Sisters responsible for the Postulancy and the Seminary Directresses of the Company were called to undertake together an extraordinary journey, from 17 April to 4 May.
Travelling means packing our bags, selecting what is really important to take along and leaving enough space to bring back “gifts” and “souvenirs.” With this in mind, we began a journey that would allow us to contemplate and travel through a variety of places and spaces.
We were a total of 59 passengers from all over the world: Africa, America, Asia and Europe; a wealth of cultures, customs and languages.
The empty spaces in our luggage would soon be filled with postcards and with souvenirs that would help us remember this beautiful landscape:
“Preparing Daughters of Charity for the Church, the Company and the 21st century society.”
The first part of the journey began with an opening message from Sister Françoise Petit. She posed a key question: “What does the Company expect from Daughters of Charity?” She offered three clues:
- A way of being with Sisters in formation
- A theme adapted to the stages of formation
- An apprenticeship in encountering our brothers and sisters who are poor.
Father Patrick Griffin and Father Bernard Schoepfer invited us to contemplate and discover essential realities in the formation of the Daughters of Charity: the context of the world, the formation of conscience and the charism and mission of the formator.
We went through diverse landscapes that captivated us: interculturality in community life, sexual, affective and spiritual maturity, accompaniment, human rights (presented by the Sisters representing the Daughters of Charity at the UN), among others; we felt overwhelmed and concerned by the extent of the subject: to form, to raise awareness on safeguarding of children and vulnerable people and to accompany victims of abuse. Some stops were made to allow us to reflect on “The mission and role of Formators” and “Technology and its impact on Formation.”
A landscape has always several viewpoints and each viewer sees and discovers different aspects, hence the importance of group work, which offered us the possibility of broadening our horizons, of encouraging our desire to discover new possibilities and seek new forms of service.
The Liturgy and the Eucharists were moments of celebrating our faith together, of opening ourselves to God and to our sisters and brothers in poverty, of thanksgiving.
At the end of our journey, we thanked the members of the General Council who made everything possible. Thanks to Sister Françoise for the challenges she posed, of deepened knowledge, of simplicity and hope. Thank you for the experiences, for the audacity and courage of the Company in dealing with current issues, for the commitment to the most disadvantaged, for the diversity that enriches our life because the variety of languages is not an obstacle to our communication.
Fr. Tomaž Mavrič insisted once again on “formation as a priority.”
We completed this part of the journey with the Eucharist that sent us on mission. However, said journey does not end here; as this stretch is over, a new one begins, where we will come across other stories, other lives that will help us to contemplate history and to discover how to accompany young women who come to our life to become Daughters of Charity to continue to grow.
