INGREDIENTS OF SAFA VOCATIONAL ANIMATION 5

 

INGREDIENTES DE LA ANIMACIÓN VOCACIONAL SA-FA

INGREDIENTES DE ANIMAÇÃO VOCACIONAL SA-FA

INGREDIENTS OF SA-FA VOCATIONAL ANIMATION

LES INGRÉDIENTS DE LA ANIMATION VOCATIONNELLE SA-FA

4.- Team work and networking.

 

Teamwork, sharing this mission with other Brothers, is one of the elements that sustains the work of vocation animation in the communities. Sometimes being all directly involved and other times one is the responsible, but talking about it in community meetings. Apart from being an expression of fraternity, it is a way of proceeding that allows the coordination and organization of efforts with simple and practical plans at the same time. Although it is something demanding, the one in charge of vocational activities feels supported, and in the end it is more fruitful.

 

Shouldering each other. As we are here a family, examples of fraternity to the whole humanity around us, it is a must as true Brothers to share the joys, sorrows, burdens and difficulties of others. Supporting each other makes our fraternity and communion stronger and stronger. In this way we witness our vocation and fraternity to far more parts of the world.

 

Learning from each other. It is very important to share one’s mission of vocational animation with other Brothers. In this way you have the support needed in your mission and at the same time other Brothers can learn the different strategies of doing vocational animation. In one hand our task of vocational animation is achieved and in the other hand Brothers are also prepared for that mission. When we work together, it becomes more fruitful.

 

Jaime Urcelay says that: "A creative minority, committed, with firm principles, even if it does not have many resources, can achieve a lot of impact on society and can be a relevant actor in public life". Jesus Christ in the Gospels had already emphasized it to us: love among his disciples is what makes the world believe (Jn 17:21), and it is what happened when it was lived like this in the first communities as it is described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:43-47). Our strength is in the fraternity, as much as we work together in vocation promotion, so will be the fruit we will bear, even if it is not evident to our eyes.

 

In the same way it is cooperation with other persons and institutions, networking: consecrated persons, priests, lay people who offer to help contacting, encouraging or working together; formees who invite other candidates from their places of origin; participating in the vocation camps organized by the dioceses...

 

Persons who can collaborate in our mission as vocational animators. There are different ways and means to achieve the task to its completion. Having collaboration with other persons is one of it. We can have contact with those we meet on our way to have collaboration in our mission: the school principals, teachers, the parish priests, some religious men or women, friends and lay people etc… Being in contact with the diocesan vocational animators can help us too in fulfilling our mission.

 

Connecting people. Networking is very important in vocational animation. It is very certain that sometimes through one candidate, one aspirant, or their families can come vocations. Each Brother needs to take responsibility in bringing candidates to follow the same way of life.  Even former Brothers and formees, through their effective life style, can bring good fruits to the Congregation.  Putting the abilities, efforts and talents of many become synergy and it can produce an unexpected harvest.

 

Synergy means cooperation, and is a term of Greek origin, "synergía", which means "working together". Synergy is a work or an effort to perform a certain very complex task, and achieve success in the end. Synergy is the moment in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, therefore, there is a greater performance or greater effectiveness than if you act separately. The context of synergy emerged for the first time in the religious field, as established by St. Paul in his epistles, is the result of the work between man and God.

 

So synergy has something to do with synodality: we have to walk and work together, get involved in the vocational task by putting life and heart, networking with others who have responsibilities in the vocational field. One of the effects of vocational synergy is that, by doing and committing oneself, one's vocation is strengthened. Just as we say that movement is demonstrated by walking, growth in one's vocation is produced by helping others discover and develop their vocation.

 

How is my teamwork with the other Brothers in the vocational animation field?

What are the networks of vocational collaborators that I have been creating? What synergies am I generating?