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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