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For many of us, this impassioned search in today's world has meant also a rediscovery of the Exodus, of the passing from a known land that we had to leave behind in order to sail towards a shore that we were not familiar with. Like the disciples of Jesus, without realizing it, we've found ourselves in the midst of the sea, rowing against the wind and the tide, following the invitation of Jesus, rowing far out to discover another land. Leaving behind the shore of security and what is known has never been easy and perhaps more than once we have questioned if we are really going forward or falling backward, having been stripped of everything, in the most radical ontological poverty. 1. The Exodus experience in our origins. The Exodus experience that Ringlet identifies as the essence of Christianity, also characterizes the life journey of Canon John Baptist de La Salle, who left behind a known land to go forward with the first teachers, towards a new shore in 1682. Brother Luke Salm describes for us what this change from his paternal house to the Rue Neuve meant for the Founder, the house on the Rue Neuve being the true birthplace of our Institute and the beginning of our first community: "For John Baptist de La Salle, this move meant more than a change of residence. He was in fact leaving behind once and for all the comfortable world in which he had grown up to become part of the world of the poor. It is difficult for a modern reader to realize the repugnance felt by this sensitive and delicately brought-up priest when he first experienced the cramped quarters, the sounds and the smells of a quite different social milieu. The coarse food especially brought him to the point of physical nausea, which he was able to overcome only by going without food altogether for days at a time. But once committed, there was no turning back" (The Work is Yours, page 37). This text invites us to think about from where we serve poor children today. Do we do it from their own world, or from a world of privilege and comfort? The new experiences that we are living today, thanks be to God, I think ought to bring us to a second chance for reviewing our lifestyle and to live our poverty more radically. As John Paul II reminded us in his Lenten message this year: "'Becoming' little ones and 'welcoming' little ones are two aspects of one, extraordinary teaching which the Lord renews to his disciples in our time. Only the one who makes himself 'little' is able to welcome lovingly the 'littlest' brothers and sisters" (2004 Lenten message). And this is what the Rule tells us: "The Brothers are convinced that if they were to fill their hearts with the goods of this earth, they would close themselves off from God and become as strangers to the poor" (32). An Exodus experience deeper still was no doubt the move from Reims to Paris. The fears and the joys of a life in common, as well as the successes and failures in the professional and ministerial life in the Church in service of poor, young children, would now be the integral core of De La Salle's identity and that of his two associates. In the formula of consecration and association, known as the Heroic Vow, to achieve the establishment of the society of the Christian Schools, De La Salle, along with Nicolas Vuyart and Gabriel Drolin, express this common will and policy to advance together toward that new world along a road that had not been known before. Perhaps our meeting today here in Rome in 2004 might come close to that same integral core that marked the identity and the mission of our origins. And that together in Rome our Assembly might carry on that Assembly-Retreat that associated De La Salle with the first Brothers, which culminated in consecration, associating with one another to take on, together and by association, the program of evangelization in favor of the poor, open to all the young people that God entrusted to them. The Exodus dimension of that experience of the vows of 1694 can only be appreciated, broadly and accurately, in light of the written texts which came along many years later but which are linked to the liturgical days during which their Assembly was carried out. These are the Meditations that correspond to Rogation Days, the Ascension, Pentecost and the Holy Trinity.  Let's begin with Pentecost. As the first disciples scattered and hid themselves in fear, we Brothers feel called by the Spirit to leave that shore of fear and weakness behind and to walk together as we proclaim the Gospel: "An amazing thing: that these men, up to then so earthly-minded that they could not grasp the sacred truths...were all at once enlightened..." (Meditation 43.3). That Exodus experience is re-lived in the prayers for the Rogation days, renewed each day, in which we associate ourselves with the passion that God has for the "abandoned and the orphans" (Cf. Meditation 37). We are God's ministers, ignited by the passion for his saving plan and his compassion for children who are poor and abandoned. That experience is also characterized by Christ's passion for those whom God entrusted to him, and for whom he consecrated himself, even to the point of giving his life. Being one with Him in the heart of God will be the force that makes our ministry believable. (Cf. Meditation 39 for the Eve of the Ascension). The experience is also characterized by the experience of the Spirit which gives us the power to perform miracles, to touch hearts (Cf. Meditation 43).This Exodus experience, enlightened by the liturgical texts of those days of the assembly and the retreat, culminated in consecration on the Feast of the Holy Trinity. This was the mystical and apostolic integral core that characterized the Assembly of 1694. 