During the last the days of the Renewal Course we had the privilege of being accompanied by our Superior General, Maria Inez Furtado, and Clara Echarte. We had six days of illumination and deepening on the Constitutions and the Complementary Norms and Directives, TO KNOW HOW TO GIVE REASONS FOR OUR WAY OF BEING AND PROCEEDING.
We emphasized some ideas: the CFI are inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to be read constantly and to be put to practice … it resonated in us; how do we live them here and now? … It is a book of discernment. It is up to us to invent the way … to live the newness of the Spirit in every time; and we are always beginning. THE MISSION is the extroversion movement of the Triune God. God’s movement towards humanity to transform the universe. JESUS missionary of the Father, Jesus enters into reality because God wanted to enter into humanity to save it. And now He sends US to continue His mission. The mission is not ours, it is God’s.
Reading our constitutions from this orientation is a grace because we are discovering a treasure in them, because that new perspective fills our hearts with ardor when we read, reflect on, deepen and pray about them. It has been an act of thanksgiving to God who offers them to us as a living and effective word (Eph 4, 12). It is a way of concretizing the Gospel for the Daughters of Jesus today, leading us to read them with faith, to go to the sources put into writing by St. Candida Maria de Jesus under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and which enlighten our life and journey today. They are a way of responding to that sending that Jesus continues to do with us today, and that as a congregational body.
Perceiving how the Spirit is moving us to live exerting all effort to attain our own salvation and with the same earnestness seeking the spiritual welfare of our neighbor and the Catholic education of peoples, thus helping our neighbor to know the goodness of God who makes us all brothers and sisters. Therefore, our mission is to integrate this way of living and to allow ourselves to be conformed to Jesus, revealing the mercy and love of God in our lives in any situation, place or age in which we find ourselves. It is a call to live in discernment in close union with the Church.
All this moves us to thank God for giving us the grace to feel the desire to preserve and keep the congregation in its well-being and trust that it is God who carries it forward. It is an active responsibility to contribute with full trust and hope in Him, as if everything depended on Him while at the same time feeling that we must do everything with diligence as if everything depended on us, from a humble and simple collaboration with God and the congregation.
With affection,
The Communication Team of the Renewal Course
