CONTINUE WEAVING… NEW RELATIONSHIPS…

AND MAY IT NOT BE A FUSS…

In the four – or five, at the end – sees of this particular General Assembly that has used for the first time the virtual space, we have cemebrated the closing of this time of grace dedicated to take pulse, revise our loom and fabric. Rome, Yaounde, Manila, Madrid, Santiago de Chile. Blessed be God.

During this day we have been connected for three times for longer or shoerter reunions. In the first one, we have listened the almost final version of the document of the Assembly, tuning a little more.

The second reunion, at 3 PM, that was quiet long, has welcomed as invited the Prsident of the UISG, at the same time general superior of claretian missionaries, sister Jolanta Kafka. She has expressed her valoration of all the novelties and strengths of the message that have been elaborated during assembly. She highlighted the sinodality, the option for service at the frontiers of the land of mission, the metaphor of “weaving” (insiting in the mystery and the beauty of amending made with the best threads of a fabric itself) and of the “body” (that needs to be flexible to fulfil its mission, cannot be calcificated or paralized).

 

 

The last reunion, to approve the final document and listen the words of closure. Much gratitude and thanksgiving… much joy and passion. Encouraging us mutually to continue making options for life.

There is no other way than to begin anew to weave the new relationships, renewed, trusting in merciful will of God for us. With determined determination of going forward, untying knots, amending or weaving something new… searching for communion and for the warmth wherever we may be. Restauring the beauty, welcoming the mission that God has prepared for us. And continuous discernment, listening to all, to walk together more faithful to the Spirit who breathes wherever he will. SINODALITY AND DISCERNMENT. COMMUNION. RELATION… AND MAY IT NOT BE A FUSS, as we said at the beginning.

Today you can listen to the word of closure. And also see some pictures of these last moments.

Hoy podéis escuchar aquí mismo las palabras de clausura.  Y también ver la galería de fotos de estos últimos momentos.

 

 

MESSAGE OF CLOSURE OF THE IX GENERAL ASSEMBLY

“Let us live these days as one family, let us analize in depth whatever will be presented here, with a heart of daughters and sisters… let us be opened to the action of God who wants to continue counting on us. Let us dream as one humanity, as ‘fellow travellers sharing the same flesh’, as daughters on the same land that shelters us all”.

Dear sisters, these words with which I begin this message are the same words I directed to you the day we began this journey of our famiy.

I believe they express well not only what has been my desire and to what I invited you to live, but they reflect what in reality these days of encounter have been like.

I give thanks to God together with all of you for this congregational kairos that I percive prolonged in horizon and that is already a reality in the heart of those who have formed part of this Assembly.

The responsability assumed in first person bby all of you, the seriousness at the time of analizing different situation or themes presented to you, the disposition of heart open to the will of God, the desires to be sincere and honest as the only way of evaluation and horizon for the future, have been fundamentally the threads that have fovoured weaving among all, with peculiarity and sight of each one, the fabric we will present to our sisters and lay persons once finished this encounter.

Let me tell you, my beloved sisters, that I feel proud of each one of you, that I give thanks to God infinitely for the particular gift that each participant meant in this space of congregational encounter. It could seem that it all has been easy. But we know it has not. One thing I am convinced about is that everything, absolutely everything, even those moments of disagreement, of rupture, of knots that obstaculize our weaving, everything seens and recapitulated in the Paschal Mystery, has its meaning, given that “to hope with him – God Trinity – and thanks to him means to believe that the history doesn’t end in our mistakes, our violence or unjustice, nor in the sin that crucifies Love, means to be saciated with Father’s forgiveness in his open Heart” (Message of Holy Father Pope Francis for the Lent 2021). You have been able of giving in, of allowing other’s threads to occupy place of yours, you have recognized the courage, clarity, wisdom… of those who in some parts knew something more or even dreamt further, searching for wider horizons, who had courage for more; you were able to accept challenging proffers and to desire to give the best of you to construct something better (Cf. CV 15), to take care of the fragility in “the service that always sees the face of a brother, touches his flesh, feels his proximity and in some cases suffers them” (FT 115). And at the end, always in continuity with the XV General Chapter, allowing the Holy Spirit and the power of charism being rooted in our proposals, we have accomplished to define a project, some emphasis, that respond to this historical moment that we are living. we also, in the ‘pick of the mountain’ of our assembly, with our ‘stoles’ of service and animation, have heard as Francisco Palau ‘the answer given by heavens’: Go in my name and in the name of my Daughter and your Daughter, present yourself to the struggle…; I will be with you (MR 8,40).

