Rome Sweet Home !

The advantage of religious and missionary life is that you know that life will not be linear. On many occasions, you find yourself living with new people, in a new context, sometimes in a new country, with a mission that last a certain amount of time so that projects can be put in place, but which will not go on indefinitely, at the risk of losing creativity and enthusiasm. Of course, the stages of life shape our personality and our commitments. We never start a new mission with a blank sheet of paper, and the new environment is not the promise of a fresh start that ignores what we've experienced so far. What's more, every mission has its positive and negative sides.

Having worked for five months so far as a spiritual father in a college for more than 150 African and Asian priests (and two Latin American priests) who come to Rome for postgraduate studies (licentiate and doctorate), several positive things come to mind. First of all, the fraternity and simplicity that we have built up in a short space of time with the student priests. They have told us over and over again that they find the relationship with the formation team cordial and that there is no sense of distance between the ‘moderator’ priests (that's the term used here) and the students. I think this simplicity of relationship is largely due to our missionary experience. In the mission, you always try to get close to people, to respect them, to love them, and they are sensitive to this attitude. In this college, I'm the only ‘white’ (or European) person, and quite honestly, I don't have any problems with that. At the school, we come from 37 nations. I know from experience that there are many different cultures on the same continent, and that within the same culture there are very different characters. So my own difference from others is just one element among many in this multicultural panel. 

What I also really like about Rome is how easy it is to learn Italian. Learning is a big word, given that I don't make much effort to study the language systematically, but when someone speaks to me, I understand a lot of what is said and I express myself with relative ease. Obviously, I don't intend to leave it at that; reading and meetings (and systematic study...) will continue to refine my knowledge of the Italian language. But when I see that I've spent so many years trying to master an Asian language and have only partly succeeded, what a pleasure it is to be able to communicate so easily in Italian! But the difficulty of learning Vietnamese still serves me today for one essential thing: understanding that for foreign priests from Africa and especially Asia, studying in Italian is a terrible sacrifice. How much I admire them!

As for my role as ‘spiritual father’ of the Collège Saint-Paul, I'm giving myself time to understand what people expect from this mission. I live with priests, not seminarians. They have been in formation for years. They then work for a few years in their diocese. So my job is in no way that of a ‘spiritual director’ in the sense of a seminary. It's more about making suggestions than demanding things. For example, Mass at the Collège is ‘optional’; the same applies to services, conferences and outside activities. This freedom enjoyed by the priests can sometimes lead to a lack of cohesion in the group and a lack of personal discipline on the part of some, but that's the way Christian life is. God does not impose Himself, He gives a sign. I hope to be able to be attentive to the needs of others, and to grow myself in the depths of spiritual and fraternal life, to be a good spiritual father. May God guide me!