Category Archives: Eric’s letters

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel” (which means, God-with-us). (Matthew 1:23)

“Christmas has always been about this: contemplating the visit of God to his people.” (Pope Francis)

“I was born, born for you, born in a cave, in December, in the cold, on a wintry night, in poverty and in solitude, unknown even to the poorest. Why was I born in this way? So that you may believe in my love, since my love for you knows no limit. As I have loved you so much, put all your hope in me. I teach you to love me… Ever since my birth I have shown myself to you and have put myself entirely into your hands. … you have been able to see me, hold me, hear me, serve me, console me…. I did not give myself to you just at my birth for a few days or years, but I gave myself into your hands for ever, till the end of time.” (Brother Charles’ meditation on the nativity scene)

Dear brothers,

Christmas greetings to you all!

How are you and your community celebrating Christmas this year? Are there new and creative ways in your celebration from last year’s? Is Christmas still the gentle, quiet and humble presence of the Emmanuel in our busy and loud world? Or do we give the market, tourism and entertainment industries the license to plan our Christmas celebrations? It would be good to take a look at our Christmas celebrations this year vis-à-vis the reality of our world today with all its lights and shadows. I wonder how do families in Gaza, Ukraine, Haiti or any place and people suffering from social unrest, extreme poverty and displacement celebrate Christmas this year? Is the reality of suffering more close to them than that of Christmas joy? We take a reflective look at our world and in interpreting the signs, we celebrate Christmas in a more responsive and appropriate way.

And what about mother earth? Christmas is not only for the human world but for the whole universe, including the ecological environment which is radically altered by the mystery of God-in-the-flesh. I wonder how are sister water, brother wind, sister bird, brother forest celebrating the season? Are the complaints about pollution, climate change, imbalance of the ecosystem depriving them of Christmas joy? For us who may be in the brighter side of the world, what would be our response to the invitation to celebrate the Emmanuel amidst the thundering noise of violence, greed, apathy towards life in all forms of our world today?

The virgin birth is not only a person but a path. Right in the very ground of our barrenness, vulnerability, helplessness as people and environment, traces of new life appear in the horizon, little manifestations of the Emmanuel break open our consciousness to give birth to new initiatives and shared dreams. As people of hope, we take a long, loving look at the world as the Father sees it when He gave the world its Messiah at the first Christmas. The world was not ready. He has to be born in the poverty of the manger, in the periphery of the village. This is not some sentimental or wishful thinking or a deus ex machina but a call to a radical, paradigmatic shift for the birthing of a new heaven and a new earth.

Christmas is a call to solitude of the heart. True solitude is recognizing, naming and claiming our poverty, our emptiness which is also our unlimited space for others. At the very core of our solitude, we encounter the Emmanuel in all men and women as brothers and sisters not only our friends but also those who kill, lie, torture, rape, and wage wars. They become our flesh and blood. When our hearts are full of the goodness of the Emmanuel and empty of fear, anger, indifference, greed, “we become a welcoming home for God and for our whole human family on earth.” (Henri JM Nouwen)

Ours is to wait, not passively though but actively. When we wait, we know that what we are waiting for is growing from the ground on which we are standing. We wait in the conviction that a seed has been planted two thousand years ago and that something has already begun. We are called to be present to the Kairos of Christmas with the certainty that something is happening where we are and that we want to be present to this moment minus the external features of the season. God has planted generously the seed of divinity in every human heart and in our world and we wait with firm conviction and joyful hope with Mary who sang, “the Almighty has done great things and holy is His name.” Blessed are we when we see what God wants us to see in this great season of Christmas.

Some Announcements:

There is a Month of Nazareth organized in the Philippines on July 1-26, 2024 for English speakers. Registration fee is $400/participant.

Preparations are on the way for our World Assembly in Lulunta, Argentina in January 2025. In the coming weeks, you would be receiving letters from the international team so that we see, reflect, discern and walk together the direction, content and process of the Assembly.

Brothers, I thank you very much for your beautiful witness and firm resolve to follow Jesus more closely in the footsteps of Brother Charles. May our faithful practice of the spirituality so free our hearts that the Emmanuel could give birth in us and in our ministry new and fervent ways of encountering the many faces of the poor today.

With my fraternal affection,
Eric

Read in PDF format: Christmas Letter 2023 to the Brothers around the World. Eric LOZADA, international responsible en

(In celebration of the first anniversary of the canonization of Brother Charles de Foucauld)

“He (Brother Charles) understood that God wanted him to be satisfied with clearing a path so that others could plant better. But he was thinking only in terms of announcing the Gospel to the people of the Sahara. He had no idea God was working through him to prepare a gift for the entire Church.” (Archbishop of Marseilles, France, preaching about Brother Charles leading to his canonization)

Dear Brothers,

Warm fraternal greetings to you all!!!

How is everything with you at the moment? What are significant experiences of joy, growth, transformation in your personal life, your friendships with brother-priests in your diocese, in your ministry to those in the peripheries? What are spaces of discouragement, stagnation and struggle? How are you coping? To whom do you go for support? Where are you being led by the Spirit in your resolve to be a joyful missionary of the Risen Christ? How are you growing in the discipline of daily adoration, review of life, desert day, gospel meditation, attending monthly meeting? How do these spiritual practices strengthen your commitment to a call within a call to be a universal brother, gentle presence, contemplative companion, prophetic preacher, missionary disciple of Jesus of Nazareth in the footsteps of Brother Charles?

I humbly pose these questions with you. Questions are like compass for the soul seeking the True and the Good amidst the complex, diverse, confusing paths of our world. I honestly struggle with you these questions. Precisely, in this tension, the grace of God works unconditionally to mellow our hearts. The key is to hold the question long enough until it strips us naked of all that is not true and not good in us. AA people have this to tell us – keep coming back to the practice. We are not “super” human beings who always live from our ideal. No, we are wounded, weak pastors who, very often live from our frailties and inadequacies yet we are so dearly loved and are called to love like the Master.

