VATICAN CITY, JUNE 20, 2023 (CISA)- After a 12-year-two-term leadership as the General Superior of the Consolata Missionaries, Very. Rev. Fr Stefano Camerlengo IMC stepped down as the superior of the institute and handed over the mantle to his successor, a Kenyan-born Fr James Bhola Lengarin IMC, during the XIV General Chapter of the Consolata Missionaries, held in Rome from May 22 to June 26, 2023.
Fr Camerlengo who was first elected General Superior of the Consolata Missionaries in 2011, writes a moving testimony of his life at the helm of the 122-year-old religious institute founded by Blessed Joseph Allamano in 1901 and his desire to experience the “surprises of God” in the next phase of his life in this letter addressed to the Consolata Missionaries and titled, “A Greeting, A Remembrance, A Wish at The End of My Mandate as Father General of The Institute.”
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How beautiful are the feet! “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’” (Is 52:7).
“We must not have the mania to possess many mission territories, but the concern to care for them a great deal!”
“We must take care of the good name of the Institute and its members, paying attention to the individual persons of the missionaries as children at home, making them feel at ease!” Blessed Giuseppe Allamano
Dearest missionaries,
At the end of my mandate in the service of the Institute, I would like to thank every one of you for the path we have travelled together, and ask for forgiveness for what I have failed to be and do, for what I have neglected, and finally for the brother I have failed to accompany and embrace.
It has been a great grace to be able to serve the Institute that I love. I have received much more than I have been able to give. I can sincerely and honestly say that I have tried to live my service intensely and as unworthily as possible. I have tried my best and what went wrong…was beyond my intention.
Now a new page of my life opens up and I allow myself to become a pilgrim, leaving the already known to venture along new paths, accepting to become a stranger not only with respect to others but even with respect to myself, my projects and my expectations and research. It will be a difficult condition to live in, but a healthy one, because it will force me to clear my own heart to make it more available and hospitable to the surprises of God, of life itself, and of the mission.
Let me mention the ingredients that an ancient medieval pilgrim identified as necessary for the journey to Santiago of Compostela. He spoke of seven ingredients, or rather of six plus one, since the seventh was not to be considered the last ingredient, but as the means by which the first six could be lived well. Here are the six ingredients: the patience of the one who is not in a hurry, silence, solitude, effort, sobriety, and gratuitousness. The seventh ingredient, or rather the ‘plus one’ is ‘beauty’ which must give meaning and colour to all the others. All six ingredients must lead towards beauty. So, a beautiful life, a beautiful experience of God, a beautiful prayer, a beautiful path, a beautiful mission…
The pilgrimage, I am about to embark on, must also bear the colours of the six ingredients mentioned above. I want to set out with the patience of one who adopts the rhythm of step by step, without rushing through the stages. With the silence of one who listens not only to understand but also to welcome, host and guard. With the solitude of those who do not close themselves up in their own selfish and self-referential individualism, but know how to get involved in the first person, with responsibility and consistency. With the effort of those who know how to use with intelligence and creativity the energies that still exist, without keeping for themselves what is to be shared with others. With the sobriety of one who knows how to discern to understand what is the decision to take on the spot and learns to distinguish what to put in the backpack, because it is necessary, and what instead is to be left out, to avoid loading oneself with useless ballast. With the gratuitousness of one who does not seek his own good, but the good of the other, and does not aim for any gain or success other than a shared joy. Let it be clear that we do not mean just any joy, but the joy of the Kingdom, the joy of the Gospel, the joy of that good and beautiful news, that is Jesus, the joy of his Easter, his salvation and his mission.
I wish to experience all this by colouring it with beauty. Certainly not merely aesthetic beauty but a beauty that is harmony, balance, coherence and fidelity. It is not enough to seek the good, but it is necessary to strive for a beautiful good, and therefore attractive, persuasive, consoling and, above all, capable of emanating a light that simultaneously enlightens and warms. I would like to live this new itinerary guided and sustained by those six ingredients in the hope of being enlightened by the magnetism of mission, which for us is life and vocation.
Isaiah proclaims: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’” (Is 52:7). Feet tired and suffering from the long journey, and yet beautiful feet. Beautiful feet because they were willing to proclaim forgiveness, mercy and salvation. Such were the feet of Jesus. Such are the feet of every true pilgrim, who dares to make himself a stranger even to himself, to bring peace to others.
Let us walk through life to open ourselves with confidence and with surprise to a mission that is “in the head, on the lips and in the heart”, as our beloved Founder, Blessed Giuseppe Allamano, taught us, and as all the various witnesses and our dear Consolata members have lived it, trusting always and without hesitation that… “the best is yet to come!
In conclusion, I would like to extend my most sincere and fraternal best wishes to the new Superior General whom God’s Providence has bestowed upon us, and with him also to his entire team whom the Holy Spirit has chosen to take care of the family of our Institute. Rather than the difficulties and problems that there are, I invite you to look at what is good, what is true and what is beautiful, in the person of the missionary, at the communities that we accompany, at the greatness and depth of the mission that we serve, at the much love, goodness and “generativity” that exists. Being Missionaries of the Consolata puts us in a position to “be holy”! “May the Lord turn his gaze on us, show us his face and give us peace! ”
To everyone: THANK YOU! COURAGE AND FORWARD IN DOMINO!
