Everywhere: 25th anniversary of the religious life

Fr. Jean Marie NDour, msc. Kaolack, Senegal. This year, as I prepare to celebrate my 25th anniversary of religious life in the Congregation, I would like to say a few words about how I have lived these rich years of my life as an MSC.

As St. Ignatius said in the introduction to the Spiritual Exercises: “I wanted to enter this year of grace with a generous heart and with generosity towards God, our Creator and Lord, continuing to offer him my whole being. “
For me, the silver jubilee is a special time to reencounter the Sacred Heart of Jesus and rediscover the first place of God in my heart and my life, as I did nearly 25 years ago in Pretoria, South Africa. I would also like to edify one another through our desire for God, our prayer, our thirst to listen to Him, to follow Him, and to love Him.
It’s about sharing more than the joy of a jubilee, but sharing this desire to continue letting my heart burn for the Lord. This time is an opportunity for me to tend to my vocation and my relationship with Christ, who continues to call me. Through this jubilee, I wanted to continue taking care of myself, attending to my vocation, learning to be faithful to it, and continuing to respond to the mission entrusted to me.
As a religious, I have spent many hours over the past 25 years caring for others in our apostolic structures, including plants, animals, children, schoolchildren, the sick, novices, confreres, and young people in formation in other congregations. And during all that time, I have never been afraid or doubted that the Lord would take care of me in return, despite the countless times I have not been faithful as the Lord desires.
However, during all this time, I did not drown myself in service to others, but always tried to take care of my vocation, to cultivate it, to make it grow, and this is not something that can be taken for granted forever; I must continue to take care of it every day. ‘The perfect religious is the one who adores, obeys, serves and offers the most perfect sacrifice,’ said Father Chevalier.
And for this, three attitudes can guide the thread of my 25 years of MSC religious life: remembering, taking courage and renewing my yes.

1. Remember
I am reaching my 25th year with all these burdens, which are joyful in my passion to transmit the Gospel, but also heavier in particular difficulties I have encountered in Cameroon, Kinshasa and Senegal. As Pope Francis said in one of his speeches: “Brothers, Jesus knows our efforts and our successes, as well as our failures and misfortunes, more than ever. He is the first to say to us: ‘Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and become my disciples, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls ‘ (Mt 11:28-29).”
I cannot remember how many times I have lain at the foot of the Lord’s cross, the burden of what has weighed most heavily on me in my ministry: my fatigue, my exhaustion, my infidelities, and sometimes my discouragement or sadness, as well as difficult personal or community situations.
I have always tried not to work relentlessly, stumbling over the obstacles I encountered, but to remember my vocation. An African proverb says, “When you don’t know where you’re going, go back to where you came from. “ After 25 years, it is still good and necessary to remember our calling, to look back on our history of grace with the Lord, to sit down and open the photo album of the graces I have experienced with Him since I arrived at the MSC. In all that I have experienced, I have refused to dwell on this or that difficulty, but I have remembered that the Lord does not abandon me. He has never abandoned me or let me down. Thus, with the psalmist, I can sing my song of praise, for ‘his mercy is everlasting’ (Ps 135). I am very grateful to God and to the Congregation. Gratitude is always a ‘powerful weapon’. When I look back on my past in the Congregation, I can truly appreciate all the gestures of love, generosity, solidarity, and trust, as well as the forgiveness, patience, endurance, and compassion I have received, which have renewed me in my mission.
I was confronted with various temptations specific to that moment: stirring up ideas, not paying enough attention to the problem, giving too much importance to the persecutors… And it seems to me that the worst temptation I experienced was to stay there ruminating on my grief […] Often, I dreamed of the ‘onions of Egypt’ and forgot that the promised land was in front of me, not behind me. I sometimes forgot that the promise was made yesterday, but it was for the future. I gave in to the temptation to close myself off and isolate, defending my approaches, which were ultimately nothing more than beautiful monologues.
I therefore understood that if we remain stuck in this memory that suffers and ruminates, we are not taking care of our spiritual health. These words of Pope Francis, who said: ‘Do not contract spiritual Alzheimer’s, do not lose your memory […] every day, renew the feeling that everything is free, and ask for the grace not to lose your memory, not to feel important,’ helped me a lot during my stay in the desert. (Speech, 8 July 2015).
I would like to hear again: ‘The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged.’ “ (Deut 31:8)
This grateful memory is fundamental to living my mission: recognizing God’s footprints in my personal history, my family’s history, my Congregation’s history, and the history of the UAF (Union of French-speaking Africans), and finding the traces of what God has accomplished, giving thanks. Like the apostles who never forgot the moment when Jesus touched their hearts —‘It was about the tenth hour’ (Jn 1:39) —I, too, cannot forget the day of my profession; it was June 2 in Pretoria, South Africa, with nine of my companions.

