By James O’Brien, CLC in Australia

On 12 August 2023, at the Amiens World Assembly, I was to lead the election procedure for the next World Executive Council to be appointed to serve a five year term to the 2028 assembly. In preparing for this graced and prayerful process, I consulted with then executive secretary Manuel Martinez A., president Denis Dobbelstein, and my fellow Australian Chris Hogan, who had run the election process at Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2018 . Chris shared his slide deck with me, which with Manuel and Denis’ help we built into a thorough presentation which Manuel could adjust as the results came in.

I arrived at the assembly with enthusiasm, as a sitting World ExCo member appointed in January 2022 to bring energy to the development of a world youth team. During my time on the ExCo I had attended several zoom meetings, along with two consecutive weeklong meetings in Rome, Italy, which gave me a real sense of the colour and dynamism of those sitting on the ExCo. Over the course of this time, I had helped prepare Projects 178 and 179, so the ExCo asked me to serve in the writing team at Amiens. Furthermore, given I had declined nomination to serve in the next world ExCo, I was available to oversee the elections, and I was asked to do this.

Over the course of the assembly, the writers team met after each evening meal for two hours or more, and for this reason on the night before the election we worked until 2am drafting what we would next show the assembly of the document progress. Rising for breakfast and then walking to the assembly hall, an auditorium more akin to a lecture theatre, we began the day with morning prayer, before the election process got underway, for which a good chunk of time had been allocated. The Holy Spirit is not to be rushed, but rather we must be patient!

The Amiens Assembly host team had prepared an Assembly smartphone app for use at the assembly, and one function of the app was to facilitate voting by each national community when it came to formal resolutions and the elections. On the day of the elections, a representative from the app developer was providing technical support to Manuel. Denis needed to consult the outgoing world ExCo for its vote at each round of voting. I was to lead and accompany the community through successive rounds of voting.

I felt so grateful at the level of preparation we had completed before I stood on stage to take up this significant responsibility. Wearing my favourite light blue suit, I was at home in lightly formal clothing whose colour belied a sense of play and liveliness. Moreover, Denis had played a special card in introducing me. Wording me up beforehand, he had asked whether I might like to play a song on cello for the assembly before beginning the election process. I accepted this invitation, borrowing the beautiful cello of Yves from the Phileas host team liturgical music group. I attempted a Massenet meditation from the opera Thaïs and a playful pizzicato piece. Making several mistakes given I hadn’t had much time to practice what I would play, I didn’t “perform”, but rather in my weakness gave an offering to the assembly gathered before me. The pregnant silence of the community in listening gave me a sense of being held, appreciated, accepted, and cared for by the gathered body of the community.

I was now ready to serve this community in the election, they who so loved and accepted me enough to listen to my stuttered bowings and unsure venturings up and down the soundboard. God was in the music I played, because as I handed the cello back to my French companion, I felt the growing self-confidence and self-acceptance to now do my best for the elections. I turned and faced the assembly beaming with abounding joy. I smiled as if to say, “Here I am Lord”. I asked for Denis’ own words regarding the transformation rendered in me during that music moment:

“My perspective, from my seat behind the curtain, was narrow; or rather focused on you. And I was amazed: I was looking at a totally new James O’Brien. I shall recall for ever your testimony after the session. Having made so many mistakes when playing the piece of cello, nothing wrong could happen afterwards. You could have focused on your appreciation of the musical performance and collapsed. The very opposite happened. A moment of grace: trusting the Spirit, confident about the benevolence of the assembly (which was not an audience). All preparation work was useful, but it took another dimension, precisely because you gave your consent to an unconditional support.”

