After the first experience of the International Novitiate year, with the entrance Mass of 20 August 2018, 104th anniversary of the Foundation of the SSP and the beginning of the Pauline Family, the 2nd International Novitiate year began for the second group of Paulines, 14 postulants from 6 countries. Then on 1st September, 15 juniors from 10 countries will form the 3rd group of the International Preparatory Course for Perpetual Profession which lasts three months.
All these young people, since the month of June, found themselves together in Ariccia, where they attended an intensive Italian course and began to get to know each other and to start a life of communion in the community.
During the first meeting with them, we asked each one: «What's your name?»; and then: «Where are you from?» The answers resounded: “Congo”!; “Colombia!”; “India!”; “Mexico!”; “Brazil!”; “Venezuela!”; “Philippines”; “Nicaragua!”; “Korea!”; “Poland!”; “Nigeria!”. Each response opened new geographical horizons and beyond. In the end, the group turned out to be citizens of four continents and coming from 11 nations.
Clearly, different are the personalities and cultures, but all live under the same roof and will be part of the same community. These young have come to deepen and further strengthen their Pauline integral formation, but they will live it with an international flavor.
Towards the end of the Novitiate of the 1st international group, 2017-2018, an evaluation of the experience of the young was carried out, guided by questions on community and fraternal life without forgetting the other wheels of the Pauline cart. «What is your overall experience of the International Novitiate of the “5 nations”»?
Some responses, shown here, will help us to carry on with more adequacy the formation of these young so that they become men of God and consecrated Paulines for the Gospel; being «everything to all peoples» of today, with the “sense of universality” in realizing the multifaceted Pauline activities, living in an international community.
«The first steps were not easy».... «These factors have affected a lot: language, personality, culture, habits, different experiences, both personal expectations and those for the common good...». «But, thank God, we have been able to make this our journey of creating unity in diversity». «Integration, sharing of everything, without distinction between the two groups of postulants and juniors; to live together in fraternal and communal life, even in moments of leisure or simply in preparing the refectory or in keeping the surroundings clean; no sense and intent of superiority has ever emerged».... «My hope is that it would be possible also to create unity in diversity among OTHER PAULINES, journeying with the same ideals and having as a project to live in communion, dialogue, humility, mutual respect, change of mentality, fraternity, openness towards others as sons of the same father, Blessed James Alberione».
It is still worth and important to continue to train our young people to the sense of universality, an integral part of the Pauline charism, as Blessed James Alberione teaches us: «… love the nations where you are. There are neither Filipinos, nor Japanese, nor Australians. The Church is Catholic, not Filipino, or French, or Japanese. Jesus Christ has established only one: the Universal Church. The soul, the head of all is Christ. Therefore, love everyone in Christ. The Congregation is universal, extended to many nations» (Prediche alle FSP e SSP, 129, 1955).
The above citation contains no magic words nor a formula for success in the formation of the present and future members of the Congregation. It can serve, however, as a compass that guides to the right direction in imparting to the young the charismatic spirit, with a particular Pauline color in view of the proper mission with all the means of today to reach everyone in the current culture of communication, of the digital media in particular.