Brothers, I have the occasion to write to you as we celebrate the first anniversary of the canonization of Brother Charles. I was a witness to the joy and jubilation last year at St Peter’s Square in Rome. It was a Kairos moment not only for us but more so, for the universal church. When his name was announced at the beginning of the Eucharist, joyful cheers and loud claps of affirmation and gratitude to God were heard from the people. Now, the same euphoric joy is lived out in the chronos of concrete, little yet decisive acts of prophetic witness in the peripheries, inspired by the contemporary message of Brother Charles. The call of the synod on synodality invites us to participate in a universal journey as fellow pilgrims (not tourists), brothers and sisters all, walking side by side each other, collaborating, discerning and listening to one another where the Spirit is leading our world today.

In the course of our preparation last year, we from the International Team have asked with you – how has the canonization made an impact on you? Now, one year after, we ask with you something more specific – now that Brother Charles has been recognized as a gift to the church, what is ours to do to share this gift to others who are lost, lukewarm, curious, sympathizers but wanting to deepen their spirituality. Like the mandate of the apostles after the Resurrection to spread the news that He is alive, we have been called from being too inward-looking to be more out-going, to tread on unfamiliar territories, starting from simple personal encounter in the tomb of our losses, on the disappointing road of our Emmaus or in the breaking of bread with the poor and the marginalized. It was the Spirit of the Risen Christ that fired them up to be courageous, tireless, and joy-filled missionaries. How about us? What is our story? How have we been fired up in our mission to pass on the gift? How could we initiate personal encounters with brother priests of our diocese to brothers beyond our diocese or country? How do we do mission with the other branches of the Spiritual Family in the spirit of fraternal collaboration and co-responsibility for the gift?

In the Philippines, we have organized ourselves with the other members of the Spiritual Family and are committed to be fellow pilgrims, recognizing our unique gifts yet called to witness unity, social friendships, fraternal sharing, co-responsibility in the life-long journey of missionary discipleship and fidelity to the charism of Brother Charles.

How about you and your local fraternity, the national and continental fraternities? Where are you being led by the Spirit? What is yours to do? We could not just sit down and operate behind our little world without a concern for the bigger reality of God’s Kingdom here and now.

May the coming of the Spirit like tongues of fire set our hearts aflame as we take on the task of doing mission like our very own, Brother Charles. Though things were not always clear to him where to go and what to do, he never stopped in ambivalence and half-heartedness. Rather, his passion to imitate the love of God in Jesus of Nazareth so consumed him that he tirelessly wrestled with every human condition that separates us from God, from the poor and from one another. St Charles de Foucauld, pray for us!!

With much love and fire,

PDF: Letter of Eric, 15 May 2023 eng

Day of Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth
Christmas Letter to the brothers around the world

“Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel” (Isaiah 7:14, NIV)

“It is not necessary to teach others, to cure them or improve them; it is only necessary to live among them, sharing the human condition and being present to them in love.” (a quote from Brother Charles)

Dear brothers, I greet you all with great joy and hope-filled peace from the Emmanuel!!!

How is everything with you? What realities and concerns are you holding these days? Are you radiating the Christmas message to the people around – your brother-priests, your bishop, the margins in the parish, your immediate neighbors? Are you attending to your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health while you do multi-tasks in ministerial work? What spaces are you creating in community for the Emmanuel to come into your lives together? What invitations from the Spirit are you responding so that you may journey together as a synodal community? And how is the life and charism of our dear Brother Charles making a difference in the way you live your call and in the quality of your response to these invitations? These are big questions that I wish to contemplate with you. Let our life in fraternity and our doing missionary work be deepened by the questions we hold.

What a joy to write to you a letter at this season of Christmas. More than just a mere tradition in the Fraternity, I am writing to you with a heart of a brother who longs to be in communion with you and who has a great admiration for all your creativity, fidelity, hard work and passion for Jesus and the Gospel in the footsteps of Brother Charles. I am holding your stories and faces – those whom I have met in person and those of you whom I have heard living Nazareth in the peripheries. (While writing this letter, I am told about the passing of 2 senior brothers, Alvaro Gonzalez from Chile and Antonino from Madrid fraternities. While we grieve their losses, we equally rejoice over 2 of our brothers who come home to the Father as faithful disciples of Jesus. May they now enjoy eternal peace).

Christmas is a “Kairos moment,” the most appropriate time to take a long, loving look with new eyes at all of creation in different levels and forms– the human community, natural ecology, politics, economics, culture, religion, blended social relationships– in the light of the loving plan of the Creator. Through the mystery of the Incarnate God, all of creation, including natural ecology is radically transformed as a meeting place with God. What used to be radical opposites in the eyes of the world are now bridged and restored to their original setting in God’s great design. Everything now is in God. Everything belongs to God. It is an inclusive universe after all.

But the world seems to be not ready for this God. It insists in a world where God is edged out and humanity creates an idol of the egoic self with self-serving, self-referential, delusional views, assumptions and ideologies. This was made prominent during the pandemic. The way we regard ourselves in relation to the Other, be it from within the family, parish community or among nations, we wear the masks of mistrust and deception concealing a lie that the egoic self is the reference point and the other a disposable entity. With globalized market, everything has been commodified. Notwithstanding the benefits of technology and social media, they have become “faithful servants” of the market. The poor, including Mother Earth as the new poor is crying for help. Power, authority and wealth could be used to restore, rehabilitate, serve and care but it seems that greed, apathy, indifference has gained the upper hand. It blinds the mind and numbs the heart from taking responsibility. So, it’s a dark world after all.

Precisely, this was the spirit of the original Christmas – the world was not ready (there is no room in the inn) that the Emmanuel has to be born in the periphery, at the dead, quiet night, without fun fares. This is the wisdom of Pope Francis’ invitation for us to go to the peripheries and meet God there. We just need to ask the Spirit to give us new eyes to capture the signs, ordinary and insignificant they may be but they are gifts from God leading us to new light. In our scripture readings at Mass, we have been listening to stories of insignificant personalities as the path ways of the Emmanuel. They all seem to be facing moral dilemmas – in their barrenness, where is the light? In following their own plan, where is the divine plan? In their loneliness, helplessness, fear, shame, where is the way out? Precisely, in these very moments, God decides to come and live amongst us.

