I was asked to discuss the current situation of the Consecrated Life and its future prospects, as well as to evaluate the work of the Congress and what it communicated to us. I pondered over this for a while and I also did some reading; I realized at once that there was so much to say and that if I were to try to say everything I would end up saying nothing at all. So I decided to say just one thing, which I believe is at the basis of everything else and can provide insights into the rest.

I must also say right away that I am usually very straightforward and at times I might even sound arrogant: I apologize for that at once. I am sure you will also excuse my limited knowledge, for I am not an expert in anything: I can only share with you my experience.

In reality I feel lost, because I find that I am repeating, at least in part, things which have already been said, for example in one of my texts which appeared in Vidimus Dominum on the occasion of the Congress. I excuse myself.

I. DELVING DEEPER

1.The "positive" aspects, in other words?

When we talk about the Consecrated Life we should first of all look at the positive aspects  that have come to the fore over the years. There are surely many of them, and all are promising, so much so that they should help us to overcome any nostalgia or temptation to go back to the past, if ever we were tempted to do so. I cannot go into this now so I will just make two comments:

-when you consider the "positive" aspects, it is a question of very beautiful and promising perspectives, but they are also there before us as a task and a path to follow, rather than as a ripe fruit ready to be picked;

-I will not dwell on this, but that does not mean that I intend to focus on the negative aspects. I believe that having a positive attitude means three things: -To be convinced that there is a path to follow; -To be able to find it;

-To accept to follow that path and to have the strength to do so.

This means that we must have the courage to call things by their name, without denying problems. This is also one of the important signs of Christian hope and of the strength that comes to us from our faith: to know how to face problems, because we have understood that there is an answer. There is no use to force ourselves to always speak "in positive terms", in other words to say only the good things. This would lead -as often happens -to a general discussion that is hardly convincing and is ultimately false. I would not want to do that.

2. The question that concerns us

The question I ask is the following: it is a question taken for grated, but it has received no answer, and it is this that I want to speak about: much work has been done since after the years of Vatican Council II; no one has worked as much as religious men and women, and the result is what is usually called unfulfilled renewal, and it is a euphemism.

On what does this depend? Is it because certain processes have inevitably moved at a slow pace and we simply need to be "patient"? Or did we fail to do something and it is necessary to correct our course? This is precisely what I would like to focus on.

I would like to take as a point of reference what a very dear friend of mine, Giamberto Pegoraro, of the Josephites of Murialdo, said. In discussing the current situation of the Consecrated Life with his confreres, he concluded with the question: what are we to do? to which he replied as follows:

«1 believe that for us this is still a time for silence, listening, reflection. At present it does not matter what we do (let us continue doing what we are doing), but what matters now is that we understand what God wants from us. It is the times when " the Word of the Lord is rare " (1 Sam 3,1) that prophets are mobilized».

Very wise and very interesting. I find in these words a sapiential reading of the journey made over these years. Not a sociological nor even a merely theological reading, but a sapiential one. Like the one expressed by Pope John Paul II in his second-to-last book, where he defined Marxism "a necessary evil". We also know many evils today; both as Church and as consecrated life, we are experiencing a time of great poverty and darkness.

What does this have to tell us? What does it conceal?

Is God speaking to us through all this? What is he telling us? This is what we mean by sapiential reading.

Two icons can help us here. The first is that of Saint Francis. At a time that was very similar to the period in which we are living, characterized as it was by sweeping changes and the need for reform in the Church and in religious life, he understood that there was only one thing to do: go back to the Gospel. The problems and challenges were too great to be solved simply through a reform/renewal of religious life. Only the Gospel could have the power to provide an answer and, as we know, Francis turned all of his efforts in that direction.

The other figure is that of the prophet Elijah. Elijah spends all of his resources, and does so with great generosity. But at the very peak of his success -his victory over the prophets of Baal - everything falls apart. He is pursued to death and is forced to flee; he feels a failure, he is totally discouraged and wants to die. But God rescues him by sending him a mysterious food and leads him to Mount Horeb, where He makes Himself manifest and everything begins again: the fall is the start of the recovery.

We are just like Elijah and Saint Francis. We must stop, a stop which will permit us delve deeper -I will use these words over and over again -concerning the many avenues, however important, already explored.

