While we welcome you to autumn, and with memories of the summer holidays still fresh in our memory, a new school year is beginning in the Province of Spain-Italy. A year that will be loaded with new things, movements, beginnings, meetings … Some of them were already communicated by Mª Carmen Martín FI, Provincial Superior, in the month of July in her circular to the sisters of the province, in which she informed of the appointments of the Local Superiors and of the Heads of the schools.
In these first weeks of September the planning and start-up activity have been very intense. There are many different meetings that have been scheduled to focus life for the coming months in the Province.
The first to meet were the Support Teams of the Province. On September 15, they were in Madrid together to seek concerted efforts to help carry out the Provincial Project, which is spelled out in the objective “to be a Body in which its members feel affectionately and effectively linked, evangelize with a new dynamism that spreads joy and that testify with such a sense of vocation that enables new vocations to emerge.” Precisely it was the subject of the vocational culture that they prayed and reflected about together in that encounter.
In the following week, those who were in Madrid were the Superiors. First, on Thursday, September 21, the Superiors of the infirmaries with their respective Support Teams, and the coordinators of each of the houses. And on Friday, September 22, all the Superiors of the Communities, who continued to take steps toward a common Mission Project. They were accompanied all day by Francisco Jose Ruiz sj, who was provincial of the Jesuits of Spain until last June. “Towards a new leadership in the midst of change” was the title of the contribution he shared with them throughout the day.
DECIDE
From the beginning of September, there has been a lot of activity in the Educational Works of the province, in order to better accommodate the more than 18,000 students who are distributed in the different stages of education (from the first cycle of Pre-school Education, from 0 to 3 years, until the professional training cycles) in the 21 schools which the Congregation has in Spain. This would include the young women who reside during their university formation in the three halls of residence in the Province (Madrid, Salamanca and Rome).
Together with more than 1,200 teachers and about 230 non-teaching educators, all of them will share another year with the same educational-pastoral objective and a common theme. The objective is the same one that has been worked on in recent years: “Find and choose what most helps us grow as autonomous, creative and committed people.” This academic year puts the accent on the word choose, and from it emerges the motivational motto for the year: “Decide”.
In a year where there are many changes of directors and heads in schools, the Educational Works Team wanted to call all of them at the beginning of the school year. Thus, during the morning of Friday, September 22, they welcomed all those who start service this year. At that meeting, Raquel Amigot FI, delegate of the Provincial for Educational Works, helped them to situate themselves in the mission received, reminding them of the essential thing: to collaborate in the proclamation of Jesus and His Kingdom through what they have been given in particular: to direct a school, with a style and a proper way, that of the Daughters of Jesus. In the afternoon, and all together, they shared various bits of information with the Provincial Treasurer, Provincial Superior and other teams that are deepening and developing the educational project of the schools in the Province.
Spain-Italy Communication Team
