On the way to the 11th General Chapter

The General Chapter is a period of grace. It is a time of review, learning, reflection and planning to allow us to remain a charismatically strong and vibrant presence in the Church and in the world.

The Chapter will be celebrated in November 2021 and will be preceded by a formation week for the Chapter Sisters and Spiritual Exercises.

From the Pre-Chapter Assemblies

Our Chapter way continues with the celebration of the Pre-Chapter Assemblies of the Family of Apostolic and Contemplative Life.

After the Technical Commission has met and listened to the Sisters of all the Communities and Monasteries, it is now time to “stop”. Stopping is part of the journey. If we walk together, when we pause we look at each other, on each other’s face we can read our own fatigue in moving forward, the satisfaction that the direction we are taking is the right one, or the fear of having taken the wrong path. As we stop, we talk to each other, share paths or decide to turn around. Because the meaning of the journey is that in the end we arrive at the desired destination, together. And when the walker is a religious community or a monastery, the pause is even more necessary, because what is at stake is the very meaning of the life of the walker.

And so, at different times and in different ways, first the Delegation of Africa in the month of May and now, in the month of June, the Monasteries, the Provinces of Italy and Asia, Mother House and the Houses directly dependent on Mother lived this strong time of confrontation, of reflection on the themes that emerged in the consultation of the communities.
In the Pre-Chapter Assemblies, aspects, problems and directions considered important to take were “brought into focus”. This material will be used by the Technical Commission for the drafting of the “instrumentum laboris”, the basic text that will “guide” the work of the General Chapter during its celebration.

In this time of rapid evolution and great changes, it is important to ask ourselves about the significance of the consecrated life of Saint John of God, about the extent to which we are still capable of expressing how beautiful it is to be for God and for our brothers and sisters; to ask ourselves how our charism is capable of expressing, in the Church today, our predilection for the most fragile brothers and sisters who find themselves in situations of need, both spiritual and material, and whom our society marginalises.

The work was accompanied by the prayers and offerings of all the Sisters, especially the elderly and the sick, and many lay associates and lay collaborators of our Congregation.
May prayer and the docile listening to the Holy Spirit help us to rediscover the impetus and joy of the origins, that fire of charity which from the heart of God was poured into that of St Joseph B. Cottolengo and which comes to us as a participant in the life of the Congregation. Cottolengo and which is shared with us. Deo Gratias!

Africa Delegation

Italy

India