3.  Did we pursue the wrong objective?

First of all, I would like to raise a few objections.

a.  Immediately after Vatican II, we started bringing ourselves up to date. We came from a tradition of observance and it came naturally to us to stay on that track. All institutes rewrote their rules and now have a complete set of regulations that cover every aspect of their life. And yet we are living in a time that we could define as one of anomy: the rules are in place but they are not taken seriously, there is no receptio. Perhaps this is due to laziness on our part, though I would say that it is mostly and simply because the new law is not perceived as the answer we are looking for, it does not express what we religious, men and women, have in our hearts.

The Ev. test. had reminded us of this already and today we see it even more: the real answer is on another level, we have to delve deeper .

b.  The same applies, indeed even more so, to reacculturation. This involves the mission. It was necessary to reacculturate religious life to the changes that had occurred over time. We abandoned many positions and chose others instead; we spent enormous resources in restructuring the works and in "retraining staff'.

Some results have been achieved: the works and services offered by religious are efficient, even exemplary: but, as we keep on saying, people turn to us for services, and look elsewhere to find the meaning of life. What has happened then? Did we pursue the wrong objective?

I think we need to reflect more on this point: in the past, the role of religious, men and women, was evident to everyone and even to our founders themselves. Religious men and women had specific tasks, even very important ones, those which characterized the great works and services, especially from the nineteenth century onwards.

But today that is no longer the case: we no longer have "exclusive rights" over the type of work that we performed up until recently in the areas of welfare services, healthcare, schools, pastoral care, even in the mission ad gentes, and so on. And yet we continue to think that we are still the only ones who can do what we have always done, and that it would be possible from this to deduce the significance of our presence. In the final analysis, even the international Congress on the Consecrated Life which was held in 2004 was trapped inside this notion, as I will explain.

This is a way on which we can no longer travel. All that, which up until now, we have expressed by the works, we have to know that they are no longer -in the vast majority of cases - the most suitable instruments for apostolic work. Not only because we no longer have the resources we need to run them, but also on account of the historical situation, which is "too vast" and complex for us to face through our "doing" and through the organization of our services.

The same applies to the training of human resources. Competence is important and professional skills are a serious matter. But that is not the area that we have to focus on. When one focuses too much on this aspect and reaches the point of professionalizing the religious life and one's own identity, as is often the case, the very meaning of religious vocation becomes distorted. Truly there is something which does not function It is understandable that, at a time like ours, when it is so difficult to understand where and how to invest our own resources, one may be tempted to stress so much the importance of one's role that one actually ends up identifying oneself with it completely; but when this happens, we disappear, we wind up in a blind alley. One can be good and efficient, even better than others, but this leads to a logic of competition, but what good is this when one ends giving people what they can find elsewhere?

4.  Too much attention is devoted exclusively to the institutional aspect

It is necessary to reflect on all this. It seems to me that over the years we have devoted too much attention exclusively to the institutional aspect, and we continue to do so.

I cannot dwell on this statement; I will just mention one fact which is also a "challenge" and provides some more food for thought. The fact is that there is disproportion between the amount of resources -people, time and money -devoted to institutional matters and the results attained.

Here there is something which does not function. I do not know how the problem can be solved, but one thing is certain, and that is, that there is a problem and it really makes one think. If we look at the Saints,. we find Saint Francis who did not want to know about a Rule; he accepted it only in a second moment. What interested him was the Gospel, the Gospel without any gloss; only then, after having assimilated it at depth, it would have been possible to define a particular form of life.

And it is thus today and it is for us an important lesson. It is not to go from the Rule to the Gospel, but the contrary. The primacy -in time, money, resources and commitment -is not given to institutional problems but to the quality of life, always to be constructed, which is given to us in Jesus. I do not want to enter into the complex discourse of the new forms of consecrated life and the movements, but if we consider the more significant experiences which have greater impact among young people, one thing is clear: they speak of Jesus and of the Gospel.

The wasting of so much energy around things to do and to institutional problems is based on two presuppositions which have to be proved, that is:

-first, the conviction that the current structure of religious life, which characterizes us, is the right one, and that it only a question of updating it and, ...of making it work. But it is not so; if that were the case, we would have solved all our problems long ago.

-second, and above all, we keep doing things and, take it for granted that the problem that really matters -namely contents -has been adequately addressed and solved: the machine might be running, but what is inside it? Whatever happened to the evangelical substance of our way of living?

