WHAT KIND OF RELIGIOUS LIFE ARE WE FORMING OURSELVES FOR?

What Kind of religious life are we formining for? This was the main theme of a meeting of temporary professed of Latin America which took place in Peru last January. We hope that what follows may give you an idea of the experience of our Sisters at this meeting.

This was the main theme of a meeting of temporary professed of Latin America which took place in
Peru last January. We hope that what follows may give you an idea of the experience of our Sisters at this meeting.

The meeting of junior professed sisters of Latin America provided an excellent opportunity for the six Holy Family temporary professed sisters from
Latin America to meet up. The majority of us had made our Novitiate together.

On the first day, we shared our experiences. On the second day we got to work. The main theme was “What kind of Religious Life are we forming ourselves for?”

Two sisters from other congregations, one of them the President of the Conference of Religious of Peru, helped us in our reflection.

Both interventions helped us to become more aware of the situation of the world today, how we place ourselves in that world and the causes of the present crisis in religious life.

Another important point that we reflected on during this meeting was: how modern culture penetrates our communities and influences the way we live our lives. The rhythm of change is very rapid and we cannot always assimilate everything that is presented to us. The following of Jesus is a process, and numerous, rapid changes can sometimes interrupt this process. We find it difficult to discern, both at community level as well as at a personal level and at times we do not know how to face up to life’s difficulties. The cause of this is that we are formed for post modernity, which is very much characterised by individualism, a centring on oneself and onone’s own pleasure. The body is very much overvalued. However there are also positive values in today’s culture, which can enrich us: gratitude, solidarity, collaboration with others, the value of democratisation and globalisation.

During the second part of the meeting we concentrated on what is specifically our own way of living religious life. The texts that helped us to reflect were “Creating new relationships”, and “Role of the member: sense of belonging to the Holy Family. We met –
Selva Encina from Paraguay, Adela Fernandez and
Tere Beck from Argentina and Vanda and Maria from Brazil and we shared at a deep level on our images of God; how these images are formed in us; what traces remain in us at the present time and what helps and hinders us in our relationship with God. We also looked at how important it is to feel ourselves to be true members of the Family and how we can carry out our responsibility as members.

We reflected on fidelity and we realise that it is very important to be very clear about our reasons for entering Religious Life. We realise that the society that surrounds us has very different ideas about fidelity and we felt invited to ask ourselves: How do I perceive fidelity?

During those days we had the opportunity to spend an evening with the lay associates and with the sisters of the Delegation of Peru and we felt very much in family. We had a very pleasant evening together.

On ending we have to say that this meeting was extremely profitable to us in our formation. We wish to thank very sincerely all the sisters who made it possible for us toparticipate.

(Source: Article written by Luciana in “Informando”, the news bulletin of
Brazil)