FRATRUM MINORUM - OFM

EX ACTIS MINISTRI GENERALIS
187
cretely, if we look at the Icon of the Samaritan
woman we see that she passes from a
defensive and hostile attitude toward Jesus
to an attitude of enthusiastic collaboration
with Jesus, to the point of becoming his
“disciple” and “apostle” of the “Jew” Jesus
before her people. In her there was a true
paschal process. There was a movement in
a way of thinking and judging to another
one, from some structures and convictions
to others. In the case of the Samaritan
woman the true “paschal process” takes
place and what seemed to be definite results
in being provisional51.
All this can be attained thanks to Jesus,
as an expert formator, who works with the
lacks or shortcomings of this woman from
Samaria, who having nothing, does not
have what could be expected so that a Jew
could enter into a profound dialogue with
her. In fact: she is a woman, with all that
this implies in the culture of that time; she
does not belong to the chosen people; she
has no husband... But none of these lacks is
going to be an obstacle for the encounter of
Jesus with her. Jesus accepts her as she is, in
her “poor” reality.
The majority of the subjects of formation
today are “Samaritans”. This is the case
of our young, the many or the few who
come, they do not generally come from protected
places, but from “profane places”
and from the “inclemency” of time. Many
of them have had many “husbands” and the
one they now have is not “their husband”.
Their religious experience, and not only
that, frequently there is much to be desired.
What is more frequent is that in the formative
work it is necessary to begin at zero or
almost there. But also in permanent formation,
many times, not to say always, the subjects
in formation, we have to work from
our lacks, from our “not having”, from our
“not being able”. “Our own poverty, acknowledged
and placed in relationship with
Jesus, is not an obstacle to receiving the gift
of living water, but the best occasion to accept
it and to allow it to well up to Eternal
Life”52. In every formative process it is important,
not to say fundamental, to recognize
the thirst in those who call for the first
time to our religious house and in those of
us who have been living there for some
time. Neither one or the other, is exempt
from the precariousness and vulnerability.
To acknowledge this is the first step so that
the Other can lead us to know the gift of God
and to quench our thirst definitively.
2. Looking for wells and roads together
When one has the experience of one’s
own precariousness, of one’s weak reality,
always fragile and never finished, of one’s
“half death”, like in the case of the Good
Samaritan, and at the same time, has the experience
of having been “taken care of” by
the great Good Samaritan who is Jesus and
that he is being cured, one will not doubt in
feeling that he has been caught up by the
“wounded” one, whether he is a brother in
initial formation or a brother in permanent
formation, and in feeling co-responsible for
his life.
In every process of formation, whether
initial or permanent, it is fundamental to
change our attitude of perpetual “donors”
so as to feel being travelers with those who
travel, seekers with those who seek. In this
context it is important to note, as Dolores
Aleixandre did during the Congress, how
Jesus presents himself in a situation of
abandonment and vulnerability53. And since
we are all vulnerable, it is necessary to convince
ourselves of the importance of accompanying
and supporting the faith of one
another, learning to read life together and to
make it possible for each one to share the
water of his experience”54: on this journey
there are no teachers, we are all disciples
and we are all on the way.
And it is in this way that Jesus overcame
barriers which “separated” him from the
Samaritan woman: the fact of being a
woman, of belonging to a heterodox people
and the many prejudices of ethnic type
which existed on the part of some towards
others; in this same way, it is up to the formator/
accompanier, both in initial and in
permanent formation, to take the first step
towards the one being formed/accompanied
and to accept him in his situation of lacks.
The acceptance of one’s own reality and of