2. Take courage
This jubilee is also a time to take courage on the road, to gather strength so that we can set out again, to renew my courage of commitment to religious life, which is above all the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s action in my life.
What strengthens me as an MSC? What keeps me here when there are only three of us left out of the nine? Father E.J. Cuskelly, in his book A New Heart and a New Spirit, said: “The fact that we have remained in the congregation does not give us the right to conclude that we are faithful. We cannot say that we are automatically faithful because we have not left. Those who are faithful to their vocation are those who take it up and embrace it day after day, in the difficult tasks and constant demands of self-denial that this vocation entails. Only one thing: “I was treated with mercy”, “we were treated with mercy” (1 Tim 1:12-16).”
I often ask myself: Is my mission as an MSC religious in itself a witness to God’s mercy? He does not call those who are worthy, but those whom he likes, or as St Paul says: ‘God shows mercy to whom he wants, and he has pity on whom he wants’ (Epistle to the Romans, chap. IX, v. 15 and 16)
I continue to believe that God has never broken his covenant with me, even though I have broken it countless times. This invites me to celebrate 25 years of God’s faithfulness, who continues to trust me, believe in me, and take risks, despite my limitations and sins, and invites me to do the same. I have often felt that, beyond my weaknesses and sins, God has always allowed me to lift my head and start again, with a tenderness that has never disappointed me. I have consistently recognized my fragility, yes, but I have allowed Jesus to transform it and push me again and again towards the mission. I have never lost the joy of feeling like a ‘sheep’, of knowing that he is my Lord and my Shepherd.
This jubilee makes me understand that I am sent with the awareness of being a forgiven MSC. And that is the source of my joy.

3. Renewing our yes
Finally, this jubilee is also a time to renew my response to God’s call through the Church, to be sent out again on mission, like Peter, who heard Jesus say to him, ‘Feed my sheep.’ Today, after 25 years, Jesus asks me again: Do you want to be my MSC disciple? Do you want to be my friend? Do you want to ‘be the heart of Jesus on earth’? Do you want to be a witness to my Gospel? Do you wish to renew this irresistible attraction to your Lord?
Like Saint Peter, transfigured by this renewed call, I want to renew my response to God’s call, so that I can transmit the missionary spirit to the people of God entrusted to me, first and foremost in my community.
I want to hear the call of Jesus again, the one I heard more than 30 years ago, who wants to use me after all that I have already experienced with Him, to send me on a mission. “One day in June, I said “yes”, a “yes” that was born and grew within the MSC communities of South Africa, the United States, Cameroon, Congo Kinshasa and Senegal, which showed me with simple faith that it was worth giving everything, leaving everything for the Lord and his Kingdom. A “yes” whose meaning has had and will continue to have, I believe, such an inconceivable importance that I often cannot imagine all the good it has done and can do.
At the age of 25, I am once again experiencing this choice of love that has been made for me, as the Lord did with Saint Peter when he asked him, after all those years spent with him: Do you love me more than these?’ My motivation to continue evangelizing is the love of Jesus that I have received as a sign of ‘reparation for love’; it is the experience of having been saved by Him that drives me to love Him more and more. Yes, at 25 years old, I can say without hesitation that it is sweet to be in front of a crucifix, or kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, standing at the foot of the cross next to the Virgin Mary, and simply under her gaze! How good it has been for me that He has touched my life and that He urges me to communicate His new life.

In this renewed call, Jesus entrusts His flock to me, sends me to care for His sheep; He wants to use me to draw ever closer to His beloved people.

I pray that this jubilee will be a time when Jesus renews my heart, so that I may ‘renew my yes with enthusiasm, with passion.’

Jean Marie NDour, MSC (Senegal)