The day opened with a festive celebration of the Feast of the Birth of Mary, who accompanied us in a special way today.
Continuing to get to know the situation of the Congregation, we listened to what our circumscriptions have been doing in the three years since our 10th General Chapter. All the circumscriptions were asked to evaluate their activities with regard to the Chapter’s guidelines and priorities, which they did with great commitment.
Concerning the first guideline, they were asked to evaluate the areas of 1) faith lived in an ecclesial horizon and relational dimension, 2) apostolic mysticism, as the call to allow ourselves to be conformed to Christ, and 3) a style of life that harmonizes the “four wheels.”
Evaluation of the second guideline centered on: 1) the teaching nature proper to our Institute, and 2) the demands of the new evangelization in today’s communications scenario.
Under each priority, the circumscription were asked to summarize the initiatives carried out, the problems encountered and the “signs of new life” that emerged. These evaluations gave us a panoramic view of the Congregation and revealed a circulation of spiritual and apostolic life that is very promising for the future, in spite of the weaknesses that are always present….
In the afternoon, we had the joy of listening to the experiences of our new delegations of Central Europe, East Asia and Southern Africa, whose superiors gave us a brief account of their histories, problems, advantages and prospects for the future.
Listening to these experiences provided us with further incentive to take up once again the theme of redesigning our presences.
