Like a gift
For this 56th General chapter...
Sr. Françoise-Marie Beguin, Province of Europe.- I hope that each of us will welcome the other from another culture, with her history, her tradition and her language, as a GIFT. This will be a real challenge for each of us, a real asceticism... in this way, our charity will grow and so will the Spirit of our Congregation.
I think it is necessary that each participant should want to exchange honestly, in order to build up the body of the Congregation, a body of the Church, and that our final text should be dynamic, at the service of the provinces and the Church.
Challenges for the Congregation in the face of the reality we live in the Church and in the world.
For me, one of the major challenges is our missionary project following in the footsteps of our Blessed Marie Poussepin and St Dominic. A project to be pursued with the elements of our time and our cultures.
How can we, where we are, live and act in solidarity with the poorest, both materially and in Europe, the most vulnerable, intellectually and psychologically, on the margins of our societies and the Church?
How can we live plenty life, with the weight of the years or the dynamism of youth?
How can we be available to the breath of the Spirit and not to the noise of our mobile phones or false information?
Another challenge we need to consider is vocations. How our lives together and our personal lives reflect our spiritual life, and how they can still awaken young people and help them to respond to Christ's call in the style of Marie Poussepin. What do young people expect? What challenges are they seeking to meet? Some of them are involved in the challenges of our world... how do we support them? What is the difference between the world and us? Young people are looking for a solid spiritual life, a solid formation... and projects.