The only path that the Emmanuel chose to come into the world seems to be that of ordinary people in the peripheries, facing realities of suffering and pain and struggling to make a fundamental choice, either for hope or despair, for violence or for peace, for darkness or for light, for God or against Him. The Spirit through an angel has to overshadow them in order to free them from everything that makes them unfree so that may freely submit to the bigger divine plan. When in our lives and ministries, we choose to collaborate with others than to be self-sufficient, to listen to the other than to do our own self talk, to care than to incapsulate ourselves in our own comfort, to understand the other patiently than to insist that we be understood, to serve rather than be served, we become little path ways of the Emmanuel present in our world, one moment, one person at a time. Our is little and small, a daily choice to make but precisely it becomes the sacred path of the Emmanuel when we do it very well. Brother Charles is our icon of hope. Pope Francis has recognized him in Fratelli Tutti as our path to dialogue and universal fraternity. Ours is to do our daily and monthly practice of the spirituality with resolve and determined action that we become joyful signs of the Emmanuel in our world today.

So, rejoice, dear brothers, Christmas is after all, a season of glad tidings and hope.

Here is a path for us so that we may deepen our practice and devotion to Bro Charles especially now that his life and charism has been recognized by the universal church. After the canonization, I received 20 relics of Bro Charles from the dicastery through Bishop John MacWilliams of the Sahara. These relics are available for us. We, from the international team, wish to hand carry them to you after you have written a letter of request addressed to ericlozada@yahoo.com. First come, first serve. The only requirement is that you organize a public devotion to his honor, most especially in seminaries and parishes named after him. Thank you very much.

May the Emmanuel empower us to capture the signs of our times, listen to their invitations in prayer and discernment and act on them in collaboration with God’s people as pathways of the Emmanuel becoming present in our world today.

With my fraternal love and embrace,
Eric, your servant-brother

PDF: Christmas Letter to the Brothers around the World

EASTER LETTER TO THE BROTHERS AROUND THE WORLD

FROM OPEN TOMBS TO NEW PATHWAYS OF HOPE

“You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth, you will bring me up again.” (Psalm 71:20)

“You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.” (Isaiah 26:19)

“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Daniel 12:2)

“We are an Easter people,” as Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle puts it in one of his books. The Easter reality is reminding us that amidst all the violence, there is a much greater reality of peace in our world today. This is not some kind of magic formula but an expanding and deepened consciousness that springs from the depths of the earth overflowing into every reality of our world. The way to move to this Easter reality is to see humanity and the world through the lens of God who raised Jesus from the dead. In God, the whole universe is birthing with the joy of new life in the Risen Christ in spite of everything that tries to sabotage this life. We thrive on as people of hope, mature children of the light even when death and darkness seem to be the predominant reality today. We continue to be ambassadors of hope amidst the realities of war and violence in Ukraine, Myanmar, Haiti, Afghanistan, of poverty and inequality in the countries of Africa and Asia, of ecological destruction that takes a heavy toll on the poorer sectors of a country, economic meltdown, political rivalries that try to cancel one another, of the pandemic that gravely affects the vulnerable and the poor across the globe. The list goes on.

Hope of new life in the Risen Christ is an antidote to the prevailing attitudes against the dark realities of today –that of wishful thinking as a way of denial or escape from reality or being too enmeshed in our dark reality that we become prisoners of gloom and utter helplessness or that of doing everything possible to survive, thinking only of our own private good without regard for the common good and care for our common home. Hope is not a flight from but a going through the dark tunnel of reality with a leap of trust to the Giver of Life and Light, the God who is always ahead and beyond. Hope is a loving surrender to the truth that death is not the final say to everything even if evil seems to have the upper hand. The challenge of Hope today is to build fraternities of hope, people who journey together, have a positive regard for one another, listen to one another with respect and discern where humanity has become part of the problem rather than part of the solution to the ills of our world. As people of hope, we walk together as brothers with our sisters towards the realization of God’s dream for our world today in the Risen Christ. Individual efforts could only do as much. Our world today is groaning for a new world order that is shared, grounded in the Easter message of hope.

But first things first. Let us first recognize together where our world’s tombs are of which God in the Risen Christ is willing to open with us and through us. Overt war, poverty, destruction of the environment, migration, global divide are symptoms of ill will buried in the tombs of human hearts. Greed, indifference, violence, resentment, hatred are concomitant human dispositions that are based on disrespect, distrust, distortion of values, blindness of the goodness of the other and of the world. These dispositions become mental attitudes that foment structures of violence, injustice, abuse of power that cloud the mind and numb the heart of individuals in a system. Collectively, it becomes a culture wherein untruth becomes true, darkness becomes light in a very distorted way. Hope is rooted in a firm conviction that God alone in the Risen Christ could open our tombs and transform our ill will to good will. Left to ourselves, we are too blind, wounded, broken, and helpless.

And so, we hope together as brothers with our sisters in the journey. Starting from our local fraternities, faithful to our spiritual practices of review of life, desert day, adoration, fraternity meeting, we gift hope to our world today, one day at a time. We dialogue and discern together where the Spirit is leading us – personally, communally, globally. No one stands alone. Every personal listening is a global listening. But the activity is mainly that of God in the Risen Christ. Ours is to listen deeply and cooperate to God’s saving and even repairing activity of our beautiful world. The activity of hope grounds itself from Jesus’s gift of the passion (from the Latin word, passio, meaning non-activity) Jesus saves the world primarily from his passivity on the cross more than his activity of healing and preaching. When we feel beaten up, misunderstood, humiliated, not in control, mistreated in our offer of love and goodness to others, we are undergoing our passion as lovers of humanity. Here and only here are we invited to pose a moral question – how will we respond to evil? What kind of heart shall we offer to perpetrators of evil? What kind of lives are we willing to give to our world today? Unforgiving or forgiving? Angry or sober? resentful or loving? Only when Jesus freely offered his forgiveness to humanity that rejects his offer of love that the Father gave him the new life.

