Some of us who have made the vows from December 1989 were in Madrid to have a quiet day of meeting, shared prayer… last February 20.
In the morning we recalled the meeting last year in February where Guadalupe Labrador, “Franciscana de la Divina Pastora”, was the facilitator. Now we were the organizers – Antonella Rizzo, Belen Brezmes and Ana Zubiri.
From that encounter, we chose the theme: Becoming aware of the importance and influence of each one and of our group in the life and mission of the Body-Congregation. And we entitle dour meeting “Weaving experiences, outlining the future”.
It was a blessed day. It helped make us pause, to discover ourselves as daughters loved and cared for, and to peek into God’s dream for us that binds us by his call to this charism that Mother Candida opened for us. We know that it will not be easy for us, objectively nor subjectively. And we want to prepare, equip, and empower ourselves, to live what corresponds to us at this stage of life, with the joy of one who lives her vocation and makes the great gift of God grow for each one of us and as a group.
And we approach different corners of the hand of Mother Candida in the proposal of Celia Amorós, in that brochure that we know: The Daughters of Jesus, today and its origins.
Different corners with different questions, which we went through, according to our interior experience of things:
– Humiliation and vulnerability
– Do not separate your heart from mine.
– I belong entirely to Jesus. Tell me, my God, what do you want me to do?
– I want you to be joyful in the Lord.
– These (women) are for boarders and day students, rich and poor, here and there, where the greater glory of God may be found, for it is their motto.
– God is our Father and He will look after us.
– All are to look after one another, as the good sisters that we are.
– I put all my hope in you, my dearest Mother.
Then we culled, weaving whatever could help us to look at the future through various questions that found us on different tracks, all aimed at a heart inside a ball:
Where do we placeour security,where is the source ofour courage?
How to help others in this process of knowing Mary of Nazareth better?
Are we a Congregation, a group of women of union, of love, of true and fruitful apostolate?
How do we trace in everything the signs of salvation in the present circumstances?
What does humility as an attitude of Jesus defining disciple ship to him mean for us today?
We were able to share in three groups that we had formed with the colors gray, blue and green. At the end of each ball we had a heart with foot prints, foot steps… There we put what we had felt, what paths to the future can be opened to us in our lives and to deepen in future meetings.
Feelings ofthese moments:
We have shared freely; we have felt listened to and actively listening to each other. We felt that we could share in sincerity.
It has made us feel united; speaking from the heart with hope, feeling that there is a whisper that confirms us.
In the after noon we formed two concentric circles and those in the outer circle moved around after talking with her partner about these topics:
1. Finding the equilibrium in communities that allow fraternal life and mission.
2. How the young sisters orient themselves in this situation: many works, institutional weight and being called to live happily.
3. The labels of religious life are not helping. (It may refer to social and ecclesial ignorance of the Religious Life); there are internal labels– personal labels, irremovable prejudices and judgments – that we impose on each other and it does, if anything, more harm than label splaced from outside the Religious Life. How to deal with these things?
4. Open the doors of our Common Mission Projects and include the laity.
5. Work on vocations.
Many shared conversations and words evoking experiences, feelings and desires to move forward.
And we closed with the celebration of the Word. We allowed the experience to settle and we expressed aloud with a word, a phrase… what the day had left us with. We joined in the mantra: You faithfulness is great, your faithfulness is unsurpassed, there is no one like You blessed God, and great is your fidelity.
We listened to the meeting of Mary of Magdala with the Risen Jesus where there were moments of: tears, crucified hope, they have killed life, what bodies do we embalm, what nights are ours, what roads between shadows… And up on hearing our names, we felt the call that convokes us and the Lord inviting us and sending us: Tell them, I have seen my Lord, We have seen the Lordin this meeting.
We prayed the Our Father, each in her mother tongueorin that with which we feel more identified now by our stage of life… We took communion and ended with the song Mary of Nazareth, Mother and Disciple of Jesus, woman empowered in the love of God, woman empowered by the love of God, trusting that she prays with us in this journey.
We are already looking forward to the next and Enri Seva, Ana Zubiri and Antonella Rizzo will facilitate it for us.
