Fr. Birabaluge Louis
Homily by Fr. Fabien Kalehezo sx, General Councillor of the Xaverian Missionaries-
during the feast day of St. Francis Xavier.
To Talk about St. Francis Xavier and meditate on his life and holiness, we should ask ourselves three questions :
- Why was he defined as a great missionary of the modern time, consequentely Patron of the missions with Saint Therese of little Jesus?
- Why our Founder, Saint Guido Maria Conforti has chosen him as our Patron, namely, our model and wanted our Congregation be called Saint Francis Xavier Forein Missions Society?. He would have named it with his name as it is the case of some congregations that are named by the names of their founders in order to honor and perpetuate their names.
- The third question is connected to the first two questions: what do his life and his holiness mean for us today in our missionary spirituality, praxis and journey?
We can answer these three questions looking at his life and his biography in the light of our XVII General Chapter that we have celebrated in August 2017. Three aspests of his life:
- A man of prayer: the authors who wrote about his life have defined him as a man of intense prayer. He used to spend long time in prayer, and often even night time after a very busy day of apostolate. A witness wrote about him: “during the day he entirely belonged to God, during the night, he entirely belong to God”. In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudiun, Pope Francis hightlights the importance of prayer in the life of a missionary. The prayer is the strenght of the missionary, a source where he renew his strenghts and energies. He says: “Without prolonged moments of adoration, of prayerful encounter with the word, of sincere conversation with the Lord, our work easily becomes meaningless; we lose energy as a result of weariness and difficulties, and our fervour dies out.” (EG 262).
In the letter of the programm of the General Direction for the six-year term, we wrote: “The quality of our missionary life depends a great deal on the intensity and the quality of our prayer life. Without such a prayer life, our being Christian is emptied of what makes us truly christian. The more wood we throw on the fire, the more more it gives light and heat; the less we throw on the fire, the more we are impoverished”.
- Saint Francis Xavier is well known as a man of great desire and zeal despite of the difficulties he faced, he stood free and courageous before the powerful…(RFX 250). His strong desire and zeal always brought him to go ahead, to take risks, to explore new apostolic fields where he knew that Christ was not yet announced. This great desire brought him to dare the impossible. It was the same desire that brought him to Japan, in Malaysia, in China… being aware of all the challenges that he would have faced… but putting his trust in God. We can ask ourselves how did this zealous missionary manage to visit different countries with the means of trasport of that time? How it comes that in 11 years, he was able to found many Christian communities that are still existing until today.
The XVII GC reminds us that the first proclamation invites us always to be audacious, to “take initiative” (EG24), to reach out to others and the excluded, and thus discover the presence of God in the places, persons, and situations to wich we are sent. (XVII GC 4).
- A man of pronfound relationships and attentive to people, of direct contact and friendship, open to different cultural contexts and willing to learn from experience and to develop his own judgments (RFX 250).
The relationship and the respect for people we are sent to are part of our missionary spirituality and approach. The XVII GC reminds us the importance of a pastoral ministry based on friendship, presence, humility and accompaniment, shedding clericalism and protagonism (XVII GC 21). The chapter stresses on the culture of encounter with the poor, with the excluded of the society, with the migrants and with those who are excluded or marginalized of the society. A missionary cannot be an island or he can not remain closed in his own shell!
Looking at Saint Francis Xavier’s life, we can say that he was impelled by God’s love like Saint Guido Maria Conforti. Once one has done the experience of Christ’s love, he can not remain indifferent. But this esperience brings him towards others. The true experience of Chrsit’s love produces in our heart a certain disconfort and dissatisfaction that does not give peace of mind as long as it is not yet announced and shared with others who have not experienced it yet.
There is a saying in my culture: “what touches the heart makes walk the feet early in the morning”. Love is not an end in itself. A love that is not communicated, shared, remains steril, fruitless and meaningless. Without love, our life, faith and ministry are sterile.
Both the holiness of Saint Francis Xavier and that of Saint Guido Maria Conforti are love story, burning hearts of love for God that expresses itself in the love for others. The love for God and the passion for the humanity are the force, the reason, the origin and the secret of their holiness and missionary vocation.
We now understand how much was decisive Christ experience in their lives and in their apostolical ministry.
Saint Francis Xavier is the model and the Patron of the missions. But the time has changed as the missionary approch as well. We mistake thinking that we have to repeat today saint Francis xavier’s style of mission. But the need to meet the true God, to know him as Jesus has revealed him to us is still relevant and has not changed. The availability to welcome Him did not change, even the Gospel did not change.
The XVII GC reaffirms that the modernity of our charism constitutes one of the strong points of our Congregation. This modernity of our charism given by the Spirit to our Founder is precisly one of the responses to the problems of the modern humanity.
Celebrating Saint Francis Xavier on this day, we ask the grace to rejuvenate in our love for Christ and in our passion for his mission and people in order to be faithful instruments and authentic witnesses of the Gospel that we proclame, following the example of Saint Francis Xavier, of St. Guido Maria Conforti and of our confreres, saints and martyrs.
Through their intercession, we entrust to God the regional chapter that we start today. May it be for us a moment of fraternity, of discernement, of listening to one another and to what the Holy Spirit wants us to be and do in this mission of Sierra Leone. May it be also a moment of gratitude to God for what he has accomplished through us in the past years despite the hardiships of war and of the outbreak of the Ebola virus.
Let us look to the future of this Region and of the Congregation with hope and trust.
Makeni, 4th December,
Homily by Fr. Fabien Kalehezo sx, General Councilor of Xaverian Missionaries- during the feast day of St. Francis Xavier.