We are invited to be heralds of this new life to our wounded, violent and fragmented world. We hold both our joy and our sorrows, our indifference and our care, our fears and our willingness to be sent. May our universal Brother, St Charles de Foucauld continue to inspire and accompany us in our desire to cry the gospel with our lives. May his recognition as a saint be an impetus for our church today that is envisioning herself as brother and sister to all, missionary to the peripheries, a prophet of dialogue and of care for our common home.

Eric Lozada

PDF: 22-04-17, EASTER LETTER 2022, engl., Eric Lozada

But now, declares Yahweh, come back to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning. Tear your hearts and not your clothes, and come back to Yahweh, your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, and he relents about inflicting disaster. (Joel 2:12-13)

All of us, when we were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death. By our baptism into his death, we were buried with him, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glorious power, we too should begin living a new life… [ ] our former self was crucified with him… [ ] and now the life that he lives is life with God. In the same way, you must see yourselves as being dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus. (Romans: 6: 3-11)

Greetings to all of you, my dearest brothers!

As I am writing to you, I am holding you and the complex realities that each of you are facing because of this global crisis. It seems that the pandemic is revealing to us our strengths and our weaknesses, in personal, national and global relations, in the economic, political and religious spheres. The pandemic is a time of great unveiling, as Fr Richard Rohr puts it and as Pope Francis seems to imply as he engages in a systemic deconstruction of our global structures in Fratelli Tutti. I wish not to add to their magnificent work. Rather, I intend to situate our celebration of Lent with what the pandemic reveals and teaches our world. I would like to visualize the celebration of Lent as a downward spiral journey, the deeper we go, the more we expose what is hidden in human hearts and in the subcultures of our world that hold us hostage in the dungeon of sin, fear, indifference, violence. If we all take this journey together with honesty and firm resolve, we reach rock bottom from which all the lies of sin, the delusions and distortions of this world originate. This is our entombment with Christ, as St Paul says, where our old selves are buried with Christ so that the Father could give birth to a new life in us in Christ. It is my hope that at the end of our 40-day Lenten journey through Easter, like the apostles after the resurrection, we all walk with renewed joy and courage crying out the message of God’s love and delight for our world.

Our journey starts with what the Prophet Joel proposes, “Come back,” “turn to God with all of your heart.” We start the journey with a question: Whose am I? To whom does the world turn? If we take a long, loving look at the world and ourselves, it seems that the world, we, have many false gods (manifest or hidden) that we worship, attend to, give all our time and energy. Our addictive society seems to have deep-seated forms of idolatry, supplanting the true God of our deepest longing with the false gods of superficial living. That is why, the Prophet recommends fasting, weeping and mourning. We need to fast from what we feed our minds and hearts every day that are toxic and not coming from the Gospel values. We need to weep over the violence, injustice, indifference, greed of this world because, in very subtle ways, we have been operating under their spell. We mourn over the mistakes of the past and learn not to repeat them. St Paul calls this a baptism into Christ which is also a baptism into his death. Our baptism is our initiation and our communion in the Paschal Mystery. What is it that we are willing to die to for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel? We need to name our dying. And in the passivity of our dying into Christ, the Father’s redemptive work in us and in our world restores us to original life of grace. When we consciously die to the old self, the self which is enslaved by sin, we become free and empty of ourselves yet living fully and authentically in the new life of Christ and in Christ.

And so, dear brothers, may we all commit to this journey from slavery to freedom, from fear to trust, from darkness to light, from sin to grace. May this journey be our humble yet sincere gift to the people entrusted to us and to our anxious, fragmented and violent world. Allow me to express also my deep appreciation for your humble witness of the Gospel and zealous care for the poor in your own places of assignment, especially at this time of the pandemic. My gratitude to our brothers who wrote the five texts and the translators of those texts. They were meant to prepare us spiritually for the canonization of Brother Charles. May I invite those who have not read and reflected on those texts to access them at our website: www.iesuscaritas.org. And for those who have, continue to go back to these texts.

Complementing our Lenten journey, I thought of introducing the process of re-grounding. In my correspondences with Cardinal Stella of the Congregation for the Clergy, he has been asking me important questions about how are we in terms of our fidelity to the charism of Brother Charles and how are we growing in mission as diocesan priests inspired by his spirituality. From these conversations, the whole idea of coming up with a global survey is born. Instead of responding to these questions alone, I thought of us together in an adventure of finding and reclaiming our precious gems which may be hidden from us but which continue to inspire us. I am proposing a process in two phases.

The first phase will be more on facts. Here, I am making an appeal to the local, national and continental brother- responsibles to do the major work. You, brother local responsibles shall provide us with facts from your local fraternity as to how many are the regular members and other important information. When the survey form arrives, please read it carefully. Be mindful that the facts that you are providing our global fraternity are true. A note on regular members. They are brothers who have been regularly attending your monthly meeting for at least a year or have been regularly connecting digitally to you or to any of the brothers from your local fraternity. If the brother is in a remote assignment but he regularly connects, he could still be a regular member. Brothers who are interested of our spirituality but could not commit to regular attendance at meetings or regular correspondences, they are called “sympathizers.” The key is commitment. Survey form will be coming from your national/country responsible. There is a time frame of two weeks for you to fill up the form and return it to your country responsible. I sincerely thank you for your generosity.

The second phase will be some months or a year later. The process will be more of a communal review of our lives as to how are we growing in terms of our fidelity to the charism of Brother Charles and how are we growing in our missionary zeal as diocesan priests inspired by Brother Charles.

Thank you very much, dear brothers. Please know that I continue to hold your continent and your country in my prayer. Kindly hold me also in your prayer. I need that.

With fraternal delight,

Eric LOZADA, international responsible

Dumaguete, Philippines, February 2021

PDF: Lenten Letter 2021 of Eric, eng

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Come, Holy Spirit, send forth the heavenly radiance of your light! Come, Father of the poor; Come, Giver of gifts; Come, Light of the heart; Greatest Comforter, Sweet Guest of the soul… fill the inmost heart of Your faithful, cleanse that which is unclean; water that which is dry; heal that which is wounded; bend that which is inflexible; fire that which is chilled; correct what goes astray. (from Veni Sancti Spiritus)

Beloved brothers,
this prayer to the Spirit, I pray with you with greater intimacy and focus. The corona virus is compelling us all to stop and take a long, evaluative look at what have happened locally and globally that has led us to where we are now in order that the Spirit may lead us to new creative paths. The pandemic is teaching us that our world needs renewal or else we are all going to perish. Our regard for every human person, systems operative in the family, neighborhood communities, schools, churches, religions, politics, economics, technology, social media, our care for Mother Earth, they all need to be re-grounded on more universal, inclusive, equitable, less judgmental, adversarial, principles in order for us to thrive anew as a civilization of love and life.

