Our Interchapter Meeting is moving ahead in a serene, family atmosphere warmed not only by the sun of Rome but also by an avalanche of messages, which are arriving from every part of the world. We feel sustained by the affection and prayers of you, our sisters, and by the many members of the Pauline Family, as well as friends and collaborators, who promised to remember us in a special way during this time. We want to avail ourselves of our web site to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone!
We are now divided into four groups according to the continents on which our circumscriptions are located: Asia-Pacific, Africa-Madagascar, Europe-Quebec, and the two Americas. The official language of the Interchapter is Italian, but it often takes on multimedia nuances that make our sharing sessions more fluid and joyful. In todays session (our first) each sister spoke about the redesigning project being carried out by her circumscription: the steps taken to concretize the project, the initiatives underway, and the problems encountered. In particular, we shared ideas concerning how the beacons (the priorities) pinpointed during our continental meetings in 2010 were received and assumed by our sisters. These beacons for our continental journeys are the Word of God, shared and lived; a faith that opens us to hope; pastoral work for vocations; the sharing of our charism with the laity; formation and study, and the use of the new media.
We were amazed to hear how the animations on the need to redesign our presences and renew our Pauline life prompted many of our sisters to docilely accept a change of house and of office, grasp the need to organize the apostolate in a way better suited to our strength and to the needs of our mission, agree to band together with FSPs of other countries and cultures to form new delegations, share our human resources and economic goods with one another and with countries devastated by natural calamities in this time, etc. So many favorable changes have taken place that some of the superiors present here said, We touched with our hand the fact that God is at work in the life of our sisters, communities and circumscriptions.
Tomorrow we will continue these communication sessions, focusing in particular on the steps we have taken together on the continental level to make the most of our resources and share them with one another. The key word of our meeting continues to be us. Thank you for your prayers for uswe count on them more than ever.