The Father Carlos Zancajo, LC, concludes his term this Saturday, August 1st, as the territorial director of the Legionaries of Christ in Spain and a member of the Territorial Governing College of Regnum Christi. He has experienced six years of significant transformation and change. He is the last territorial director of the Congregation in Spain who has also served as the director of the entire Regnum Christi. In addition to the Constitution of the Regnum Christi Federation at the international level, during his leadership in Spain, issues such as consolidating the educational work, addressing and cleaning up the debt, promoting life in the lay sections, and relocating the Legion of Christ novitiate from Salamanca to Madrid have been tackled.
Mission accomplished?
Only God knows!
Returning to Venezuela. What do you hope to find there and what will be your mission?
From the news I receive, it seems I will find an economically broken country, demoralized in its institutions, and emotionally hopeless. From here, it’s not easy to make plans until I understand the reality well.
What do you take with you?
A few more years of life, some very enriching human experiences, and the desire to make good use of the last stretch of life.
What do you leave behind in Spain?
What remains of my family and a good group of brother Legionaries with whom I have worked very comfortably.
Perhaps I will have time again to read…
I have read little in these 6 years. Better said, I have read too many pages related to my role: essential bureaucratic documents that are soon forgotten. I hope to read again the classics of perennial philosophy, universal literature, and essays on current hot topics.
Possibly these years have been among the most beautiful and mature pages of Regnum Christi in general, which has crystallized in the constitution of the Societies of Apostolic Life of the Consecrated and the Consecrated Laity of Regnum Christi, and the very Federation of Regnum Christi. What lessons has this stage left you?
That God’s ways are inscrutable and His paths are not our paths. One thing the donkey thinks, and another the one who puts the yoke on it. With the poet, “I go singing, traveler along the path.” And I wonder: “Where will the road lead?”.
God’s ways are inscrutable and His paths are not our paths
He is the last Territorial Director of the Congregation in Spain who is also the director of all of Regnum Christi: since the entry into the Statutes, Regnum Christi has a collegiate government as a Federation. What has been your experience with collegiate governance?
Learning. Usually, the final product of teamwork reflects and synthesizes the quality of the parts that make up the whole (council, college…). The ability and attitude each one brings to work, debate, and reach consensus are very important.
In these six years, you have had to deal with very complex situations: managing the territory’s debt, relocating the Salamanca novitiate to Madrid… You arrived at a time when two schools were still pending consolidation, and you leave with all schools confirmed and growing. Are you satisfied? Any pending issues?
Thanks to God, there are many pending issues, because if not, it would already be the end of the world, the end of entropy due to the exhaustion of challenges. For example: vocations, consolidating educational institutions to evangelize thoroughly and educate the new generations with excellence, family pastoral programs, committed laity more present in temporal realities to transform them with evangelical ferment…
These have also been tough times in which you have decided to continue facing the truth of your history and abuses…
I believe we have made a very sincere effort to “protect and heal,” as well as “conversion and reparation.” Perhaps some find it too much, and others too little. Anyone who knows these sad realities knows how difficult it is to practice justice, prudence, and charity at the same time. I trust that the Holy Spirit and the Church guide us.
Renewal is returning to the original strength of the Spirit that revives dry bones.
If you think of all your brother Legionaries in the territory of Spain, what comes to your heart?
The harvest is plentiful, and the workers are few. Either we multiply, or we fall into the “demographic winter” from which it is very difficult to emerge. Renewal is returning to the original strength of the Spirit that revives dry bones, to the First Love, to whom nothing seems impossible or too much in giving.
What is the main challenge for the Legionaries of Christ in Spain in the coming years?
I already said: there are several: young vocations, forming apostles and Christian leaders, caring for and valuing our charism, strengthening our social programs to alleviate poverty for many, stepping out of personal and institutional comfort zones…
What do you think has been the most significant advance of the Congregation in the territory during your six-year term as territorial director?
Difficult to say; perhaps, turning the page on the last decade and sailing further out to sea; leaving behind comfort and security of the port, and navigating fearlessly through unlimited and stormy seas where the catch is abundant and the Lord rules the storms.
What is the number one message or piece of advice you leave to Father Javier Cereceda as the next territorial director of the congregation and member of the Territorial Governing College of Regnum Christi in Spain?
Dress me slowly, for I am in a hurry. “Natura non facit saltus”, or in other words: at the pace of God and the Church!
What has changed in your priestly heart during these years?
The conviction that I am dispensable, like the conductor’s baton: sometimes used, sometimes left on the stand… but the music continues, and each instrument plays its melody.
The conviction that I am dispensable, like the conductor’s baton
Any memory that has been engraved in your mind from this time?
Our house in Salamanca, empty and filled with a silence that tightens the heart.
When you are a territorial director, do you pray more? Do you need to pray more? Do you hold on to God more tightly than before? How does the relationship with the Lord change when you have that responsibility over so many people?
Many complex questions! Saint Paul says: “God comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction” (2 Cor 1). I bring before the Lord the worries of the day, specific people, what is possible and impossible… to pacify the spirit.
And what does God tell you?
Long silences. It’s clear that He has the helm; you, row.
Who is Father Carlos Zancajo today?
Uff!
What is the future?
God’s plan.
What is the past?
Waters of life in calm.
A word for the Legionaries of Spain.
Just one? I know what you are! Maintain your identity, because it is a gift from God. If we did not have a distinct appearance, why and for what reason did God raise us up in the Church? The appearance is complex: physical, spiritual, intellectual, apostolic; substantial humility is needed to live it without personal cuts, or by the whims and mundanities. If we are what we must be, we will set the world around us on fire. If not, we will increase its ashes.
A word for the consecrated women.
Grow and multiply. Let secularization not drown the vocation to evangelical holiness.
A word for the consecrated laity.
The same.
A word for the laity.
“You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. A lamp is not to be hidden under a bushel.” The children of darkness outsmart and outwork us.
A place in Spain.
Camarines, 12.
A number from your Constitutions.
The last, n. 235 (“Legionaries must conform their lives to Christ, the supreme rule of the religious, according to the Gospel and these Constitutions”).
A number from the Statutes of the Federation.
I like many. For example, from 6 to 26: The spiritual foundations. Or number 10, about the style of giving.
A passage from the Gospel.
Better two: “Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” “Son, behold your Mother.”
