I gave my speech the title UAC – MY LOVE. Love in times of trial. Confession and challenge.
This will not be a lesson. What then would these thoughts be? A confession. Simply a confession. Love needs confessions, love flourishes in the atmosphere of declarations. But we must also remember that confession carries a risk.
In the Easter Liturgy we hear these words: “Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega, all time belongs to him, and all ages; to him be glory and power, through every age and for ever. Amen.”
I love the UAC
I love the UAC because it is a living AMEN in this sense, in this light and in this perspective. Pallotti, organizing the structures of the Union, tells us that it is in the time, in the history between Alpha and Omega that each of us will have to find our own place and our own meaning.
I love the UAC because according to Pallotti’s thought, we are people who live for the Kingdom of God, that is, for the destruction of sin, the salvation of souls and for the glory of God. This is not a special mission or function in the Church. It is an ordinary model of life for all baptized. A model that is fulfilled in the encounter with God and with one’s neighbor.
I love the UAC because it has been accepted in history with difficulty. Like love in good and bad times. As sports fans say: Proud after victory, faithful after defeat. Also today the Union is facing many challenges. One of them is the attempt to update, to actualize (using the language of new technologies). Congresses, meetings the General Councils and Coordination Councils at the different levels – all try to answer the question: how to be the Union today? How and which tasks should be carried out? I love the UAC because – as we often repeat – the Union is our way of being Church. We are then invited to become Church – this small flock of the faithful – of which Joseph Ratzinger wrote. We must therefore experience the sacramental dimension in the world, as the Second Vatican Council taught us. Because only in the ecclesiastical context does the UAC show itself – as in the times of Pallotti – as a method of evaluating the world and living in it, as it is in reality. In this way we avoid the temptation to be like the butler who silently looks at the whole house, but we will be a living part of the community.
I love the UAC because it’s a way to seek God! “Seek God and you will find Him. Seek Him at all times, and you will always find Him. Search for Him everywhere, and you will find Him everywhere. For the true Union to be not only a dream, but our daily reality, we must learn to give priority to God, not to ourselves. To live according to the simple rule of giving priority to what we have received.
I love the UAC because it is a place of death and resurrection, where we help each other to be reborn. It is the Holy Spirit and the life-giving union with Him that makes the true adjournment! Then there will be new and unconventional ways of life, that is, Pallottine responses to the challenges of our time. “Behold, I make all things new” – says Jesus. So perhaps it is better to call this crisis of aggiornamento an Easter – behind which are hidden grace, opportunity and the possibility of a new and true life.
I love the UAC because it seems that the Pallottines, in undertaking the process of unification of the two congregations, have read the moment of power. This is a very serious move in the Union. Not only in the structures. The process of unification of the two Congregations shows the dynamic and pulsing heart of the charism, nature and spirituality of the Union. There are no closed and rigidly defined spaces once and for all. We are a living organism. We are together, no longer as persons side by side with one another, but as brothers and sisters.
At the beginning I quoted the words of the Paschal Liturgy, during which also resounds the hymn of praise of the Exultet. I would like to recall the words – just an appeal – of Saint Augustine, who says: “Sing a new song! Don’t let anyone repeat the old choruses. Sing the love songs of your country! (…) just like travelers (pilgrims) sing them, and often they also sing at night! All the noises around are frightening. But they also sing when they are afraid of bandits!”
And to finish still a poem – because love loves poetry. May it also be a wish:
” He didn’t say this would be a parish office with merit and virtue files.
Or a club for the saved With air conditioning and reading room of the Bible
He didn’t promise a palace With the throne room shining with graces
He did not announce a cathedral With perpetual adoration
He talked about the Father’s house. He said we’re going to live together.
That this will be the real home.”
Janusz Pasierb
May the Union really be our home, where we will live and sing the new song, without repeating the old choruses.
Sr. Anna Maldrzykowska SAC