That is what I mean when I say that we have to delve deeper. I remember my experience working for many years as the editor of Testimoni. Faced with the persistent split between how the religious life was understood and how it was actually lived in a community, one wondered -as we do today -on what does this depend. It was answered that it was a question of mentality: the mass does not want to hear about change, and maybe it cannot even change. The famous phrase was: we will have to wait for the next generation ...However, it is not that the new generations really represent the change needed, and even where change was accepted, it does not seem to me that it brought the results hoped for. ..

So: is change the problem, or is there more to it than that? And even if it is necessary to change and make new choices -for there is no doubt that this must happen -at what level must change occur and concerning what things?

II. TOWARDS A NEW VISION

We have to delve deeper, once again I repeat this refrain. In fact, we have to acknowledge something: even in the past, when religious life expressed itself to the best of its potential through "works" and the extraordinary things it accomplished, the real task that it was able to take up -and fulfil also through the works -was that of reminding people of something that lies far beyond the many services provided, and that is God's mystery, the specifically religious dimension of existence.

When I say that we must delve deeper, I am referring precisely to this, to the religious meaning of religious life. It may sound like tautology, but it is actually the core of the matter.

1. Rediscovering one's roots

The fundamental problem involving the identity of religious life, its meaning in the life of the Church and in history, comes to the fore.[1]

Here again, we can refer to the image of Elijah, or to the Israelites after the fall of Jerusalem and their deportation to Babylon. It is through the painful experience of his failure and trials that Elijah rediscovers himself and his vocation, thanks to his encounter with the God of the Fathers. We can say the same for Israel after its deportation to Babylon: just when everything seems to be over, it is precisely during the experience of exile that Israel rereads its history and discovers its true face, its true vocation as the people of the Covenant.

The same applies to us today, we are invited to look at what is happening through the eyes of faith -to engage in a "sapiential reading", as I said before.

Many aspects of our history, however glorious, have come to an end. But the experience of poverty that we are living, the decline in vocations, the great apparatus of works and traditional ministries that "do not attract people any more", all this must surely have something to tell us! Surely, it reminds us of the commitment to update. But God's real message for us is that we must not forget our true identity: Jesus Christ and the Gospel as our only reason for life and "apostolic service".

We say this in one word, but in this simple statement we find everything that explains and gives meaning to religious consecration.

Unfortunately, when this is said, everything crumbles down, and is simply interpreted merely in devotional terms. But there is much more to it than that! There is a lesson "in the facts", that comes from history, from the God that works in history, and it has to do with our identity. I am starting to think more and more that in order to lead us back to Him at a deeper level, the Lord is allowing all the things that are happening these days; he wants to help us to verify -those of us who entered religious life a long time ago and those few or many who are embracing it now -to see what has become of our faith, of the profound motivation which is the reason for our choice.

I think that we religious were in great need of this purification, and the fact that it is happening is both a grace and a tremendous challenge. Certain considerations are instinctively discarded. But the true problem of religious life today is the same problem as that of everybody else: the real problem is essentially spiritual, of faith. A few years ago, a writer stated that the only problem of religious communities is just a matter of determining whether or not they are Christian. He was absolutely right!

I like to say that apostolic religious life must rediscover its monastic roots. This is the true meaning of refoundation -if we want to keep this term, which is often somewhat hazy and not well defined in its contents. Going back to our roots, that is to promote the spiritual regeneration of our institutes, as it were: I believe this is the true challenge, if we want to use this somewhat hackneyed expression.

2. The central issue

I was glad to find many of my thoughts reflected in a talk that one of my confreres, the editor-in-chief of Il Regno, Lorenzo Prezzi, gave to the Dehonian Major Superiors in October last on the topic of "refoundation". Prezzi traces the crisis of religious life to four areas and factors:

-the identity and the ( absence of a) theological definition of religious life;

-asceticism, with the decline in moral and spiritual aspirations that we are witnessing;

-that precisely more historical related fact, that the demands that religious life has always met through its works are disappearing;

-and lastly, a factor on the theological horizon or the sense of God today. The latter point explains the other three.

What is missing is a sufficient experience of God such as to support a life project and guarantee its coming to fruition. It is a crises of deep roots and radical ness. Without the experience of the sacred absolute, without plunging into the early sources of being, of life and of truth, without the mystical dimension of reality, religious life is emptied. In other words, what is missing is the presence of the Spirit, which is smothered by habits, by Church conformism, by petty personal interests, by the insufficiency of theology itself

This is confirmed by two emblematic facts:

-«systematic recourse to sociological and psychological competence», almost as if it can tell us what matters and that to which religious life should respond;

-secondly, «the absence of a historical judgement» that has the same depth as faith.