We welcome anew the Spirit at Pentecost but we somehow forget that the Spirit was here from the very beginning at Genesis. (cf. Genesis 1:2) The movement of the Spirit has always been to bring order from chaos, to give life, to lead us to all truth, to teach us everything that we need to know. (John 16:13) But the same Spirit blows wherever it wills and we cannot tell where it comes and where it goes. (John 3:8). Our theologizing, our calculated thinking and planning cannot predict nor inhibit the way of the Spirit. It always surprises us, expanding our vision and freeing our hearts more and more from all encumbrances so that we are free for God in our world. Just as we cannot see air, silence, the Holy Spirit renews our world in ways beyond our seeing. We simply have to be present to Presence in every moment.

Our world including Mother Earth is in birth pangs about what is the future like after the pandemic. The great mystic Julian of Norwich, in his 13th Showing, says it, “All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.” He explained this to mean, to be joyful in all circumstances, however adverse, for the reason that all things will ultimately be put right in Christ. We need to be careful about how to receive this message. Does this mean we simply fold our hands and leave everything to God? Is this some kind of soft theology that promises manna from heaven amidst our suffering?

The pandemic is teaching us to hope. Hope is our capacity to entrust the future in the hands of a loving God. Hope is not something soft; it is a struggle to hope. We struggle because it seems that evil, tyranny, violence, fear, death is more dominant than goodness, peace, unity, love, life. God’s response to evil is hidden in the risen Christ. He never rescued his Son at the crucible of suffering but he eventually validated him with new life after he passed through helplessness, fear, violence, death. God will ultimately vindicate us and will show the world and all its systems how wrong it was in many ways. (cf. John 16:8) But we need to decide. In the face of evil and suffering, shall we allow our hearts to be dominated by fear, hopelessness, indifference, bitterness, anger, disappointment or shall we be more open, responsive, loving, forgiving, life-giving? The Spirit renews our world and all of creation in more patient, gentle and humble ways. We are invited not to stand in its way but to flow with the agenda of God for our world.

So, what is ours to do to? What are the possibilities and challenges that are being offered to us that we need to attend to with renewed courage and hope? Someone once said, “today we don’t need big men with little hearts but small men with big hearts for only the little and the small can pass through the eye of the needle.” Little acts of goodness done with extravagant and committed hearts. Our new normal today is an imperative to return to the basics of Gospel living, corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Our own Brother Charles has left us a spirituality – imitate Jesus in Nazareth, seek the last place, live simply, do apostolate of goodness one person at a time, be a brother and friend to every person regardless of color, creed, status, be close to the poor. Pope Francis is urging us to go to the peripheries, be harbingers of the joy of the gospel, safeguard minors and vulnerable adults, engage in on-going formation, protect Mother Earth our common home. We also need to go back with new enthusiasm to the basics of our spiritual practice – daily adoration, daily meditation of the Gospel, review of life, monthly day in the desert, fraternity meetings. We renew our fidelity to the practice not to perfect ourselves but to take greater responsibility for the gift and let its fruits flow to others infinitely until God is glorified in their own lives.

Brothers, in this time of the pandemic, we receive a special gift from Mother Church – declaring Brother Charles a saint. Together with the other members of the spiritual family including those who have been inspired by Brother Charles but are not “canonized” members of the spiritual family, we thank the Spirit for this gift. We hope and pray that Brother Charles’s life, message, intuition, legacy may be made more available and be an inspiration to many people, as the Spirit wills. For ourselves too, we pray for greater resolve to witness in our lives and ministry what Brother Charles had lived for.

I end my letter with the Collect at Mass today – “Father, sanctify your whole church in every people and nation and pour out the gifts of the Holy Spirit across the face of the earth.”

Thank you very much. We continue to hold each other and our world in prayer. Please pray for me also.

Your brother and servant responsible,

Eric LOZADA
Philippines, 31 May 2020

PDF: Pentecostal Letter from the general responsible to the brothers, Eric LOZADA, Pentec.2020, eng

Philippines, 12 April 2020

I am risen, and I am with you still, Alleluia. (cf. Ps 139:18)

Beloved brothers,

I am writing to you from my hermitage just like many of you in quarantine. This imposed enclosure is an excellent invitation for daily adoration, Gospel meditation, desert day, review of life, praying for the world, especially the poor, with fidelity, intensity and focus. A quality life of solitude and prayer is our humble act of charity to our world in pandemic.

Looking through my window, I am watching for signs of new life from Nature. It’s dry and humid here but birds are playing and singing their unique repertoire of songs, butterflies gently flying from flower to flower looking for nectar, trees are looking green and giving shade in spite of the battering heat. Amazing, how nature has its own way of heralding the Resurrection. No worries, complete abandon to God who takes care of them. We, humans are supposed to be a superior breed because of our reason but the same has systematically edged out trust in God in the day-to-day and we rely more on our egoic thinking. This same thinking has been the cause of violence, hatred and mistrust. Resurrection is offering forgiveness, love and trust. The world has to choose.

We are in enhanced community quarantine until May 3 but priests are given access passes for liturgical and charitable works. I have been using it every day to visit people where I am invited to accompany the dying and the family in their loss, facilitate dialogue in families, give food and money to those who have been laid off from work. Someone moved me to be with the people in their helplessness especially because they could not go to church and pray. The Presence brought by my presence is a soothing balm of comfort for them. I have been extra careful though to follow the protocols of hygiene and distancing in order not to give more harm to the community. This morning, my friend Lemuel came to the hermitage very hungry, haggard-looking, asking for food for his starving 4 young kids. Lemuel has been laid off from work. Handing over to him some goods, I am blessed by his joy but I also feel the uncertainty in his eyes.

