Arriving from all corners of the earth, the delegates to the Chapter began this ecclesial and congregational event with supper on Saturday, November 9th.
The first day of the XVI General Chapter, Sunday 10 November 2024, began with a message of welcome from Sr. María José Gay, General Animator, to the capitulants, inviting us with enthusiasm to open our hearts to the life-giving breath of the Spirit. She insisted that we are one family, born of the same Father and living the same charism.

There followed the presentation of the Chapter calendar, the discernment groups and other people who will accompany us during these days. Sr. María José thanked the many others who contributed to the preparation and development of this event. Among them, Sister Adriana Montenegro CMT, who begins her service as facilitator, as well as Sister Sonia Mendoza, secretary of the Chapter.

We experienced, thanks to the dynamics proposed by the facilitator, a greater closeness and mutual knowledge among those present in the meeting room, getting to know each other, sharing about the lives we care for on a daily basis, the realities that occupy and concern us, and committing ourselves to contribute what we are. Our availability was put into action.

In the afternoon Sr. Jolanta Kafka, Claretian Missionary, introduced us to the retreat, reminding us of the importance of prayer which is the door, encouraging us to enter into the dynamic of the fullness of the knowledge of Christ from the depth, the width, the length and the height of what our reality and its discernment entail. She invited us to be willing to grow in freedom in order to build communion. She made us aware that the great service to be rendered by the Chapter is the discernment of realities.
These days, prior to the official inauguration of the Chapter, like the portico of a building, allow us to review the luggage we carry on our back and to determine ourselves to enter fully into this unique experience by bringing what we are and what the Spirit whispers in our discernments.

The solemn votive Eucharist of the Holy Spirit in communion with all the CMT communities and with all the people who accompany us in this great event, was celebrated by Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. In his homily, he invited us to allow ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit, to live diversity as a gift of the Spirit, to open our hearts so that He may speak and act in us and through each one of us, and to remember that the time of the General Chapter is a time of grace and conversion.
At the offertory, the Provincials presented a symbol of the life of their circumscription; the Province of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus offered a pumpkin, a sign of its fertility and fragility. The Province Francisco Palau presented a vehicle, a sign of apostolic dynamism and adaptation to the signs of the times. The Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe presented a jigsaw puzzle, a sign of the participation of all in the construction of this province.
The day concluded with a fraternal dinner with the Cardinal, after which we continued in silence to interiorise and deepen the steps of our retreat prior to the inauguration of the Chapter.