PARAGUAY, Tuparenda, Fr. Antonio Cosp •
The “secret” of all growth is synergy. It is valid for a company, a school, a university. Also for a Movement like Schoenstatt.
We define it
Not wanting is a quote from M. Weatley, an expert on organization: “Action precedes planning, because it is what creates the favorable atmosphere for each one’s initiative under the attentive and motivating gaze of the one who is responsible. To leave bureaucracy and to live in an organization aware that it knows how to embrace all that is life and it has the ability to respond to chaos. Love and respect for each initiative in the organizations is the most powerful source we could have.
The dictionary defines it as how the association, active and agreed upon participation of various organs for realizing a function. For example, the synergy of organs for helping with respiration. Etymologically it comes from the Greek and means energies having to do with a phenomenon for which various factors or various influences work together. A greater result is created than that which could have been expected by the sum of the effects of each one if they would have operated independently. “One and one make three.” Its essence consists in valuing the differences and building is based on the unity of its energies. One plus one will no longer make two but three or five… In the human body, it takes place by the coordinated interaction of the different organs and muscles that help each other and multiply in order to achieve an objective.
We describe it in its action
- Kindness is the founding virtue of synergy. All life that develops is based on it. The baby develops because the sperm has found a sweet environment, not acidic, and it has been able to reach the ovum. One plus one in marriage is no longer two, but three…
- Kindness provokes attentive listening to each one’s point of view. If one understands with empathy what the other says to me or does, and I add my own to it then this multiplication is realized. Differences are valued and what the other one contributes is assumed; what he/she knows and can do and the weaknesses are compensated.
We build based on everyone’s contributions. The more we are attentive to the values of the other one, that I appreciate his contribution, that I allow him to work according to his talents, the more life grows. Thus we feel validated and affirmed in the good that we possess, our self-esteem grows and there is joy in being part of a common project. It is about understanding the other person, we appreciate him, we respect and admire him. To touch the soul of another being is to walk on sacred ground.
This does not hinder that:
- As a leader, I might say that this is not the time; we must know to wait for whatever reason.
- That I not accept some hair-brained proposal even though I may make a commitment to keep it in mind to think about it better.
- This helps us apply the system of growth for whatever activity
One must focus on the S of strength that is the ability and training the leader has. And then the O of opportunities. In nourishing the strengths that are mainly the human resources, starvation and weaknesses die as well as threats. It is not what others do or do not do, nor our own mistakes that hurt us more. It is our ability to understand the positive that others can contribute and then to animate and facilitate their action. If it is successful, then comes the other great virtue: acknowledgment of the positive that has been done. Each acknowledgment on our behalf secures our good conduct, and we like to continue contributing.
The anti-synergy
Its inventor is the devil: “Do your work and only your work. Do not interfere in the tasks and areas of others and may nobody invade mine.” He is the great inventor of boundaries. The Sanhedrin did not know how to discover the synergy that Jesus would awaken in the world and they killed Him: “Tis better for one to die” for the community than for the community to disappear, the law, the temple. What Christianity would be if Judaism – a beautiful religion revealed by the prophets – would have opened itself to that new great divine gift… Maintain the known system, “it was always done this way,” kill the initiatives, status quo instead of synergy. This has the wisdom that each one should contribute what they know and can do for the good of the social body, family or company or nation. To be fathers of fathers and not stop the growth and the initiative of the children and friends.
Father Kentenich expressed it in 1935
The true motive for the celebration is the interconnectedness of destinies… Gratitude for the collaboration in the common Work of the Blessed Virgin, 59…
The Work that has been founded here is equally the Work of the collaborators. I cannot imagine myself without them. The entire Work cannot be explained without their help and personal collaboration and radicalism, 60… Seek a community today that, like ours, is the spirit of spirit and flesh of flesh of each member… God has somehow interwoven in a peculiar way human destinies… If you wish to know the secret of this superabundant fruitfulness, it is the profound, mutual, inner interconnectedness… A man who loves, who has placed his love in the heart of God, in a certain way participates in the immense richness of the love of God, 62.
I ask each one of you to meditate with sincerity and humility what has come forth in the Family, thanks to the blood of its heart,” 63.
Father of fathers
“If you want to thank me for something, be thankful for the fact of my having made an effort to capture what was germinating in you, channeling it into a slogan… I, like a great foreman, was building with the help of people. When I noticed that something healthy was developing, I would retire completely, thinking that initiative should grow without me. And that is a part of the pedagogy of ideals, of movement and of a pedagogy capable of anticipating the processes of life, 65.
I had to grow up in complete solitude of soul, because a world had to be born in me that later should be given to and transferred to others. I also know that the Blessed Virgin has placed at my disposal, and in an incomparable way, her supplicant omnipotence and her maternal heart.” 67
Quotes from Kentenich Reader
