In Cambodia last February, I served a meal to people whom the social system does not admit to the common table. They stood apart, at the edge, waiting for the others to finish. As I handed them their food, our eyes met. No words. None were needed. In that small act — a plate, a glance — I caught sight of a presence: the Gospel announced first of all in this way, before any words.
That Cambodian Church has known both destruction and rebirth. Under the Khmer Rouge, bishops, priests, religious and faithful were killed and churches razed. Today the community is rising again, led by local catechists and guided by local catechists and by a faith rebuilt in a generation. It reads like the Acts of the Apostles: communities small and alive, radiating the Gospel without any concern for numbers.
This was no isolated case. In January, in a poor neighbourhood in Pakistan, I celebrated the Eucharist among Christians who are a minority in a Muslim land. There faith is a choice that costs something every day, exposed and without guarantees. And yet, in the midst of the tension, I found a joy that challenges us: they sang, they prayed, they welcomed me and offered the little they had. In Papua New Guinea, among the very poor, faith is hope; in South Korea, a more structured Church is facing generational change. Asia appears as a laboratory.
It is on this continent that in 2027 we will hold the General Chapter, for the first time in Asia. Many ask me why Vietnam. Surprise, at times unease: the climate, the distance, the differences. But the very fact that the question itself is already a fruit. A familiar venue would not have prompted it.
We are used, especially in the older Provinces, to picturing the fraternity within the maps we know. Whoever has never entered another culture finds it hard to take the step, to come out of himself. The point is not to become cosmopolitan, but to let ourselves be questioned. A different language, a different Church, a different Franciscan form can widen the measure by which we look at our own vocation. Simply to let ourselves be unsettled is a beginning.
Holding the General Chapter in Asia means opening a window. To gather and to discern together who will guide the Order will have a different flavour beyond the horizons in which we grew up. Where the Church lives among many faiths, evangelisation — the knot of our time — shows itself in a new light. And perhaps, after Asia, Africa will come: some recent visits have given me a glimpse of it.
I write from Croatia, in front of waterfalls that the drought has reduced to a third of their flow. The water is missing. One sign among many of a time that is changing.
And I ask myself where the living water flows today, and whether we can still recognise it. Perhaps this is what the General Chapter in Vietnam is for: not only to decide, but to notice where the Spirit continues to bring forth life.