Our Provincial Superior, Dayse Agretti, informs us with joy and hope that “on July 20, our sister Naike Martín and four young people from Spain, Elena, Belén, Carmen and Nuria, arrived in Bolivia. They will be in Bolivia until August 18, sharing life and mission at the Buen Retiro boarding school. The experience will also include knowing other presences in the region. They have already been in the community of Cochabamba and now they are in “The Jesuit missions” in Santa Cruz and Monter, accompanied by some sisters.
I find it interesting to make a brief memory of the history of these experiences, as well as their meaning. Mª Carmen Jiménez helps us with this report because she has been in Bolivia on other occasions accompanying these experiences.
The experience is called “Finding Joy – Bolivia” and the colloquial name with which they know it was born from the young people themselves: “EA”.
This MAGIS SENTIDO SUR experience began in 2018 and thus has taken place EA18, EA19 and now EA22 has just started (EA20 and EA21 could not take place due to the pandemic).
MAGIS is called the Ignatian Pastoral (18-30 years) of the Jesuits in Spain. Together with Together with the Jesuits, there are several congregations of women of Ignatian spirituality and also CLC.
The MAGIS SENTIDO SUR experiences are those that are organized to have an EXIT experience of oneself, of what is known, and to have an encounter experience in another country, with another reality, with another country, with another reality, with the people and the culture. Also to live experiences of community, service, spirituality…
The experience in the country you are going to lasts about a month; the preparation and formation process takes almost a year. During this time, a special invitation is to take care of personal accompaniment. Upon returning from the experiences, the process that each young person has undergone is accompanied and, at the end of October, a retreat is held to “close the experience”. This is a personal-spiritual process that especially helps these young people in their life project “on return”.
In the Bolivian experience, the 5 pillars of every MAGIS experience are lived:
– PRAYER: Morning Prayer, Liturgy of the Word, Eucharist.
– ACTION: the activity that takes place in the boarding school, school, parish…
– CÍRCULO MAGIS: meeting of “community” in code and dynamics of discernment in common with listening circles about what is lived.
– EXAM: exam of the day.
– ACCOMPANIMENT: personal accompaniment is invited and encouraged”.
On the morning of July 21 they left for the Bolivian East where they could see, contemplate and listen to this reality of the country. The sisters of the houses opened their doors, welcomed us and gave us a little taste of life on mission as Daughters of Jesus in these places. The sisters presented and showed us a bit of the apostolic and catechetical mission they carry out.
It was very pleasant to meet sisters who did the Last Probation together in Rome. It was really a great joy to be able to see each other after 7 years.
In the middle of this quick visit, the Magis group had the opportunity to go and set foot on the lands of the Jesuit reductions: San Javier and Concepción. Some sisters accompanied us: Nieves, Leonarda, Carla, Rommy and Carla’s mother who was visiting Santa Cruz.
On the 20th they spent it with the sisters in Cochabamba.
This last week of July, already at the Buen Retiro and taking advantage of the fact that it is still a holiday, the Magis group has taken some time to rest, adapt to Bolivian time, get to know the Buen Retiro – Capinota, visit some families from Buen Retiro, help with the cleaning of some spaces of the boarding school to receive on Sunday the 31st the inmates who return from their homes.
We accompany this experience with prayer, wishing that the group can realize their desires, dreams and challenges in this reality of the Good Retreat. We, as a community group of Buen Retiro Retiro, want you to be and be a good help in this experience of Encounter with Joy.
HH. de Buen Retiro, Cochabamba
