EN 
ES 
FR 
Santiago (Chile), 02/22/2026, Sr. Carmen Leonor Cortés Cortés.- As a Vice-Province, we humbly acknowledge that from the moment the Congregation entrusted us with the task of Restructuring, we embraced it with openness, availability, and commitment, without fully knowing the challenges we would have to face. With the previous leadership team, we undertook a process of interior preparation, and in the 2020–2025 Statute Project we “declared our commitment and choice to make Restructuring a path that embraces all dimensions of our life, in order to commit ourselves radically to the mission of the Church.”
Our reflection and search never ceased: With whom? How? When…? Always seeking to discover and interpret the signs the Lord was presenting to us… Until the moment arrived: the Vice-Provincial Formation Days, September 11–14, 2025.
By unanimous decision, we chose to walk this path with the Province of Our Lady of the Americas. Trusting in the action of the Spirit, we began the journey, knowing it would be neither short nor easy.
For this reason, we took advantage of the Formation Days and the Summer Retreat to continue working.
Our Retreat in January 2026: on the path of restructuring…
Guided by the wisdom of the Word and the inexhaustible richness of our documents, especially the Constitutions and the Regulations of Sainville, we undertook a spiritual pilgrimage shaped by the signs and reflections our Sisters in charge offered us each day:
Silence / Light. “Silence, the condition for encountering God and His Word, is the fullness of the heart” (cf. CC 11–17; Reg. VII). It allows God to enter our lives, enlightens them, and enables us to recognize and fulfill His will. “Let it be so now; for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (cf. Mt 3:13–17).
Conversion / Heart. “Leaving their nets, they followed Him” (cf. Mk 1:14–20). They were freed from fear and routine. They discovered Him as the One “capable of filling the heart of the one who consecrates her whole being to Him” (cf. CC 18–32). “Hannah… am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Sam 1:8).
Spirituality / Cross. “Be silent, and come out of him!” (cf. Mk 1:21–28). When God acts within us, He transforms and reshapes us, developing a new way of being and living that becomes our spirituality. Marie Poussepin left us a spirituality centered on Christ and on active love for our brothers and sisters, excluding no one, and with special preference for the poorest. “Its aim is to imitate by one’s conduct… the life that Our Lord lived on earth…” (Reg. I–II C 1).
Communion / Rope. Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law. “He came near, took her by the hand and raised her up” (cf. Mk 1:29–39). In these three verbs, He offers us a pedagogy for our relationships, a sure path toward the communion we seek. A rope is the patient union of different fibers woven together, giving it strength and the capacity to sustain. “Each one needs the others to be fully herself…” (cf. CC 2–10). What bonds of communion do we wish to weave in order to meet the challenge of Restructuring with the Province of Our Lady of the Americas?
Mission / Bag. We reflected deeply on CC 20.27; 80–88 and on the Word of the day: “If you choose, you can make me clean… I do choose. Be made clean!” (Mk 1:40–45). Jesus shows solidarity with the leper, heals him, restores his dignity, and grants him a new life that transforms him from an excluded and marginalized person into a missionary: “…he began to proclaim it freely…” How well Marie Poussepin learned this lesson! “To announce Jesus Christ is our mission… whatever our age or situation may be” (cf. C 82); therefore, we always carry our bag… Each one carries her own. It is not empty; it holds our history, who we are, our wounds and hopes, the Word we have heard, the faces we love… yet we walk together… The mission is shared.
Transformation / Butterfly. Our eyes shone, our hearts beat strongly, our lips exclaimed: we have reached the goal! Yes, we have arrived—in hope, in desire, in readiness; above all, grounded in the certainty that “whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mk 11:24), knowing that the Lord does not dispense us from the responsibility that belongs to us personally, communally, and as a Vice-Province. Thus, the euphoria of utopia becomes commitment, and we begin to look deeply at the new steps we must take to continue this “dream of God” which is also ours. The beautiful image of butterflies in flight invites us to embrace our fragility and to hear the voice of Jesus who not only says, as to the paralytic, “I say to you, take up your mat and go…” (cf. Mk 2:1–12), but also: Dominican Sister of the Presentation, take your fragility and fly; dare to look far ahead, to cross boundaries… Not alone. Always hand in hand with your sisters (cf. CC 5.8).
Thank you, Lord, for this new opportunity. Thank you, Sr. Gladys Gabriela Vergara Ríos, Vice-Provincial Prioress, and the Sisters who collaborated with her, for with wisdom and simplicity you helped us prepare our hearts and minds to continue advancing along this historic path of transformation that the world and the Congregation ask of us.
