Br Philip Pinto

23 Jul 2009

The Congregational leader of the Christian Brothers, Br Philip Pinto offers us the challenge!

‘We need the poor to evangelise us, to show us this new face of Christ’

To get back into the whole idea of going out to people rather than staying in and protecting what always has been ours, that is what I hope for, a much more missionary spirit. The whole focus and future of religious life, not just for us Christian Brothers, but right across the board, has been to reclaim that missionary zeal, that apostolic spirit and this is part of it. I believe it is once again finding out who we are supposed to be, and not just being a product of our history and not just doing things that we always did but trying to go back to the roots of who we are. 40 years back, this whole movement began and it has reached this point of our history today. 40 years back was the Vatican 11 Council, and this is reclaiming who we are, our roots, our charism, the spirit of our founder,(Edmund Rice) going back to the discipleship of Jesus of Nazareth, and what Jesus was all about and that is what we are trying to do again.
If I take that charism statement that we have of Edmund, opening his whole heart to Christ present and appealing to him and the poor, I would see that as the touchstone for Christian Brothers. And for that I have to be with the poor, and when I speak of the poor, I really mean the materially poor. There are lots of different types of poverty in our world, but the materially poor have all the types of poverty. One only has to scratch the surface, to see their own disillusionment, their lack of faith and everything else that’s there.
So, we need the poor, we need the poor to evangelise us, to show us this new face of Christ. The other thing that we need is what do we have to do to open up our whole heart, it is just not a part of my heart that I give, but it is my whole heat total and complete, and not keep any part for myself. That is a very hard thing to do, and we grow into that through life.
What are the sorts of things that open my heart to the poor? One of them, is being there with them. I cannot do it from a distance. I have to be like the woman at the foot of the cross, I have to be at the foot of the cross to see the dying Christ. And I have to be with the poor to see their being and feel their being and if I don’t feel that, my heart will not be open.
And so, around the world we have encouraged Brothers to move out, not only Brothers, but we have encouraged heads of our institutions, we have encouraged young boys and girls who work with us to move out and immerse themselves for a time with the lives of the poor. And God will do the rest!