5 February began with a prayerful reading of the words of the Apostle Paul (2 Co. 2:2-6) that were then concretized through excerpts from the writings of Maestra Thecla and a small Bible enthronement ceremony in which five sisters, dressed in the colors of the five continents, accompanied the Word of God to the altar.
The Wordthe heart of the Interchapters themelinks us to our 9th General Chapter, as Sr. Antonieta Bruscasto reminded us. Imbued with the Word, we cannot help but be women of hope, that is, women with their gazes fixed on the future. From this sprang the invitation of our Superior General to listen to the Word in an active, obedient and life-transforming way, so as to be the good soil in which the Word takes root, becomes flesh and is proclaimed, since we can only communicate what we live.
Afterward, Sr. Battistina Capalbo explained the work method we will be following to consolidate a dynamic already initiated by the Congregation in the past three-year period in the process of redesigning our presences throughout the world. Now it is up to us to evaluate this journeywhich links together our past, present and futureso as to move toward our 10th General Chapter along the path of a well-defined and feasible programming.
This relaunching is rooted in our congregational history, as Sr. Anna Maria Parenzan pointed out in her quick review of the significant dates of our story (previous Chapters and Interchapters) from 1992 up to today. With joy, we contemplated how the Spirit has little by little brought us to a clearer grasp of our urgent need to renew/redesign our Pauline life, and pool our energies and resources, so as to blaze paths of hope in the world of communications.
In the evening, during a solemn Eucharistic Liturgy celebrated on the level of the Pauline Family to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Sr. Thecla Merlo, Fr. Silvo Sassi, Superior General of the Society of St. Paul, emphasized the need to live our faith in a missionary spirit, learning from Blessed James Alberione and Maestra Thecla how to allow God to fill us so as to bring to maturity the supernatural gifts he has bestowed on us: Baptism and the Pauline charism.