On Thursday, August 5, the election of the new provincial of the Province of Our Lady of the Rosary was planned. Early in the morning of the fourth day of the chapter, the Mass of the Holy Spirit was celebrated. The mas was presided by Brother Bonifacio García Solís, OP, outgoing provincial and he was accompanied by Brother Pedro Luis González (former provincial) and Brother Bosco Xiong, OP (Deacon). The Eucharist focused on reflection, prayer, and a spirit of recollection about the Gospel and what will be lived today. Fray Jesús Ángel Barreda, accompanied the celebration singing.
Brother Bonifacio began by asking to pray to the Holy Spirit so that, with His strength, The Holy Spirit will now accompany the brother who was about to be elected as provincial to lead the province for the next four years.
At the beginning of the celebration of the Eucharist, Brother Bonifacio began by saying: “The Holy Spirit lives and acts in each one of us, living members of this church and of the Dominican Order. He communicates to us the strength that makes us capable of overcoming everything, of transforming everything; but there is something we need, love, brotherhood, unity, and perhaps resignation. The Holy Spirit who animates our faith when we listen to the Word, inspired by him and the sacred authors, the Holy Spirit is who gathers us to unite ourselves with Christ when we commune of the same bread and of the same chalice, He makes us share at the Lord's table ". Around this idea, the former provincial said, "We must come together and unite, especially as we commemorate this jubilee year 2021, the 800 years since the death of Saint Dominic de Guzmán, our father."
He concluded his initial greeting with this request "May the Holy Spirit come upon us, inspire our actions and generously help us to listen to him, amen." He gave way to the morning prayer with the recitation of the lauds.
In the homily, Brother Bonifacio asked the friars to allow him to make this homily a reflection and a prayer of all for all, beginning with what Jesus said to Peter: "Get away from me because you think like men" a phrase from the Gospel of the day.
“We know Lord that you guide and direct all our steps and that in your providence, you have already set your eyes through us, on who our next prior provincial is to be. We ask you from now on to help and accompany this brother. May you never abandon him, Lord, may you be with him in difficult moments, inspire him, and may his team be by his side. That among them there is communion, unity, participation in decisions, fidelity to the charism of the province, and always with an eye on the future, which must be a prophetic future so that in this way we know how to respond to the mission that you gave to the disciples to go and preach. May we be able to preach by example and by word, all time. That responsibility is not limited only to the decisions and actions of one person but to that co-responsibility of each and every one of us, because a religious does not need a superior, we are all co-responsible for the same mission, and for this, we need humility and generosity " He expressed, at the same time that he limited himself in a personal way and with broken words, as if by way of farewell: “I personally Lord, I am sorry that I have not been able to respond as perhaps you deserve and asked me. But it is also true that from the first moment I told you, this is not my mission,(Saint John XXIII) is yours. I wanted and I wish that my decisions were not mine but yours, still, against my will ”.
In this reflection, Brother Solís insisted (as part of his prayer and petition to the Lord and to the brothers) that the new prior provincial needs a united team that shares the momentous decisions that come our way along the way. Also within his words, there was a moment in which he put his emphasis in a special way in the formation of the younger friars, but above all, in the "Promotion of Vocations". He pointed out that they are a gift of God and at the same time our future. In this sense, he said: “We have been somewhat reluctant, careless, in promoting vocations in each and every one of the places where we are and have been. May we never hear again Lord, the words and expressions that we sometimes hear are so destructive. What we build, on the one hand, we can destroy with a word, with a gesture. How difficult it is to accept ourselves, Lord! But everything we have and are, it is a gift from you and we have received it from our ancestors, we are not going to take it to the grave, it will always remain here for serving you ”.
The president of the ceremony ended this brief reflection by saying that each and every one of the vicariates is requesting personnel, from Japan to Venezuela, for which reason he emphasized that: “The missions require help. Missions require vocations. The missions require to be always renewing and it is, therefore, necessary that new vocations are received and formed, helping them to assume the commitment in their journey. It is true Lord that you have given us more than a hundred young brothers, we need perhaps some more time for the number to grow and we can continue to serve in your mission. That is why we ask you Lord so that you, in your generosity, guide our steps and our decisions, that we know how to accept your will and collaborate not only with the new provincial but with his entire team with all fraternity, so be it. "
The Eucharist ended with the invocation of the Holy Spirit singing "Veni Creator Spiritus" and then going to breakfast and thus giving way to the day's work, with the election of the new provincial father in the morning.
Por: Fray Marcos Julio García Sánchez, OP (Comisión Medios de Comunicación)
Fotos Eucaristía (Fray Marcos Julio García Sánchez OP)
Translated by Modesto Fontela