2. The Intercapitular Meeting in light of our first community and the Assembly of 1694. Today, even more than in the past, Ringlet reminds us that the central issue is to leave Egypt and to pass through the Red Sea, to encounter foreign people, in search of something which is possible and new. To leave Egypt, the Egypt of our security and certainty. To look with new eyes at the urgencies that children and the young are living on all continents. Children and young people with no school, no family, street children. Child soldiers. Abused children. Child workers with no technical training. Children and young people who have been displaced by war. Immigrant children and young people in countries where they are not welcome and where they are rejected. Our network of ministries has been invited to fight together for the rights of children. Our universities and our formal and non-formal educational programs have this great challenge before them for the 21st century. To pass through the Red Sea of our insecurity and uncertainty. From lifestyles that are secularized, dispassionate, disillusioned and consumeristic, that do not show to the world God's passion for the poor and the dispossessed of this earth. Insecurity for the decrease of financial resources. Insecurity in our community and professional life. Insecurity due to violence and war. For political and social situations that result in poverty for so many men and women, with entire families plunged into poverty. And, above all, an openness to encounter foreign people, in new places of educational service, with new people, opening our places to so many men and women who also find their central core among us in Saint John Baptist de La Salle.3. The heart of our Meeting. We will no doubt live this meeting in the fraternal joy that always characterizes our international gatherings. May that joy find its nourishment in that first central core of our history that was the consecration of those associated for mission in 1694. But we do not want to keep on looking back at the past. Today, more than in the past, we need to invent, to innovate and to go forward without baggage. To invent, new responses that match the social, economic and political changes for the people where we ourselves are, being attentive especially to children and young people who are excluded from the benefits of globalization both in rich countries and in poor countries. To innovate, our structures for community and professional life shared with the laity. Chapter decisions on restructuring are not fulfilled only by the restructuring of Districts based on a decreasing number of Brothers or geographic advisability. Restructuring requires that it first be lived in the personal life of each Brother and each committed lay person. It is lived out in the restructuring of educational works especially by the creation of participatory structures for the mission which respond better to the problems of young people today. And to go forward without baggage, in pursuit of Jesus Christ and in the style of De La Salle's community. But none of this will be lived authentically if we do not open ourselves, in conversion, to the powerful action of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which rekindles in our hearts a passion for the poor and, based on them, a passion for all the young people we serve.Conclusion Brothers, allow me to conclude by sharing with you two signs of life and hope which are being seen in the Institute. No doubt we will share others among ourselves here. I had the good fortune last December to participate in a meeting organized by RELAL (Region of Latin America) for 70 young Brothers under the age of thirty from that Region. At the conclusion of the meeting, they wrote a Creed that reflects their concerns and their dreams. I'll share with you the first few articles. It is an act of faith which today we are invited to renew: We believe that God has gathered us together to keep schools in service of the poor, together and by association. We believe that our primary association is with the Brothers and we also associate with those who want to live the Charism of De La Salle in their lives: the dream of a human and Christian education for the poor. We believe that Jesus calls us to share, as he did, the challenge of our mission in building the Kingdom. We believe that the Holy Spirit will enlighten us along new paths of association.During my recent trip to the Middle East I was delightfully impressed by the courage and the determination of our Middle East District to respond to the tremendous needs of nearly 45,000 children and young people who have been displaced from Sudan. In the midst of their own poverty and with major support from the Brothers they will open a new community at the end of June or at the beginning of July. During my visit to the various sectors I heard the Brother Visitor say repeatedly: "It's a matter of priority...It's like the widow's humble contribution." I hope that RELAF (Region of Africa) can join in on this project as soon as possible and that other Regions in the Institute can lend a hand to our Brothers and other Lasallians from the District in that part of the world which has been so tested by violence. Let us not be afraid of our vagabond and wandering future and the rediscovery of the essence of Exodus in our Christian faith and in our Lasallian origins. May we let ourselves be guided by the Spirit along unknown roads but always open to the unforeseeable and to hope.
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Superior General's opening words at the intercapitular meeting
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