At the end of June, in the Netherlands, amid an unusually hot spell, I was welcomed into an old Capuchin friary. Today, that house is home to a fraternity made up of Friars Minor, Secular Franciscans, and other consecrated men and women, while also remaining open to the small town that surrounds it. Its daily life has the simplicity of realities that have no need to display their vitality. There, the Provincial Councils of the Netherlands and Germany gathered to reflect together on their future as an Order in this part of Europe.
As I entered, I expected above all to encounter the burden of a presence in decline. Instead, I found something different. No one denied the difficulties, but neither did I find resignation. I encountered a living spiritual search and a genuine desire to discern together. Rather than defending what remains, that fraternity was seeking what could still be born: imagining, for example, international fraternities centered on the essentials of our charism.
Looking back on those days, my thoughts turned to other recent visits: monasteries of contemplative Sisters in Africa and Latin America, small communities, sometimes on the verge of closing, yet still capable of radiating peace. Very different places, yet united by the same question: what is the Spirit of the Lord doing today with the gift received by St Francis and St Clare?
It is true: in many regions of the West—and not only there—our presence is diminishing. We can see this simply as a decline, or we can recognise it as a passage. At the same time, elsewhere, consecrated life is putting down autonomous, indigenous roots beyond Europe for the first time, with local vocations and responsibilities. It is a movement that reminds us that the Gospel is not confined to our geographical boundaries or to the models to which we have grown accustomed: where one house closes, elsewhere a new fraternity comes into being.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that we are called to move from focusing on works and numbers to focusing on signs and relationships: less concerned with preserving certain forms of organisation and more attentive to nurturing evangelical relationships among ourselves and with the women and men of our time. In a society marked by agnosticism and religious illiteracy, a simple and welcoming fraternity can speak more eloquently than many institutions—not because those institutions matter less, but because such a fraternity makes the essential visible.
This year, we celebrate the Eighth Centenary of the Transitus of Saint Francis: his passing into eternal life. Amongst us as well, in many parts of the West, entire communities and provinces are truly facing an ending. We can postpone it through strategies of survival, or we can pass through it in faith. After all, if we are unable to look death in the face, what do we have to say about the Lord of life?
As I left that ancient friary, I found myself thinking that the future of the Order will resemble less and less the image we inherited and preserved for so long. Yet if we look with faith and wisdom, we will recognise what truly matters: the Gospel continues to take root.