«1n the face of the individualism that has characterized Western culture during the past four centuries, what is missing in theology and in religious life is people who will denounce the insufficiency of the latter without relapsing into nineteenth- century anti-modernity»

This takes us back to the "spiritual wisdom" I mentioned before and it would be rightly expected of religious before than from anyone else. In fact, if it is true that the religious dimension of life is what ultimately determines the course of consciences in history, if it is true that such a dimension «could not bear fruit without the presence of figures such as those of the religious», one can understand where the challenge lies for religious life today.

3. The Congress on the Consecrated Life -the most difficult challenge

Perhaps at this point I could introduce some comments on the Congress that took place November last. Not to give a global evaluation which is not my competence, but to take some notes concerning the discourse which I am presenting.

The first two days got off to a good start with strong reference being made to the theological and spiritual dimension of consecration. It was the right perspective that would and should have kept everything together in an organic way. But then -and I refer to the overall experience -the usual bias set in: one accepts and acknowledges that everything starts from Christ and everything is put at stake for him, but then, taking that as a given, the attention shifts elsewhere, on what comes after and represents -or so one continues to think -the truly "important issue": how to respond to the challenges that society places before us today.

This is precisely what I experienced at the Congress: the first two days became a simple introduction, because after that the attention was turned to all the problems, voids, challenges that arise in the different contemporary social and cultural contexts to see in what way the consecrated life can be an answer and what it is called to do in order to be an answer. A discussion to which we are perhaps accustomed, but in the final analysis it is much greater than we and it is "impossible". And indeed, the participants were at a loss and in the end had no answers.

Perhaps in the past, within the context of a Christian society, when the role of the religious was taken for granted and vocations abounded, one could even think that this was precisely how the issue was to be tackled: recognize the situation and come up with solutions. But how could one possibly think that this is the way to go today?

My mind goes back to the whirlwind of problems, voids and challenges listed by the continental groups during the third and fourth day of the Congress, and I cannot help but wonder - just as during the Congress I asked myself- What is its purpose? Where do we think that we can arrive?

It is clear that confrontation with today's reality cannot be missing, because it is in history that we have to live the Gospel and our mission is addressed to contemporary man. But to offer what thing to this man? What do we have to offer to this man? What is the answer that we -as Church and as religious -must give to contemporary society and reality?

This is where we realize how we see ourselves and the mission that is entrusted to us. We sincerely fear when it is spoken about a change or a change in the things "to do " to respond to the change, perhaps suggesting that from here may come also the possibility to be up to date. If it were so, it would be like dying of anguish. Fortunately, what is asked is something beyond change, and concerns the foundations, that which still remains and gives stability, and then throws light in order to understand and to assume the change itself, without being swept away.

That which defines us "is beyond" and is of a trans-cultural nature. It is that which Jesus has given us and told us, precisely so that we can assume life with all its consequences in their just significance. It seems to me that this is what man today expects from us. It is the problem of the questions asked and of the ultimate significance, once more the problem of God and of who is God for the life of man.

But precisely here -it seems to me -the Congress has shown its greatest weakness, which is ultimately emblematic, the weakness of religious life today.

We have tackled the challenges and problems of today alone, very alone, leaving in the dark, hidden, at a time when this should have emerged with all its force, the only thing of which we dispose and which we need: Jesus Christ and the Gospel, the power of God which saves.

Perhaps, I exaggerate, but it seems to me that we have failed to be precisely where we should have been, and where the power of faith and penetration, also theological and cultural, that is rightly expected of consecrated life, should have been expressed. In this sense, Schneider's contribution was emblematic: it was a report on the future of religious life and discussed the topic ignoring the only thing that could actually guarantee such a future: the theological and spiritual dimension[2] .

It is urgent that we synthesize all the things that are being discussed, as follows: we have to overcome the .fracture between the dialogue on Christ (the first two days of the Congress) and the rest (the discussion on the problems and challenges posed by contemporary society). It is a cultural and theological issue, which has more to do with mentality than with behaviour. Not even the usual problem of unity of life, but something more profound and global, precisely a problem of mentality and of behaviour.