After prayer this morning, I take a long loving look at the map posted at my wall. My eyes are fixed at the four continents of Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas. The virus is indeed a great equalizer for rich and poor countries are suffering from the same fate. I see faces of doctors, nurses, patients, their families, worried, afraid yet fighting for life. (While writing, I am informed that my sister working as a nurse in the US is COVID positive. Her family is now at risk).

The world is undergoing its passion. I see faces of helplessness, worry, fear, sadness, hatred, violence everywhere in multiple disguises. I ask: what is the message of the Resurrected Christ to our world today? What is God inviting us to see? Where is he leading us? Does Resurrection mean He will rescue us from all these? What is God’s response to His people in pandemic? How is the gentle message of the Resurrection be heard amidst the overpowering news of death, suffering, conflict? Where is the path of hope and new life in this our difficult time?

Brothers, please suffer with me these questions. I need you, we need each other, the people need us. Resurrection is not some cheap joy nor sweet sounding words to rescue us from our suffering. We have to strain our ears and stretch our hearts to hear the Message. We wrestle with God for answers even if his answer is hidden in His silence.

I find the reading of John’s version of the Resurrection narrative this year a Kairos. Some details from John could help us see and hear the Message. Since I am not schooled in biblical hermeneutics that well, I rely on a prayerful reflection of the text. Please be generous if it sounds naïve.

Let me just point out 3 things. First, John speaks of the Resurrection as happening “on the first day of the week, while it was dark.” (Jn. 20:1a) Resurrection bursts forth from the very foundations of our humanity and the world, in the darkness of unknowing. This reminds us of Genesis when the world was dark and formless and the Spirit hovered over the dark waters. Then God said: “Let there be light and there was light.” (Gen. 1:2-3)

Today, the world is in the darkness of the pandemic. The future even seems darker for many. How shall businesses, government, the people recover? Is our strategic planning, optimistic forecasts, finding the cure enough light to give us a bright future? In the midst of utter darkness, where the world’s foundations seem to be shaken, Christ the light bursts forth. Can we see? Seeing does not come from our human logic for the same is easily defeated by darkness. Light comes from the Resurrected Christ. Is God going to rescue us from this evil? Not at all for evil does what it does. God redeems. He ultimately vindicates virtue, goodness, fidelity while we go through evil and suffering just like what He did to Jesus. God and the Resurrected Christ is ultimately in control not evil and death. This is our creed. We simple have to trust its truth and live it in the day-to-day.

Second, John emphasizes that Mary of Magdala first saw the open tomb. (Jn.20:1b) She was sad because she could not yet link the open tomb with the Resurrection. It was only after she wept that she saw the Risen One. (cf. Jn. 20: 11ff) This is an invitation for us to see our reality through the gentle lens of the feminine – in sadness and in tears. Both prepare the heart for real seeing. There are many things that we are sad about our reality today. We are in tears because in one way or another, we are part of this wounded, broken and violent world and in many ways, we have contributed to its violence and wounding.

Lastly, Mary reported to Peter and John what she saw. Peter and John saw it for themselves. Peter saw. John saw and believed. They all did not yet understand the meaning of the Resurrection. (cf. Jn. 20: 2-9) This detail is inviting us that in order to experience new life, we need to reach out to one another and walk together as a community of truth seekers. Our reality is a shared vision and nobody monopolizes the whole or absolutizes his/her part of the whole. Each one contributes. Each one believes that the other has something to contribute. Truth humbles us for instead of possessing it, it possesses us. It is always beyond us. So, we need each other’s contribution. Truth is a free gift revealed to a vibrant pilgrim community who seeks with hope. Sad to say, in our post-modern world, power is mistaken for truth. So, one becomes arrogant of his part and absolutizes his part as the whole truth. This is the same mentality that creates war and violence. Resurrection is offering peace and forgiveness. We need to choose.

Brothers, we continue to share our search for truth in the Risen Lord today both in the solitude of our prayer and in our fraternal and missionary engagements. Brother Charles is showing us and is also walking with us the path, in our longing to follow Jesus of Nazareth, to be a brother to all, to live Nazareth, to be present to the poor, to review our lives, to cry the Gospel with our lives, to smell like the sheep in our mission to the peripheries, to live the Gospel before we preach. This is our spirituality as diocesan priests in the footsteps of Bro Charles. This is also our gift to our world and to our church today. As a gift, it is undeserved but we need to constantly readjust the gift through practice. Here, we are all beginners and fellow strugglers but together, we encourage one another to keep coming back to our practice.

My humble prayer for each one of you. Please also pray for me.

Eric LOZADA

PDF: Easter Letter 2020, Eric LOZADA, brother responsible, eng

16 March 2020

“I shall see the Lord no more in the land of the living. No longer shall I behold my fellow men among those who dwell in the world. My dwelling, like a shepherd’s tent, is struck down and borne away from me; you have folded up my life, like a weaver who severs the last thread…” (Isaiah 38: 11-12).

“There is such a thing as a good death. We are responsible for the way we die. We have to choose between clinging to life in such a way that death becomes nothing but a failure, or letting go of life in freedom so that we can be given to others as a source of hope.” (Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved).

Beloved Brothers,

feeling deeply both gratitude for the gift and sadness for the loss, I announce to you the passing of our big brother, dear friend and a living icon in the fraternity, MARIANO PUGA CONCHA from Santiago, Chile. He passed away last 14 March 2020 at 88 years old. He died of lymphatic cancer.

Allow me to honor the soul brotherhood we had with Mariano with the following lines. My first encounter with Mariano was in Cairo General Assembly in 2000. Prior to his election as general responsible, his presence in the assembly was like a virus contaminating us with joy and laughter with his delightful singing accompanied by an accordion. Little did I know that these songs were from the slums of Santiago, very jovial and empowering and never depressing. He was like a troubadour singing with his lungs and heart the dreams and aspirations of his people in Santiago. His wild spirit and joy-filled music captivated me.

