A year ago, on the feast of Blessed Peter Donders, the new Province of the Congregation of the Redemptorists, which bears his name and includes the former units of Buenos Aires, Paraguay, Santiago de Chile and Resistencia in Latin America, was inaugurated. On this occasion, Scala News asked Father Provincial Hector Javier Machado, CSsR, to reflect on the commitment of the new Province in the lands of America where the Blessed Redemptorist gave his life in favour of the weakest and most abandoned.
SCALA NEWS: Father Javier, why did you choose Blessed Peter Donders as the patron of the new Province?
P. JAVIER: After many proposals in various assemblies, when Pedro Donders was proposed as the name for our new Province at the meeting of the four Councils of the former units, those of us who seconded him, did so for the following reason, among others:
We chose this name because the Blessed Redemptorist, Pedro Donders, gave his life in Latin America. He has remained here, and here is his shrine. He is the closest thing we have to the holiness of our Congregation made flesh in Latin America, and we wanted to count on this intercessor and model Redemptorist in this challenging journey of union that we were going to undertake. The holiness of his life inspired us to detachment (distacco) and total abandonment into the hands of God, something that we would need to cultivate very much in order to be able to carry out this project of unity and communion. On the other hand, Peter Donders was clear to whom, concretely, he was announcing the Abundant Redemption, to the slaves working in the sugar cane fields of Surinam, to the Indigenous people, and the marginalised lepers in Batavia, thus reminding us that restructuring is for the mission.
SCALA NEWS Father Javier, in your first year as Pedro Donders Province, what aspects of the Blessed Redemptorist have you seen reflected in the Redemptorist pastoral or mission work in your territory?
P. JAVIER: There is one aspect of Blessed Peter Donders’ life that is reflected in the choices of our Province, and that is the concrete option for the most marginalized people, such as the slaves, the indigenous people, and the abandoned lepers of Batavia. The Pedro Donders Province has a missionary presence in remote places such as Mozambique in Africa, the Argentinean-Chilean Patagonia in the extreme south of the Latin American continent, the valleys around Cachi in Salta, the Goyano countryside in Corrientes and the countryside in Carapeguá, the mission of Itapúa in southern Paraguay, San Lorenzo in northern Chile, and all the peripheries of our urban parishes, among other remote and poor places where we reach out. In barely one year of the life of our Province, Blessed Pedro Donders reminds us that these peripheral places of our unit are the privileged places of our mission and require our religious and missionary availability to continue there and even to open ourselves to more apostolic challenges in remote and abandoned areas, to the extent that our economic situation and that of our confreres allows us to do so.
SCALA NEWS Father Javier, what details of the Blessed’s life can you suggest to the whole Congregation so that we can reflect on and get to know Peter Donders better and thus celebrate him better throughout the world?
P. JAVIER: In the two previous answers, there are details of the life of our confrere Peter Donders that can make the whole Congregation reflect, but there is an essential aspect of his life that especially enlightens us in this time that we are living as a Redemptorist family throughout the world. We refer to his ability to restructure throughout his generous life. Let us remember that Peter Donders, a diocesan priest, at the age of 32, left the comfort of Holland (today the Netherlands) and went to Surinam, for which he needed to restructure his life. Then, at the age of 56, after serious discernment and in response to the circumstances of the moment, he left his diocesan ministry and joined the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer to take up the missionary religious life, for which he also needed to restructure his life. In addition to these key moments, his whole life reflected this capacity to let go, to open himself to other realities, to rethink his missionary service, that is to say, to restructure himself for the mission, clearly identifying his most abandoned recipients and interlocutors, to whom God sent him because he was always available.
Thank you very much.