Allow it to resound in our interior with frequency what we have lived here. Let us do so in a grateful attitude, of those who looking back recognize that everything, absolutely everything, is grace ( Cf. CCC 2712) and that God makes it all work in favor of those He loves (Cf. Rm 8:28). Let us testify, speak, share everything good, beautiful, that has happened here and let us commit our lives in that, with the emphasis we have pointed out. Let us be women that, recognizing all the richness that we have because we are image of God, put the gifts and charisms in the case for which we hae been created and called for: communion, sincere and open relationships that generate, sacrifice and are free… (Cf. Way of Perfection 22,39).

Let us be like those women, consacreted, where the anti-values are left outside, because the centrality of life occupies the only important thing: mission to which we have been called. Let us be like those women inclusive, awaken, of wide and deep vision and heart that is open and generous, of feet ready to alway go out, always when someone is asking or even without eing asked.

May our offered life, in all the places each one of us lives, be a grain of hope and God’s presence; that whatever we see may be transformed and whatever we touch may be dignified. That when we will be seen or touched, we may experience transformation that comes from encounter (Cf. GE 24) and dignification.

Thank you, beloved sisters, to each one of you for your estimated collaboration, for what you mean for this Congregation and for humanity.

Thank you, sister Ela Strach, in your functions of Secretary of Assembly, for your unmatched collaboration, for responding even further than what was expected from you; thank you for all your sleeplessness to prepare everything, even the news so that whole Congregation might accompany us everyday.

Thanks you to all who with your technical support have make it possible in the four sees this online encounter.

Today, 14th of February, day when we celebrate love and friendship, let us be reminded of three letters that our Founder wrote with this date. In 1845, the first letter that we conserve to Eugenia Guerin, to Mr. Pantaleon Montserrat in 1865 and to sister Dolores Rovira in 1872, few days before his trip to Calasanz “to help the epidemics of typhus” (Letter 168,1).  To the first one he gives indications for her spiritual life; in the second one directed to the bishop of Barcelona he invites him to prticipate in the mission he is doing in a place where the coldness of a paster “has those people also cold”; and in the third one he communicates briefly indications of organization, and announces that he is sending rules and constitutions. Three moments of his life that I desire to be illumination for us: to accompany processes; to bring life where the routine has quenched generous sacrifice, we that have enjoyed on “a space of corresponsibility capable of initiating and generating nw processes and transformations” (FT 77); and lastly to offer fruits of this assembly to the whole palautian family like Palau offered rules, indorsed by a testimony of his fearless commitment, and in concrete in this moment of his life with the ‘epidemics’ of his times. Also today, all of us as Congregation we can listen his voice, “get to know her”, that is at the same time invitation and commandment.

With his words to Eugenia Guerin I tell you: receive, my beloved sisters in Jesus Christ, with these word of closure, feelings of love and sincere friendship by which I am united with you with the bonds of Spirit (Cf. Letter 1,5).

I entrust our decisions and projects to the special protection of Saint Joseph, not only “the best mediator” (Letter 33,1) or “father and lord” (Life 6,6; 33,12), but as an evangelical icon, “faithful friend and expert guide in the journey following the footsteps of Jesus” (Letter of General Superior O. Carm. and OCD to carmelite family in 150 anniversary of proclamation of patronage of Saint Joseph over the universal Church).

Curiously, also 14th but April 1864, our Founder hears from the angel who directed his mission: “It will be Mary, Mother of the Son of God, spouse of Joseph, who will come to you; and, as a perfect and accomplished type of a spouse, she will preside the wedding and receive in the name of the Church tha hand and heart and love of her lover” (MR 1,4). May she also come to us and receive our hans, heart and love. With her, witness of our offering, I declare the IX General Assembly closed.