Homily by Fr. Fabien Kalehezo sx, General Councillor of the Xaverian Missionaries-
during the feast day of St. Francis Xavier.
To Talk about St. Francis Xavier and meditate on his life and holiness, we should ask ourselves three questions :
- Why was he defined as a great missionary of the modern time, consequentely Patron of the missions with Saint Therese of little Jesus?
- Why our Founder, Saint Guido Maria Conforti has chosen him as our Patron, namely, our model and wanted our Congregation be called Saint Francis Xavier Forein Missions Society?. He would have named it with his name as it is the case of some congregations that are named by the names of their founders in order to honor and perpetuate their names.
- The third question is connected to the first two questions: what do his life and his holiness mean for us today in our missionary spirituality, praxis and journey?
We can answer these three questions looking at his life and his biography in the light of our XVII General Chapter that we have celebrated in August 2017. Three aspests of his life:
- A man of prayer: the authors who wrote about his life have defined him as a man of intense prayer. He used to spend long time in prayer, and often even night time after a very busy day of apostolate. A witness wrote about him: “during the day he entirely belonged to God, during the night, he entirely belong to God”. In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudiun, Pope Francis hightlights the importance of prayer in the life of a missionary. The prayer is the strenght of the missionary, a source where he renew his strenghts and energies. He says: “Without prolonged moments of adoration, of prayerful encounter with the word, of sincere conversation with the Lord, our work easily becomes meaningless; we lose energy as a result of weariness and difficulties, and our fervour dies out.” (EG 262).
In the letter of the programm of the General Direction for the six-year term, we wrote: “The quality of our missionary life depends a great deal on the intensity and the quality of our prayer life. Without such a prayer life, our being Christian is emptied of what makes us truly christian. The more wood we throw on the fire, the more more it gives light and heat; the less we throw on the fire, the more we are impoverished”.
- Saint Francis Xavier is well known as a man of great desire and zeal despite of the difficulties he faced, he stood free and courageous before the powerful…(RFX 250). His strong desire and zeal always brought him to go ahead, to take risks, to explore new apostolic fields where he knew that Christ was not yet announced. This great desire brought him to dare the impossible. It was the same desire that brought him to Japan, in Malaysia, in China… being aware of all the challenges that he would have faced… but putting his trust in God. We can ask ourselves how did this zealous missionary manage to visit different countries with the means of trasport of that time? How it comes that in 11 years, he was able to found many Christian communities that are still existing until today.
The XVII GC reminds us that the first proclamation invites us always to be audacious, to “take initiative” (EG24), to reach out to others and the excluded, and thus discover the presence of God in the places, persons, and situations to wich we are sent. (XVII GC 4).
- A man of pronfound relationships and attentive to people, of direct contact and friendship, open to different cultural contexts and willing to learn from experience and to develop his own judgments (RFX 250).
The relationship and the respect for people we are sent to are part of our missionary spirituality and approach. The XVII GC reminds us the importance of a pastoral ministry based on friendship, presence, humility and accompaniment, shedding clericalism and protagonism (XVII GC 21). The chapter stresses on the culture of encounter with the poor, with the excluded of the society, with the migrants and with those who are excluded or marginalized of the society. A missionary cannot be an island or he can not remain closed in his own shell!
Looking at Saint Francis Xavier’s life, we can say that he was impelled by God’s love like Saint Guido Maria Conforti. Once one has done the experience of Christ’s love, he can not remain indifferent. But this esperience brings him towards others. The true experience of Chrsit’s love produces in our heart a certain disconfort and dissatisfaction that does not give peace of mind as long as it is not yet announced and shared with others who have not experienced it yet.
There is a saying in my culture: “what touches the heart makes walk the feet early in the morning”. Love is not an end in itself. A love that is not communicated, shared, remains steril, fruitless and meaningless. Without love, our life, faith and ministry are sterile.
Both the holiness of Saint Francis Xavier and that of Saint Guido Maria Conforti are love story, burning hearts of love for God that expresses itself in the love for others. The love for God and the passion for the humanity are the force, the reason, the origin and the secret of their holiness and missionary vocation.
We now understand how much was decisive Christ experience in their lives and in their apostolical ministry.
Saint Francis Xavier is the model and the Patron of the missions. But the time has changed as the missionary approch as well. We mistake thinking that we have to repeat today saint Francis xavier’s style of mission. But the need to meet the true God, to know him as Jesus has revealed him to us is still relevant and has not changed. The availability to welcome Him did not change, even the Gospel did not change.
The XVII GC reaffirms that the modernity of our charism constitutes one of the strong points of our Congregation. This modernity of our charism given by the Spirit to our Founder is precisly one of the responses to the problems of the modern humanity.
Celebrating Saint Francis Xavier on this day, we ask the grace to rejuvenate in our love for Christ and in our passion for his mission and people in order to be faithful instruments and authentic witnesses of the Gospel that we proclame, following the example of Saint Francis Xavier, of St. Guido Maria Conforti and of our confreres, saints and martyrs.
Through their intercession, we entrust to God the regional chapter that we start today. May it be for us a moment of fraternity, of discernement, of listening to one another and to what the Holy Spirit wants us to be and do in this mission of Sierra Leone. May it be also a moment of gratitude to God for what he has accomplished through us in the past years despite the hardiships of war and of the outbreak of the Ebola virus.
Let us look to the future of this Region and of the Congregation with hope and trust.
Makeni, 4th December,
Homily by Fr. Fabien Kalehezo sx, General Councilor of Xaverian Missionaries- during the feast day of St. Francis Xavier.