rather than by negative ones. This does not mean, certainly, condoning wrongdoings with social consequences, nor conniving at actual crime. But there is a human side to everything. Let us give to others the treatment we would like to receive ourselves, and if at times we have to point out a mistake let us be quick in excusing and explaining the failure just as they themselves would be.
Open our New Opportunities to younger Members: I said that old people should be reminded of the great things they have done in the past. So too, younger persons should be reminded of the great possibilities that lie ahead of them. People usually rise to the expectations that are placed on them by their seniors. They responded to the challenges that are held out before them. Open out new doors of opportunities that are held out before them. Open our new doors of opportunities before young people, and their hidden talents, their underdeveloped gifts and their skills that did not have a chance earlier, will reveal themselves. It is worth tolerating some mistakes and incurring some expenses, when it is a question of giving a chance to the gifts of the younger members to flower. The losses will be more than compensated for in due time. I am not saying that there is no room for correction. What I am saying is that there is plenty of room for encouragement.
Growth Enhancing Relationships: Let us create an atmosphere of non-critical relationship in our communities, and we will see the burgeoning of initiatives. Stand by your juniors in their mistakes, and we shall see miracles of performance. Insist on community achievements, not merely individual success. Give them the joyful experience of working together as a team and achieving things together. You will see the energies and resourcefulness of youth bearing tangible fruits. So much of success depends on actual relationships that exist in the community.
In the presence of certain great leaders our personalities flower. All our talents come forth. They say Mahatma Gandhi was one for those who could make heroes out of straw. Founders of most orders seemed to make people perform for beyond their ordinary abilities. So much depends on our capacity to inspire courage and strengthen self-confidence. Young people can work wonders.
Difficulties in relationships are the commonest weakness in human society. Strained relationships arise in families, in societies and even in the international community. The problem is not that tensions arise, but unresolved tensions remain and we do not develop the ability to handle uneasy situations. It is this inability that makes counties weak, communities disoriented and apostolic teams ineffective.
Let us take it for granted that problems are bound to arise in a community from time to time. We need not be shocked; we need not be humiliated that they have arisen even under our most intelligent and benign guidance. Even the very admission that there is a problem calls for humility, and is a good beginning to help us to move forward towards a solution. This admission means also the need for seeking advice and help from anyone who can be of assistance.
Difficult Persons” can Become Excellent Allies: our life-experience will tell us one thing: they very person who can give us trouble is also the one who can give us help. It is curious, the one who can give us mighty troubles can give us mighty help as well. A person of may abilities, who is capable of independent thought, is inclined to be assertive and vocal. Get that person to help you, and you will have the best help; in the world. Very often originality of thought, creativity, and special gifts seeking to express themselves, become the occasions for difficulty in inter-personal relationships. Open a door to these possibilities, and you will be amazed at the wonders that will begin to take place. You will have the most gifted allies to stand with you through thick and thin.
At times a person who seems to be causing you a headache may be merely calling for attention and sympathy; he may not really be intending to oppose authority. Someone may be struggling with an unresolved problem, expressing the hurts he received earlier, or showing himself the victim of an inner crisis for which no one is at fault. Not recognising these realities makes an inner-personal problem an inter-personal problem. In complex cases, while we like to remain unyielding on principles, we should be fully attentive to the person on the other side. We should never hurt his self. Rough words, humiliating expressions, quick retorts, especially in public, are signs of our own hurt ego, revealing how small we are. Living on hurts received, nursing grievances, ruminating over unkind words, and keeping an account of unkind deeds make is smaller still. We should pray in all earnestness to get free of any such thoughts and feelings.
One excellent advice is this: let us offer the pain of the hurt we have received from an individual for the healing and spiritual benefit of the very person that caused that hurt. The greater the pain, the greater our gift before the Lord. Surely this will be an offering very pleasing to him. If the pain remains with you a long time, the longer the offering stays before the Almighty.
Offering the Other Cheek: There are times when a measure of concession to the other person’s unreasonable demands may be an expression of our personal love and esteem for him. In concrete cases, it is not easy to say where to draw the line. Even kindnesses taken to extreme can ruin a person. Jesus was capable of strong words too. Prayer and prudence should show us the way.
The spirituality of the defencelessness: We win many a battle by losing it. If someone is keen on being unfair to you, give him the chance he desires. Let him ride over your head to his full satisfaction. Every time he does something unfair to you, he is falling into a deeper debt. And keep no account. No grudge, no grievances, no reaction. It is said, Christ never reacted. He only acted. This teaching is in keeping with the exhortation of the Lord to offer the left cheek to the one who strikes you on the right, and with the advice of St. Peter who tells you to pile burning coals on the head of your opponent. We always have the profoundest respect for a person whom we have hurt and who preserves an unshakable love towards us just the same.
A Few Practical Suggestions:
1.     Be a little more attentive to a person of another social, cultural and linguistic group.
2.     Be careful to the emergence of sub-grouping according to age and experience. Rather than holding them in suspicion, integrate them into the community in a healthy manner.
3.     Try to learn a little more about the background of the difference members of your community. Show interest in news from their homes, their areas of origin, their areas of interest.
4.     Be willing to listen especially when the other person is angry. Be less eager to defend yourself that to understand the real cause of the trouble. Sift out true wisdom from a lot of emotion-charged words. Sympathetic listening alone can have a healing power.
5.     Don’t give answers or propose solutions too fast. There are no ready-made solutions to problems. More often people need you, your genuine sympathy, and your non-critical attention that your solutions. Pay attention as much to them, their mood and feelings as to what they say. They themselves will suggest solutions.
6.     If someone else can deal with a person better that you, seek help. We are all limited begins. It is good to seek completion in the assistance that others can offer. Learn to combine members of your community together in such a way that one acts as a stimulus not a block, to the other’s genius.
7.     Do you want to be respected? Respect others. Do you want to be important to others? Make sure that others are important to you. Do you want others to make of you a success, lead others to success?
8.     No matter how many wonderful things you have done, how many miracles you have worked...for that reason alone you are not important to people. Or even if your important in that sense, your importance is irrelevant to them. But this moment you consider them as important to you, you become important to them, then only, and then alone, do all your achievements, ideas and ideals become relevant to their world and important in their understanding.
9.     Respect the autonomy of your subjects in their own areas of competence. Consult them and value their advice.
10.  Remember; persons are more important than rules; values are more important than their external expressions. The letter kills, the spirit gives life. It is more purposeful to win over persons that to force external conformity. This method may prove slower in yielding fruits, but the results will be lasting.
11.  Never adopt undignified ways in exercising authority, like getting information about someone else in devious ways, showing excessive eagerness to know what someone wants to keep secret. The information that we can gather with dignity and due respect to everyone is sufficient to guide a community.  We need not hunt out information about others.
12.  Never be jealous of your subordinates. The greater they are, the greater you will. Rejoice in their success and popularity. They will in turn make you successful and popular as well.
13.  When an individual member is handling a work different from what the rest of the community is engaged in, it is possible that he becomes isolated and is even misunderstood. Interpret and explain his work to the rest of the community.
14.  It is the superior who gives a public face to the community. What you are as a superior is what people will gradually come to think your institution is. If you are cold, unapproachable, lost in your self-importance, petty-minded, insensitive, calculating, the image of the entire community suffers as a consequences.

