CHAPTER 1: THE COMMUNITIES

Article 1: Importance
90 It is a truism that community life is the greatest penance.[104] However, unlike mathematics, in which one-plus-one equals two, in community life, one-man-plus-one-man equals two thousand. One man along with another grows in courage and strength, fear disappears and he escapes from any trap.

91 The beauty and riches of fraternal life in common are much greater than the difficulties that it entails: How good it is, how pleasant, where the brothers dwell as one! (Ps 133:1).

92 Fraternal life truly shows that we are united in Christ – you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28) – as a distinct religious family. Fraternal life must be exist in such a way that it become for all a mutual help in the fulfillment of each one’s personal vocation. Through fraternal communion,[105] rooted and based in charity, members need to be an example of universal reconciliation in Christ. They have to be a “domestic church.”[106]

Article 2: Essence
93 In our communities we must try to live out the essence of the Kingdom that Jesus Christ came to inaugurate on earth: the kingdom of God is… righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17). Our communities will be authentic in the measure we live in justice, peace and joy, which are identified with holiness. When holiness is non-existent, there is neither law, nor superior, that can prevent disintegration, as Saint Pius X said, “Where sanctity is lacking, there corruption will inevitably find its way.”[107]

Article 3: Justice
94 We want justice to shine in our communities; that justice which gives everyone their due: latria to God; veneration and obedience to superiors; respect to equals; service to inferiors; and to everyone, in its measure, charity – that beautiful virtue to which neither the morning nor the evening star can be compared.

Article 4: Joy
95 Joy, the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the effect of charity, requires us to make use of any and all means so that “nobody may be disturbed or grieved in the house of God.”[108]

96 Fraternal charity should be lived in such a way that one could say – seeing our life, “Look how they love each other and are willing to die for each other;”[109] or, like it was said of the first Christians, “they love one another almost before they know one another.”[110] One should be able to write the biography of each one of us replacing the word “love” with our name in Saint Paul’s hymn to the Corinthians where he describes fraternal love with two general characteristics and thirteen features, eight negative and five positive: Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor 13:4-7) “Love is formally the life of the soul, just as the soul is the life of the body.”[111]

Article 5: Peace
97 Peace is also a fruit of the Holy Spirit and an effect of charity. By charity we order to God all our affections and this order brings about peace. Dissipated souls do not let the Holy Spirit guide them, and, therefore, do not live in Christ’s peace. This peace is one of the many benefits our Lord brought to the world, and is an effect of his redeeming passion: For it has pleased God… to reconcile to himself all things… making peace through the blood of his cross (Col 1:19-20).

98 Man reaches this interior peace when he eliminates the battle within himself that arises sometimes because of the struggle between the flesh and the spirit[112] or because of the conflict in his will between two opposing loves.

99 Peace could be false. This occurs when it is put in an apparent good, or when it is achieved, at any cost, doing one’s own will. True peace will be perfect only in the Heavenly Homeland; on this earth it is imperfect, but we can always preserve it, even in the midst of the greatest contradictions, tribulations and tragedies, as the Apostle Paul admonishes: Have no anxiety… And may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:6-7). We achieve this peace by making love the weight of our souls; by it our heart is carried to what it loves: “my weight is my love.”[113] If that love is placed in Christ, there peace is found, since He is the foundation of all: all things have been created through Him and unto Him… and in Him all things hold together (Col 1:16-17). Peace should be sought inside, not outside, nor filling our hearts with useless preoccupations and resentments against everything that surrounds us, because the peace of our soul is not dependent on the removal of external obstacles, but rather on the elimination of affection for sin: Whence do wars and quarrels come among you? Is it not from this, from your passions, which wage war in you members? (Jas 4:1). Peace should be sought inside because God is interior to us: “You were more inward to me than the most inward part of me.”[114]

Article 6: Chapter of Faults[115]
100 There will be a healing if you confess your sins to one another and pray for each other (Jas 5:16). The Chapter of Faults is a great help in this regard, and generally is held every week. The purpose of this exercise is to humiliate the spirit and to mortify the flesh which realizes again its own weaknesses.

101 Members should accuse themselves only of exterior faults committed before others; never of purely interior faults. The accusation must be simple, brief and without omitting anything; humble and without justifications; charitable and without accusing anyone or revealing another’s defects.

102 Despite the fact that his faults may be humiliating, others should think more highly of, and have a greater esteem for the one accusing himself. For although they have to judge the other as guilty, now, thanks to his confession, they realize that he is humble, loves humiliation, by which he has already erased his fault.

103 Outside the Chapter of Faults we must never speak of what occurred in it.

Article 7: Fraternal Correction
104 Fraternal correction holds an important place in the building up of our communities according to the example of the only Church of Christ. It is one of the spiritual works of mercy: to correct the erring. It is the warning, by words or gestures, to the guilty neighbor – especially in the case of ignorance or negligence – made in private and solely out of charity, from brother to brother, in order to remove him from sin, either by taking him out of it or by preventing its commission. It is neither the correction of the superior as a judge (judicial correction), nor of the superior as a father (paternal correction). “All brothers, ministers and servants as well as the rest, avoid always getting angry or irritated by the sin or the defect of the other, for the devil takes advantage of the guilt of the one to mislead the many. Instead, assist spiritually; up to the best you could those who have committed sin, because not the healthy need the doctor, but the sick.”[116]

CHAPTER 2: THE SUPERIORS

Article 1: One governs many
105 The principle of unity and life of communities was discovered many centuries ago: “The multitude is governed better by one than by many.”[117] This principle of unity is the Superior in whom justice and mercy should shine. Saint Thomas teaches, “Justice without mercy is cruelty; mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution.”[118]

Article 2: Characteristics of the Superior
106 We believe that Saint Ignatius of Loyola gives the best description of a Superior General.[119] Analogously, this description is suitable for any other superior:

107 First, he should be closely united with God in prayer and in all his actions because God blesses the other members through him. He should implore God for all the graces for the community.

