"Pilot on Board”
Fr. André Antoni
Promotor of the Chapter

The first experience of the Chapter’s Promotor cannot be very far from what a pilot experiences when for the first time he finds himself in the cockpit trying to figure out how to make the plane take off. But very quickly, he’s joined by co-pilots and stewards, who fortunately speak all of the languages. As for the runway, fortunately it was well laid out by the professional work of the Preparatory Committee.

After a week, and the turbulence of the first days, we have the impression that the Chapter has achieved cruising speed. Seen from the sky, the landscape of each Province that we’ve visited reveals its majesty—please, we refer to it as the Kingdom—even if we sense that, up close on the ground, things are much more complicated. But from these heights, the frontiers become invisible between North and South, East and West. We might even discover new apostolic fields or “mobilizing works” that appear brilliantly under this Roman sun.

For sure, we might find it difficult to adjust the flight plan from one day to the next, that the commander on board will not necessarily be the same at the end as at the beginning or that we’re still not sure on which runway we’ll be landing. We just need to trust the Spirit whom we invoked at take-off, that He will direct us toward the horizon of 2017…avoiding in the process, as much as we can, the winds that work against us. As for the Promotor, even if he doesn’t know exactly where we’re headed, he’ll do his best to see to it that the landing gear is in good order.

Download: ·DIARY OF THE CHAPTER - Saturday, May 7, 2011, No. 6

Previous issues »