Conclusion: What we want from others, let us give? What we want in others, let us have or acquire: holiness, a habit of prayers, a spirit of forgiveness, readiness for hard work, zeal, and capacity for good relationship. The superior is an unfailing influence on the community. Unconsciously the others absorb values from their leader.
As individuals need healing, we as communities also need healing. The superior should take the initiative to bring about healing within the community whenever such a need arises, for example, when an unpleasant incident has taken place, and seek healing from the Lord and within the community.
It is the responsibility of the superior to give some form of spiritual guidance to the members, especially to the juniors. We will discover that people who are capable of deep feelings are equally capable of great love, loyalty and sacrifice, if only we can lead them to such heights.
The main task of the superior is to guard religious values in the community, to safeguard the original spirit of the Order and interpret it in daily life. It is therefore important to keep studying the spirit of the St. Francis and Capuchins spirituality and traditions.
Someone has said that the spirit of sacrifice is the soul of the apostolate; preparedness for the Cross. We should never be surprised at the various shapes and forms in which the Cross comes into our lives. We should be prepared to extend it a ready welcome.
Catherin Doherty has something interesting to tell us about this great truth. “There is no question of bloody martyrs. There is only the question of slow, white martyrdom. The martyrdom of listening. The martyrdom of consoling. The martyrdom of loving, hoping for oneself and for others. The martyrdom of total surrender to God through the other, whoever he might be. Prepare yourself to serve God in totality.

The above reflections are based on the various talks and discussions that took place during CRI priests section meeting held in Kerala from 17-19th Feb 2010.

Fr. Michael Fernandes

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