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Meeting in Rome of the Pastoral Team with Young People and Formators

July 19, 2024

Content, with you Lord and committed. Experiences that expand the heart

We are pleased to meet you, the Curia house opens its doors to us.

From July 3 to 9, in Rome, the General Government brought together the International Youth Ministry Team and the Formators – Postulants, Novice Mistresses and Junior Mistresses – who are in the service of accompanying those who have felt the call of the Lord and wish to become Daughters of Jesus.

What joy we experience when we see them coming to this House, which is the house of all!…. With their presence they bring us closer to the universal Congregation…, they remind us that we belong to a Body that extends the frontiers of its own country and/or its own province. We belong to the Congregation. With these words, our Superior General, Graciela Superior General, Graciela Francovig.

The meeting that we lived had been dreamed of for a long time, and it was the circumstances of time and people that made this meeting happen together, both groups, being thus very much of God and a true gift that moves us to gratitude and hope.

We discovered and confirmed that these fields of youth and formation are linked and that our present situation invites us to live them in an articulated and continuous way, building bridges between youth ministry, vocation ministry and formation.

With you, Lord, committed and walking together

Our foundation is Jesus and, therefore, the experience of prayer with his Word and the Eucharist have been central in these days. It is our first help, every day, every moment, to remember that we have to let ourselves be guided by Him more than by our personal qualities. And that the mission that we carry out is not ours, it is God’s.

From here we confirm that we are called by Jesus, from our smallness and fragility, to walk with young people, with the new generations of Daughters of Jesus who are already being formed and, especially, with any young person who would like to belong to this family.

The way of working was accompanied by personal times of listening to God, listening to each other, allowing ourselves to be helped by the enlightenment of others who have offered us keys to continue caring for the young men and women we are accompanying in the stages of formation, who are sacred ground.

There were also times of separate work in each team, returning to the assembly and putting in common the reflection of one group and another, giving time to the resonances generated by what was heard and, thus, enriching and helping each other, we created a way of working and a result of which we are very grateful for the commitment of each one accompanied by the grace of God.

These days have been an opportunity to reaffirm that young people today are one of our priorities . This certainty accompanies us, not because we have few or many vocations, but because our humanity is experiencing a profound existential crisis and we want to be close to and accompany them, especially the new generations.

It is in this world that we live in that we consecrate our lives to the Lord and we commit ourselves to continue to bring out what is proper in each young person so that, by accompanying them integrally, they may discover and live their vocation, especially those who feel the call to be Daughters of Jesus.

Some grants received

The task is not yours, it is God’s, He knows the instruments He chooses,” Fr. Herranz, a Jesuit who was key to our birth as a Congregation and whose birth we celebrated on July 5, reminded us.

Today, as in the beginning, we do not go alone. God never tires of helping us at every moment with what we need and continues to call us to accompany young people and their reality.

For the illuminations of these days we asked our Jesuit confreres, Alfonso Alonso Lasheras and Orlando Torres, to share with us their experiences about the current reality of youth and formation. We thank them for their humility and passion to transmit their reflections and experiences. These have been the key for each team to carry out the task entrusted to them with solidity and foundation thanks to the enlightenment received.

The mission of the Daughters of Jesus needs new Daughters of Jesus

Sharing with Alfonso confirmed us that this time we live in is marked by a vocational crisis, that it exceeds the religious life and affects the essence of the person.

The vocational question is sometimes absent and, in the worst cases, silenced. But we affirm that both the question and the answer that some of us can give by consecrating our lives to God and his plan of salvation remains a possible and desirable path.

Our motivation in these fields of pastoral ministry and formation is still alive and current: Jesus continues to call young people. Our mission is to continue to collaborate, from the integral accompaniment, to awaken in each young person a vocational subject. And, as Orlando reminded us, God himself is the one who forms, and we are humble instruments for God’s action in young people . And, walking together with them, from the integral accompaniment, embracing all the dimensions of their person, we offer the question: Where is God in your experience, in your life, in your story, in what you narrate…?

These days of fraternal life, formation, reflection and teamwork leave us happy, feeling the close presence of Jesus, expressing in the depths of our hearts and with conviction: we go with you, Lord. Confident in Him and committed to be light and life for the young people to whom each one is sent. The road continues, the heart moves as we say goodbye. We return to our local realities animated by a deep and heartfelt GO!

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