Jean Paul Muller SDB,
Economer General
The desire for prestige and power brings an overwhelming ambition to reach positions of command, not for the good of the community, but for the mere desire of being able to say: "I am ..." Pope Francis himself reminds us that there is an incompatibility between honours, success, fame and earthly triumphs and the logic of Christ crucified.
Of course, the concept of ambition should not be demonized, because, just as a river needs banks lest it overflow, so too, having the right "banks" can be a decisive factor in the choices of the community. Ambition is also a natural part of the human need to strive for levels of excellence: the absence of this human need leads to being apathetic and content with mediocrity.
But ambition is to be combined with temperance, the only thing that "gives him the strength to control the heart, to master himself and remain even-tempered" (Cons. art. 18).
Sometimes as religious we are so immersed in daily problems, that "who we are and what we do does not always appear to be rooted in faith, hope and charity, and does not clearly show that the initiative begins from God and always returns to Him" ("Witnesses of evangelical radicalism "Work and Temperance, GC27, 3).
For those who have positions of responsibility it must be remembered that the works require a particular style of management and administration:
• Evangelical, responding above all to the evangelical criteria of poverty and solidarity
• Prudent, typical of one who administers what he does not own
• Competent, with the competence needed to oversee sound administration
• Fraternal, attentive to the needs of the brothers with whom we share the mission
• Transparent, not afraid to give an account of one’s actions.
There is no need to shine, to be the man in command, the one who solves the eternal problems; it is important to seek dialogue and also to know how to delegate some "sensitive" tasks.
We must go back to basics, to the humility of serving rather than being served, to the figure of the servant of Yahweh, "one who,” as Pope Francis says, “is not known for great enterprises, nor famous speeches, but who fulfils the plan of God through a humble and quiet presence and through suffering".
For a Salesian the greatest ambition is to grow constantly in the effort to reach and improve the lives and education of as many boys and girls as possible.