We had reused some of Chris Hogan’s Buenos Aires election slides, with my favourite simply reading “Supervisor: the Holy Spirit”. Chris had affirmed for me the importance of the election occurring in a climate of deep prayer and collective listening to the Holy Spirit. To that end, I included some reflections on communal discernment and elections written by Fr Patrick O’Sullivan SJ (1939-2022), a former world vice-ecclesiastical assistant and luminary of the Australian Jesuits and CLC in Australia. I had known Fr Pat when I was a boy, his having visited my family home for special meals, and his having led my parents through an Ignatian retreat. Pat gave me a set of his rosary beads the last time I saw him before he died, and it felt special to refer to Fr Pat’s deep insights in the preparatory materials I put before the assembly. Taken from his last book I Call You Friends, in voicing his words I felt Pat was prayerfully interceding for me and all of us:

“Reflecting on the communal level … Just as each individual has his or her own truth, so does each community. A community’s truth is the fruit of the members connecting freely with one another, on the level of each one’s truth. So the question for discernment comes to be: will this proposition be an authentic expression of the community’s truth? Personally, I may not like the idea, but I still can experience the proposition as an authentic expression of the community’s truth. Thus, I am not ‘voting’ in favour of the proposition. Rather my vote is my statement that I can experience the proposition as an authentic expression of the community’s truth: I experience this proposition as maintaining the connectedness, the truth, of the group.”

The assembly’s dispositions primed, we called on the Holy Spirit, and we could start the election process itself. Seated by national community, each round of voting would occur via the app, with results placed on screen by Manuel in consulting the French app developer.

The first position to vote for was president, for which there were two candidates for prayerful consideration. After a first round vote was tied, the second round had a candidate leading, but with one abstention present, neither candidate gathered a majority of more than 50% of votes. The third round vote was decisive, producing a majority vote in favour of Chris Micallef of CLC in Malta. As the result appeared on screen, I declared congratulations to Chris and invited him to join me on stage.

At this point I gave Chris a warm hug, before a spontaneous idea, natural and true came over me. In a moment of insight and grace, I spoke: “we pray for Chris”. I placed my hands in the air, in a gesture that had emerged in the assembly, and hovered towards Chris. At this point Chris had bowed his head to the assembly, and the entire assembly entered a hushed moment of deep prayer for Chris and this new responsibility he was embracing as president of the world community. I then said after thirty seconds of so, “we pray for our community”, and Chris, I and everyone gathered turned to each other, hands raised above one another, calling on the Holy Spirit to move. Something beautiful was happening which was at once riveting and consoling. I relaxed into the moment, soaking up all that was emerging.

Chris returned to his seat, the vice-president position was voted for, and Daphne Ho of CLC in Hong Kong was duly elected. Daphne is an old friend from the Asia-Pacific Animating Team I have journeyed with since the 2019 Korea Asia Pacific Assembly. In Seoul, Daphne led that assembly to pray to the Holy Spirit to move among us; and that prayer had inspired me deeply at the time. “We pray for Daphne” I now declared, hands raised above her for thirty seconds again, each delegate asking for a blessing on her in this responsibility of service. And again, I said “we pray for our community” and we did so for another half-minute.

The process of prayer continued in the same way for all elected members of the new World ExCo: Franklin Ibañez, Catherine Waiyaki, Inji Fayez, Catherine Kelly, Cecilia Martinez:

“We pray for Franklin… we pray for our community.”
“We pray for Catherine… we pray for our community.”
“We pray for Inji… we pray for our community.”
“We pray for Catherine… we pray for our community.”
“We pray for Cecilia… we pray for our community.”

As the morning’s election process unfolded, I told a few observational humour jokes, and felt at home guiding the process with Manuel, Denis and the community in union with God. I really felt it was a graced moment of the Holy Spirit helping the assembly elect a new leadership team in discernment. Moreover, with the prayer for each appointed member of ExCo and the world community there was a beautiful collective experience of God confirming each person for the new mission the assembly had asked them to embrace.

Fr José de Pablo SJ our vice-ecclesiastical assistant soon embraced me after the process had been completed. With tears in his eyes he told me that this election was a sign of God confirming my decision not to make myself available for the next term of the ExCo. I recognised God had made me an instrument of his grace moving for the body of the assembly. Like Elizabeth at the visitation, I rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. Praise God.

Let us continue to pray for all people serving in leadership in both CLC and our church, that they may do so with a spirit of freedom, patience, and loving service.