My second encounter was in the US in 2002. He was visiting US fraternity while I was in a sabbatical. The late Howard Caulkins, another dear friend proposed that if I would come with him to the country assembly in Minnesota then, he would drive me to Mepkin Abbey where I would spend my sabbath year as monastic guest. We did drive together and there, I met Mariano again. Very easily, we reconnected, soul to soul, in a deeply personal and intimate way. I was sharing with him my crisis with the Church, with my personal demons and with God and I never felt so listened to. He simply embraced me tightly like an elder brother comforting a younger brother, with tears in his eyes, feeling my pain. Then, he smiled at me with these soothing words, “It will be okay.” We parted ways with a promise to hold each other in prayer – I to the Abbey and him to Tammanraset. My more recent encounter with him was last year in Cebu during the General Assembly. At 88, travelling across the globe took a heavy toll on him. He was hospitalized twice, and in both times, I was with him. The sage in him was calling me to come out from the tomb of my pretense and share personal testimonies. We easily reconnected, brother to brother, valuing each of our stories, at the emergency room (where he stayed for 5 hours) then, inside his room (which he vehemently resisted for he wanted to stay at the ward with the poor people), until very late in the evening. Then, with a smile on his face, he whispered to me, “the assembly has just finished, I could now go home.” I went home that night, so humbled yet so enriched by this soul-full exchange, our review of life which for Mariano is at the heart of any assembly of brothers.

Allow me to share also some lines which Fernando Tapia wrote to me about Mariano. “Mariano was a passionate seeker of God and a lover of Jesus of Nazareth. The encounter with Him through the poor of a dump changed his life forever. He left everything and entered the seminary. Here he met Charles de Foucauld and followed his spirituality until the end of his life. He was a spiritual father and formator at the seminary of Santiago. Then he became a worker priest for more than 30 years of his life sharing in the lives of the poor. He always lived among them. He was their pastor, defender during the time of military dictatorship of Pinochet, suffered being imprisoned 7 times. He promoted a church committed to the poor. He preached many retreats in Chile and outside of Chile. He was a man of prayer, of joy, close to everyone, a friend of believers and non-believers, a missionary to the peripheries of the Chilean society, following in the footsteps of Bro Charles. The gospel was his guide which he wanted to cry with his own life.”

Mariano, brother, friend, thank you very much. Thank you for you wild witness of a wild God in Jesus of Nazareth. I share the gratitude and the grief of the poor people of Santiago whom you have touched by your witness. May Jesus, the Good Shepherd welcome you to your new abode for eternity which he prepared for those who are faithful.

Brothers, I pray with Mariano that in our meetings and assemblies, we continue to risk sharing our poverty and vulnerability to one another. It is our poverty that unites, qualifies and liberates us as brothers-in-fraternity. The same is our springboard for mission with the poor, as we said in Cebu. May it also be our humble yet firm resolve to share in the missionary life of Jesus of Nazareth with the poor in the footsteps of Bro Charles.

With my fraternal embrace,
Eric LOZADA

PDF: Letter of Eric. Our brother Mariano PUGA, engl

“A child is born for us, and a Son is given to us…” (Isaiah 9:5)

Beloved brothers,

I am so sorry that this Christmas letter comes to you as a new year’s message. It’s just that in our diocese at the moment, I am asked to do a couple of sensitive ministries that many at times, I lose my balance. Wresting with evil and all its complex shadows that damage persons, relationships and institutions like the church, I repeatedly struggled to fall into the hands of a loving God for light, inner peace and love. But at times, I feel sad, angry and helpless. And so, by the grace of God, I am here, better late than never. Allow me to embrace you with warm greetings of joy in your local fraternities, dioceses, country and continental fraternities. Though many of you are still without faces to me but I continue to whisper each of your names before the Beloved. (Thanks to our directory but it needs updating). Last year, I was privileged to have met brothers from Haiti, Dominican Republic, Southeast USA, South Korea and Myanmar. In a special way, the Haiti meeting of the Association of the Spiritual Family of Charles de Foucauld last April has both grounded and expanded my knowledge of the Spirituality and Tradition. Thank you, sisters and brothers for the hospitable welcome, brotherly exchanges and humble witness.

I would like to start with the first question that Yahweh asked Adam in Genesis: where are you? I ask this question periodically just to check how grounded am I with my reality. Reality is not really mine but God’s reality in me and in the world and how free or unfree am I in responding to it. Adam was unfree, afraid of his nakedness, hiding from God, guilty of his sin. Without his knowing it, he operated from a distortion that alienated him from God and from his truth. From Adam came forth a whole “cracked” humanity. Yet, the prophet Isaiah prophesied about the coming of the new Adam: “a shoot springs from the stump of Jesse, a scion thrusts from his roots: on him the spirit of the Lord rests…” (Isaiah 11:1). There is a new humanity that is born from a tree that is cut from its roots – a humanity not hostaged by evil but “divinized,” restored to its original goodness. The crack is still there not anymore as a block but as the only opening for the flow of God’s grace to come in. And so, we pray, “O God… grant that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” (Christmas, Collect).

Pope Francis has enabled us to look again at the nativity scene with his apostolic letter, Admirabilis Signum. The most admirable sign is that a humble infant God entrusted himself into the hands of a broken humanity. While most of humanity was not ready, the shepherds, animals, the manger were ready. They represent humanity receiving God in its lowest poverty, brokenness, imperfection, filthiness and by this radical act of self-donation, we become what we receive. This is pure divine initiative. The “manger” of our hearts, hardened and torn by evil in all its forms, both structural and personal when held before God becomes a humble yet prophetic space for encounter, dialogue, healing and hospitality with the many disguised faces of the Emmanuel today.