Religious Life today needs saints and prophets capable to show, without getting carried away by a spiritualism that finds no place in history, that Jesus Christ and the spiritual legacy of the Church are the answer. They certainly are on a level of their own. And perhaps that is exactly what we have to decide to do once and for all: leave to others that which belongs to others, and we accept -precisely in today's secularised and post-modern society- the most difficult challenge: the one that pertains to the ultimate meanings, the religious challenge.

III.  THE RETURN TO SAMARIA

What I have said so far is my main point: it is necessary to go back, with more determination, to the roots of faith, being aware in a very 'Franciscan' way that the Gospel is strong enough to provide an answer to the needs of today.

But then there is another step that we need to take: we need to bring all of this into our life and the mission assigned to us. The prophet Elijah encounters the Lord on Mount Horeb and the order he receives is very clear and likewise demanding: now turn back! God sends him back to Samaria, to his mission, because that is where he must make use of what was given to him on Mount Horeb.

The same applies to us: after encountering Jesus Christ and the Gospel at a more profound level, we must go back to our home, to our mission, "in Samaria". And there is where the other problem arises:

What does it mean to turn back? How are we to do this?

I do not have much time to extend myself in this second part of my reflection, which however, is fundamental, for it is precisely from this point, of how we know how to express our presence in history, that it is seen who we are and if we have something to say and to give to the world. I limit myself to some passages in reference to the theme which concerns us: that of the spiritual life.

1.  A risk of Spiritualism

 I come from a centre where we work very much -I think sincerely and fruitfully -in the field of the spiritual life and we are aware of several things:

First: Together with a great demand for spirituality there is a strong risk of spiritualism. To keep to the image which we have used: the conviction that between the mountain of God, the Horeb, and the place of the mission in Samaria, that there be an immediate passage: it suffices to pray more, to take up again seriously the ascetic commitment and the tending to holiness. ..and all will be solved.

It would be too simple if it were like that. Between Horeb -Christ Jesus and the Gospel - and the reality of life in which we have to express ourselves, there is no immediate passage. There is in between, a work of theological and cultural mediation which is essential, indispensable.

To say it in one word: all those great elements which compose the project of consecrated life -the community, the vows and above all, the great challenge of the mission -they need to be taken up again and it is necessary to rethink them over in greater depth. It is only in this way that we can understand what it means to return to Samaria.

There is also a great theological work to be carried on, but with an important note to remember: it must be dealt rethinking not to start "from the bottom", around the institutional problems and the simple "way of proceeding" with all the indications which can come also from human sciences; but from a discourse which is led "from the top" in a profound theological-spiritual perspective and, at the same time, attentive to the world to which the Lord sends us. Only the one who has truly found the Lord and has been taught by him can understand and then show how to live in history -in a new consecrated life -that which has been understood. But it is important to consider this, to think it over.

There is still a long way to go in this, because up until now a synthesis is missing, an organic vision which knows how to lead in unity the many important things which we speak about and which have been acquired these years. Above all, a mentality is missing, a new vision which is truly shared. This means that it is necessary to continue the reflection and the search, and it is necessary to do it together, as community and as Institute. It is a scarcely gratifying but indispensable effort, because the future of religious life also depends upon how we view it.

2.  Not only the Persons

Having a true awareness that a true renewal demands a reconsideration of all the components of Consecrated Life, then the misunderstanding would be avoided -another very diffused component of spiritualism -which can limit persons, ignoring the community component and that of the Institute. It can also be spontaneous to dream of a spiritual renewal which will regenerate everything without changing anything, but this does not function. It is necessary to be aware that the spiritual requalification which consecrated life needs, does not only concern single persons, but also the Institutes, and therefore, the place given to community and apostolic life and to Government.

There is a spiritual decline in consecrated life today which must be faced with great frankness, precisely at general level and by the Institute. If for example, it is asked, whether consecrated life today is or not in an identity crisis,. a simple criterion to understand this, it seems to me is: to see if among us we are in a condition or not to make clear and committed choices or options as Institute, as well as community.

One would want to say that it is a question of the climate. Which is the climate that one finds in entering our communities? Which are the type of discourses -or the silence -which circulate among us when we are at table? Which are the items in the order of the day for our meetings and which are the criteria which guide us when something is decided together, even at the level of government? What idea do we have of free time or of holidays? Or also: How do we live during the liturgical year, the Advent and Lent? ...It may seem to be something indifferent, and nevertheless, it is from these concrete things that definitively the quality of life of a community and of an Institute is seen.

