Joni Payuk, cicm
Missionary in Indonesia
We are brothers. We profess our vows together in the center of our Institute through the presence of our superior and the Church. We live under the same charism and spirituality. We shared the same formation based on the Constitutions of the Institute and the General Directory for Initial Formation. That explains why we carry in our veins the same "blood of missionaries spirit" that gives us the power to move out, leaving behind our dear families. This missionary spirit in us is a source of strength or power within us to move together doing adventure as brothers in the field of mission.
Our CICM Brotherhood
Religious missionaries of different races and cultures, we live and work together as brothers, ‘one heart one soul,’ we witness to the Father’s will that all men and women be brothers and sisters in Christ. We are a sign of solidarity among the particular Churches in their universal mission. (Const. Art. 2, #3)
Fraternal communion demands that we support one another and show a real interest in the person and the work of each confrere. We pray for one another and for our Institute.( Const. Art. 50)
These two quotations from our CICM Constitutions somehow underlined the vital aspect we should always cherish as missionaries. This is our brotherhood commitment. Why? Only through a deep relation among us do we become signs of the eschatological aspect of religious life. We bind ourselves in religious life under the name of CICM. Individually and as a community, we have stories of birth, struggles and successes, fears and failures, stories that we carry from home. We have institutional and local community stories. They must be remembered and told. Those stories must be told to be remembered by others. Yet, they cannot all be said boldly, neither to everyone nor in such a way as to cause us to become caught up in the past. However, we need to find ways to remember what must not be forgotten and to narrate it so that it becomes a source of renewal for each of us. (Anthony J. Gittins, Reading the Clouds).
This is what we call ritualizing our personal stories in the community. In doing so, we value the stories of our lives as sacred because they become part of our personal development as human beings. This is not something others can do for us. Within our groups of various kinds of fragilities, we must discern together to find our own fundamental needs, determine what to hang on to and what to let go of; what is life-giving and what is death-dealing; what to transmit and what to erase. In unity and in community, we weave the threads that we can use to bind our lives together as brothers in the past, the present, and the future. This is what we learn in cross-cultural training before leaving for a mission.
Weaving our brotherhood demands a special sacrifice from each of us. It is not enough to just come and sit down together once a week during community recreation and then say to ourselves that we already foster our brotherhood. We must sacrifice our time and our personal comfort to be around our brothers. Our common excuse is that we are “busy.” But if we love to see, if we dream that our Congregation will continue its existence to take part in bringing the Good News to the world, then we need to foster our brotherhood. Martin Luther King Jr. once said to his fellows: “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Brotherhood in the Field
The strong image that we often see in the film is two brothers or more, cutting their palms with a knife, holding their hands with blood, and promising each other to cherish their brotherhood no matter what happens. They will continue to support each other until they breathe their last in the same way that the story of the early childhood of St. Teresia d’Avila, where, together with her younger brother, Rodrigo, vowed to become martyrs. So, they left their home and headed for Africa.
In the time of Jesus, He sent his disciples two by two to go around the villages to proclaim the Good News, and charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, and no money in their belts. They may wear sandals but not put on a second tunic (Mk 6, 7-9). Perhaps Jesus wanted them to go bare-handed to hold on together with joy. With bare hands, they can shake their hands tighter. With bare hands, they can feel the warmth of others’ palms. They become one in companionship. With His disciples towards the end of his life, He shared a table of fellowship where he gave specific instructions: “Do this in memory of Me.” In another scenario: “He got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel wrapped around him.” And he declared that from now on, I will no longer call you servants but friends. In other words, they became companions or fellowship of Jesus (John 13.4).
In our time, we are sent by the Congregation to work together as confreres in the field of mission. Our dream of being sent with all kinds of excitement finally came face-to-face with reality. We met confreres who were different from us and felt that we were not ready to live with them. But we should challenge ourselves to accept that reality by confessing that from now on, they are my confreres in the mission. No matter what, they are my brothers in the mission, for we are all sent by our Congregation. We went to the mission with empty hands to shake hands tightly with each other. We need to sacrifice our sacred stories and our time and offer them as gifts on the table of fellowship. Thus, our brotherhood in the field of mission becomes more meaningful, for each of us received the mission from our Congregation. Together, we share the responsibility to keep alive the spirit that our Founder dreamt of.
Brotherhood for New Adventure
The true joy in life is working toward “a purpose recognized by yourself and others as a mighty one” (P.G Bernard Shaw). If we agree that it is true, we are to be joyful. Why? Precisely because we recognize our purpose as the instrument of God’s mission. By doing so, we already walk, as religious, on the journey towards perfection. Indeed, as religious people, we are supposed to be the sign of God’s perfect love. And this can only be done through the support of our fellow brothers.
Pope Francis has said, “I am counting on you “to wake up the world”, since the distinctive sign of consecrated life is prophecy. As I told the Superiors General: “Radical evangelical living is not only for religious: it is demanded of everyone. But religious follow the Lord in a special way, in a prophetic way.” This is the priority that is needed right now: “to be prophets who witness to how Jesus lived on this earth… a religious must never abandon prophecy” (Apostolic Letter of Pope Francis to all Consecrated People, II, 2)
Indeed, religious-missionary life is an adventure. It is an ddventure to make meaning to our own stories of life, to our failures and fragility; an adventure towards the path of holiness. §