Allow me to bring into the picture Bro Charles, his wild life, excessive behavior, restless energy, passionate letters. He spent all his life trying to ground himself on the Mystery of the Incarnation. “Lord, if you exist, let me know you.” His was a cry for an experiential knowledge of God. He wrestled with the Mystery. And in God’s gentle and patient ways, he led him into a liberated response to the forgiving love of God. “Now that I know that there is a God, I cannot but give my whole life to him.” A further growing down into the Mystery made him say these words, “my way is always to seek the lowest place, to be as little as my Master, to walk with him step by step as a faithful disciple. My life is to live with my God who lived this way all his life and who has given me such an example from his very birth.” Jesus did nothing other than to go down and this marked Bro Charles permanently. The radical littleness of God at the Incarnation bore fruit to a life of further growing down into the radical humility of God in Nazareth. From Bethlehem to Nazareth, two foundational mysteries of God revealed in the life of Jesus and when we get this right, in the footsteps of Bro Charles, our lives, our way of doing mission as diocesan priests and the way we see the world is changed forever.

Before the Mystery, may I invite you to hold the complex realities of our local, country, regional and international fraternities, our dioceses, our church and our world. We have already seen some of these in Cebu but there is a need to see them with new eyes and respond with new enthusiasm and hope. The unassuming humble God of Nazareth may have subtle invitations for us in these realities.
In the April gathering of some 20 members of the Association, we learned of Haiti as a poor country but rich in faith. Our Little Brothers and Little Sisters of the Incarnation have a very prophetic and concrete presence in the lives of the Haitians in agriculture, education, livelihood programs, social services. Yet, corruption in the political system is making the country still in a dark tunnel of poverty, uncertainty and unrest. (As of the moment, the situation is even getting worse). Frs. Jonas Cenor and Charles Louis Jean, former little brothers of the Incarnation started the fraternity with 3 brothers in 2015. Fr. Fernando Tapia has visited and invited them to the Pan-American Meeting in 2017. With occasional visits from Fr. Abraham Apolinario, they continue to look for possibilities to meet regularly. The problem is not only distance but more so, the political climate is making travel dangerous. Where is God inviting us?

Our membership in the Association is a gift. I am in awe at how Bro Charles has inspired so many charisms and missionary work in the Church and some are still coming in. We could not set aside, however the tensions that this diversity brings. But these tensions could be life-giving when they are seen in the bigger agenda of the Kingdom. We all are invited to drink again and again from the same Spirit so that we can all walk together in harmony. The Association, though is asking for our more active involvement in terms of correspondence and attending meetings. I am handicapped in the French language and so I have invited Fr. Matthias Keil to represent us.

The fraternity in Santo Domingo and Santiago is very alive yet getting older. Pioneer member and retired Bishop, Rafael Felipe, his presence and life-witness is like a lighthouse to both clergy and seminarians of the diocese of Beni. He has been introducing the fraternity to the seminarians and had preached a couple of priest retreats on the Fraternity. Fr. Lorenzo, a very dynamic priest of a small parish lives in a semi-monastic community of priests, sisters and seminarians. Fr. Angel Marcano, however, asks the question that still seeks for answers: why after 30 years, we have not grown? Where is God inviting us?

I was privileged to have attended the 40th anniversary of Fr. Jerry Reagan in Toybee Island, Georgia, USA in May. His rectory is a fraternity house where priests could come and spend the night. He drives for 2 hours every month to Augusta to meet with the brothers, including Fr. Peter Clarke who is already 91. Starting with adoration, then review of life and ending with an agape, their meeting has been very regular and intimate that when a brother decides to leave, it leaves the fraternity fragile. With no new member, the fraternity is even more vulnerable.

The fraternity in South Korea is young and vibrant. Fr. Paul, who has lived in Tamanrasset for some time, started the fraternity in 1994 with Fr. Philip Yoon and is joined in by mostly young pastors. Christianity in Korea is very unique because it is laid on the foundation of the blood of thousands of martyrs who are mostly lay people. The brothers contribute from their personal money in order to put up a house where they could meet for the monthly meeting. Just like many, they struggle with desert day, review of life and the English language.

Seeing Frs. Eugene and Matthew and how they live, the fraternity in Myanmar has an ascetic face. The majority Buddhist religion made prominent by the presence of pagodas everywhere and the wearing of slippers (not shoes) make living in Myanmar naturally simple. Asking a non-JC priest, however, about his perception of the fraternity, his answer has disturbed me, “I cannot be honest with my answer in front of them.” What is the underlying face of the fraternity? Where is God inviting us? The brothers, though, struggle with finding regular time for meeting, desert day and review of life.

Cardinal Benjamin Stella, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome has written me a letter through Fr. Aurelio, expressing his deep closeness with us and that we may “live afresh and with joy our mission according to the guiding principles” of the Holy Father. He, however, spelled out some concrete challenges – that we may take seriously the Nazareth month; that our fidelity to the means of spiritual growth ad intra is a necessary requirement for authentic mission ad extra; that our going out to the peripheries needs to be accompanied by our on-going conversion in order to bear fruit. The international team is scheduled to meet with the Cardinal in Rome in July this year.

In our team meeting last October, we, your brothers in the international team have discerned a major path that we need to take. We train a team of itinerant priests who will introduce the Fraternity Week (modeled after Brazil) to 4th year-theology seminarians, young priests and even make it available as annual retreat for priests. We need to write to the local ordinaries and we are starting this venture in Asia.

Finally, my gratitude to the financial acumen and hard work of our two Matthiases – Fr. Matthias Keil of Austria, our general treasurer and Fr. Matthias Fobe of Germany, our financial consultant. We have now a new bank account under 2 signatories – Fr. Matthias Keil and myself. Speaking of finances, the international team has agreed that brothers who need assistance to attend the Month or meetings abroad they need to be first supported by the local and country fraternities and only then will the international fund be asked to help out after due consultation with continental responsible. This is to put a stop to a sub-culture of entitlement and using the fraternity as a passport to travel abroad.

Brothers, Christmas is the opportune time for us to give birth. We move forward to the new year by looking back at the Father who gave us Jesus. We too need to give birth to our simplicity of life, joy of being, humility, loving compassion to poor. Side by side, together as brothers and friends, we walk by faith not by sight for our on-going configuration into Jesus’ life and ministry as inspired by Brother Charles and for our life-giving mission work with God’s beloved people.

Kindly offer a prayer for me, your inefficient brother-responsible.

With my fraternal embrace,
Eric Lozada

PDF: Letter of Christmas of the general responsible, 1 January 2020