3. The drift of Gnosticism

On the opposite side of spiritualism, is that which we can call the drift of Gnosticism. It seems that here we find the true trap into which we have fallen these years and of which it is urgent to free ourselves. I am going to try to explain what I mean and you will have to have a bit of patience.

Above, I emphasized faith and our being rooted in Christ as the only possible source that can give meaning to our vocation and mission. If we forget or neglect this, as it occurs even too easily, the only thing left is the law. And I do not mean the written law or the law that is laid down in codes, but the whole series of convictions and cultural means that we have in our head and heart and which represent the "having to be" in basis of which we judge everything and impose it on ourselves and others.

According to this, everything becomes "our project", even the new or renewed religious life, at least for those who intend to follow this way. Certainly, this is a good project, that comes from the Word of God and from many other "good" sources, such as the consideration or revision of these years, but nonetheless, our project. I do not say simply drawn up at the table -frequently this has also happened -but something of ours, our project. We know how things function or should function and this is what it should be.

Such an approach which may seem very respectable, very "nobly lay", as it is said sometimes, but which in reality is pure Gnosticism. Our work replaces or overlaps with that of the Lord. Paul would say: "The pretence of saving oneself'. This reminds me of what D. Bonhoeffer says of the community, which according to him, is not the result of our work but of God's work, and can only be accepted as a gift. The one who makes it his own project destroys the community instead of constructing it (cf. La vita commune, p. 46-47).

And in fact, why is this not a good way? Because in such an approach, strictly speaking, there is no more place for God; He is no longer necessary. Or rather one speaks of Him -How could one not speak? -but one thinks of him and his grace, as instrumental for our project. We appeal to grace to accomplish what "we" believe should be accomplished!

And then this is what happens, as recent history has shown: when our plans, even the most attractive and significant ones, are not fulfilled as we think they should have been, we give up completely. This explains why so many things, however wonderful, were born and died so quickly during these post-Council years. Only those who have understood that the building of the Kingdom and the renewal of religious life is God's work can live through and endure difficult times.

4. From Gnosticism to true gnosis

Here we are faced with the same problem: essentially a spiritual problem, of faith. The point would be the following: to pass from Gnosticism to faith, or as the ancients said, from Gnosticism to true gnosis! To become believers in order to live as true believers.

There would be so many things to make explicit on this, and it is always a question of that "sapiental reading" which we mentioned. For example, the greatly diffused intellectualistic abstractism. How easily it is thought, or we have thought, that it was sufficient "to know" how the new Religious Life should be to see it realized. How many of us have considered themselves or consider themselves "new" simply because they have a "new conception" of Religious Life !

Or rather -though this is a typical "Gnostic" attitude -to be satisfied, in the changes to be made, by "putting aside" that which does not function or is considered obsolete, without asking oneself what to choose as an alternative. It is the tendency to grant oneself freedom not to commit oneself: but not as much for the commitment. The consequence of this is the emptying: not only because sometimes we get rid of things which are good, but above all, because we have too much "left aside without choosing", without true alternatives.

5.  As synthesis, the spiritual life

I conclude by recalling once more that which according to me seems to be the true point of synthesis, starting from which all the rest can be taken: the spiritual life or if you wish, the spiritual re-qualification of our Institutes.

Unfortunately, when we speak about this -of the spiritual life and spirituality -there arises a whole series of preconceived notions which take the discussion immediately off track, and eventually force one just to give up. This is a disastrous mistake, which is indispensable to get out of it. I mention only two things:

First: certainly it is urgent to go back to a more decisive and concrete moral and spiritual tension: that which we usually called the tending to holiness. The journey of each one in Religious Life today is called to descend once more profoundly, with a humble and concrete return to all the means which can give depth to a serious spiritual life.

But -and there is the second thing, just as important -it is necessary to advance decidedly to reconsider that which we usually call spirituality and spiritual life. That which stands behind us is under many aspects a spirituality that is poor, very weak and moralistic, made of practices more than of true spiritual wisdom, and has need to be regenerated, drawing, in anew way, from the Word of God and from the great theological and spiritual ancient traditions. Only after, or together with this will the aspiration to holiness flourish again as it should.

It seems to me that it especially touches religious life, because of its nature and because of what it has always shown to be during centuries, to provide a truly new renewal of the tout-court Theology, because it is Theology as such, if we consider the teaching of the Fathers, which should speak to life. And become as such, spiritual theology.