108 He should set an example for the others, shining in the practice of virtues, especially charity and humility. He should have his passions under control so that they may not hinder him from seeing and considering clearly everything with his right judgment. In his conduct and words he should never cease to edify the members of the Institute as well as others, “Woe to the superiors who destroy with their example what they preach with their words!”[120]

109 Also shining in him should be rectitude with firmness – seeking only to please God – together with kindness and meekness, so that even those who are corrected or punished would realize that he is moved by charity. He should also possess generosity of spirit of spirit and fortitude to begin great works in the service of God, and to persevere till their completion. He should suffer the weaknesses of many, without faltering because of compliments or threats, rising above the vicissitudes of fortune and failure, willing to give up his life, if necessary, for the good of the Institute in the service of Jesus Christ.

110 He should be gifted with great understanding and judgment both in speculative and practical matters. Above all, it is fundamental for him to possess prudence and discernment of spirits in order to realize and meet all spiritual and material needs. He should also be capable of giving advice and remedying situations.

111 He should be vigilant and careful to begin works, and responsible to continue and finish them, without negligently leaving them half-finished.

112 He should be healthy and mature enough to carry out the responsibilities required by this role for the Glory of God, as well as possess the necessary experience. He should neither be too old or too young, because the former lacks strength and the latter experience.

113 He should have those external qualities that would facilitate and help him in edifying his neighbor and serving God in his position, especially credibility and a good reputation before the members of the Institute as well as others.

114 For all these reasons, the superiors who are elected should be the most virtuous and meritorious in our religious family. If the superior should lack any of the above characteristics, he must not lack true kindness and love for the Institute, along with sufficient prudence and science. All the rest can be compensated for with the help of God.

Article 3: Spiritual Fatherhood
115 Above all, the priest should be father, because he engenders children through the cross, by prayer, apostolic zeal, and preaching. Christ was the first in this ministry. That is why he is called the everlasting Father (Is 9:5). The other priests are fathers by participation in His fatherhood; they are fathers “through him, with him and in him.” To accomplish this it is necessary:

116

- To have a vivid conscience of the Divine Fatherhood and His majesty, to whom everything belongs;

- Not to usurp the glory of God: the bonds of spiritual fatherhood are stronger than the bonds of the flesh, but they must not snatch what belongs to God, “Let God’s glory be for God.”

- To ask for the spirit of fatherhood, having the Spirit of his Son and pure love towards God: “to ask Him for the spirit of fatherhood towards his children which we engender;”

In this way, the priest becomes a visible image of God the Father we cannot see: no one has ever seen God. (Jn 1:18)

117 However, this “sweet thing of engendering children” necessarily implies the cross: “the children we are to engender by the word should not be children of voice as much as children of tears… those who become fathers should learn to weep”. The true father must die to himself in everything so that his child may live.[121]

CHAPTER 3: THE SUBJECTS
118 We must realize that the community is built day by day, moment by moment. It has always been subject to insidious treatment, i.e. the case of Brother Ruffino with Saint Francis of Assisi[122] – nothing less! Today the same thing happens and all the more. The community has tribulations and temptations: some in general – to all the members; some in particular – to the superiors or to the subjects.

Article 1: General difficulties
119 General temptations or “states” of temptations are, for example:

- when the community, or most of its members, fail in faith to recognize the singular gift of their calling and its corresponding response.

- when there are no enthusiastic projects for the future;

- when the community is not presently involved in passion-filled tasks;

- when there is no gratitude for past gifts;

- when generosity-in-service decreases and the community falls into disordered comforts;

- when one breathes a climate of gossip, of suspicion, of criticism, of disordered passions, of tension; in a word, when there is no life of faith, hope and charity;

- when members do not look for unity in truth and in charity;

- when by looking at the tree of difficulties, they lose the sight of the forest of the good things;

- when one makes a tempest in a teapot to draw attention to oneself;

- when there is no dialogue and solidarity.

Article 2: Particular difficulties
120 There are tribulations that occur to the subjects, when a member closes in on himself, looks with selfishness only for the things of his own concern, and falls in one of the four roots of self-love: his own judgment, self-will, self-honor, and self-pleasure. Such a subject does a bad thing and then hides his guilt; he looks at the speck in his brother’s eye and pays no attention to the log in his own eye.[123]

121 Tribulations also occur when a subject believes himself to be very important and considers that whatever he suffers is a big thing. Saint Peter exhorts him: Do not be surprised at the painful test you are suffering, as though something unusual were happening to you (1 Pt 4: 12).”[124]

122 When one falls into duplicity of spirit, even being unaware of it, he then “incubates serpent’s eggs and knits spiders webs,”[125] image of the malice and the impotency of a man devoted to himself, who does not obey his legitimate superior, but, being mischievous, looks for “superiors” of his own liking in order to seek a judgment according to a principle that does not belong to the community. He destroys the spirit of communion when he sets a principle of unity different from the authentic one, and so begins to see everything upside-down:

- to have “the same regard” (Rom 12:16; Phil 2:2) is obsequiousness;

- discerning together is injustice;

- charity is weakness;

- exercising authority is self-worship;

- trusting in Divine Providence is imprudence;

- justice is hardness;

- obedience is slavery;

- if anyone becomes the father it is because he is considered equal to or more than God;