1. Objective of the Personal Project
– to equip ourselves to give an adequate response to the different challenges experienced in our missionary life and to be abreast of the times.
– To help us enter into a process of becoming authentic persons and of growing in our human, spiritual and missionary life.
– To overcome our dispersion, inconsistency, mediocrity and individualism.
2. Proposal of the Personal Project in the Congregation
2.1. Claretian Inspiration of the “personal projects”
Father Claret himself offers to several persons, among them the Missionaries of the Congregation, plans of life adjusted to the circumstances of their lifes. There are the «plans of life» of our Father Founder. (See SW pp. 509-511).
2.2. Concrete congregational guidelines
They may be found in the last congregational documents issued by the Chapters and Assemblies. (See General Assembly of Los Teques, Annales, 56 (1983-1984), pp. 3-70, n. 92. CPR 29-31, 46 and 69-91; SW 13.3.; IPM 29.1; 34.3; Dir 40; 147.1.)
2.3. Interpretation
For an adequate interpretation of the Personal Project we have to look at it from a perspective of vocational growth, from a community context, and in relation with other dynamisms, such as the personal accompaniment, and the personal and community discernment (See CPR 67; SW 13.3.; IPM 34).
3. Exigency of the Personal Project
The fundamental demand derives from our condition of missionaries, servants of the Word in Prophetic Mission for a new Evangelization.
Today we are experiencing the impossibility of being «hearers and servants of the Word» without the grace of being contemplatives in the mission and men equipped to say the «opportune and prophetic word» in this world. This demand:
1. Implies, first of all, coherence and quality of life, based on a response to our vocational call. Coherence leads to inner unification, integration of values, authenticity of witnessing, real commitment with the options made by the Congregation (MCT), and capacity to respond to the Word of God, listened to and welcomed in the heart. The quality of life leads to an unmistakable response to the call to holiness, in an apostolic and missionary key, without making compromises with mediocrity and hedonism.
2. In the second place, it demands that evangelizers be totally centered in God the Father, urged on by the love of Christ, led by the Holy Spirit and passionately in love for their brothers and sisters.
3. In the third place, it implies a strong call to conversion in the context of the present-day world, a deep missionary and prophetic spirituality founded on the Word of God and the reading of the signs of the times, and shaped by the attitudes of availability, exodus, itinerancy and docility to the Spirit and to the Word of God.
4. Drafting of the Personal Project
4.1. Concrete setting of reference
– The Constitutions, as the central axis (SW 13.2), the Directory and the guidelines of the CPR, SW, IPM.
– The personal situation: age, physical health, state of mind (specially the degree of satisfaction in his assignment and his integration into the community); spiritual situation (aspects of the life of faith) ; professional capacity for the mission entrusted; and the human and spiritual possibilities with which to face the objectives.
– The life and mission of the community. The community’s situation in which one lives: members who make the community; kind of relationships inside and outside of the community; cohesion and harmony; life of faith and prayer; environment and commitment to work; specific mission; opportunities for ongoing formation; possibilities of mutual help.
– And the Community Project: the commitments undertaken by the community into which one must integrate his personal project.
4.2. Attitudes prior to drafting it
– Realism and objectivity about our own needs and possibilities.
– Self-criticism and discernment in the light of faith. The honest search for God’s will in all that I think, feel and do.
– Generosity to respond to the call to holiness.
– A desire of missionary service from the mission entrusted to me and in the place where I have been assigned.
4.3. Contents of the Personal Project
– The present situation of the persons in all its aspects: physical, psychological, spiritual, community and apostolic.
– The particular objectives one should aim at for an integral progress and growth.
– The means to be used in achieving these objectives.
4.4. Areas included in the Personal Project
– Description of the proper situation.
– Spiritual life.
– Fraternal Living together.
– Ongoing formation.
– Mission Commitments.
– Revision and evaluation of the project.