Surely all that you have lived here is a gift of the Spirit to the Vicariate and to the Family at this time when you celebrate 150 years of Holy Family Contemplative life!

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As you return to your communities may you be bearers of the good news and with love and hope prepare the sisters to welcome the decisions. It is all the members, together with the leadership team, who assume responsibility to promote and live these decisions. In this, as in all situations of life, you are invited to open yourselves evermore fully to God and to others, to give and to receive. (Art 223) May the Holy Family accompany you on your journey and help you to “go forward” with joy and love.
Margaret Muldoon (Sup. Gen)

So, since the election of the new Vicariate Council has already taken place the Chapter is drawing to a close earlier than anticipated.

This afternoon we will meet in the hall at 4:00pm to approve the final text which will help us during the next five years. After that and a short break the chapter will be declared closed after Margaret has spoken, the acts of the chapter have been signed and the closing celebration is over.

But everything does not end here. Tomorrow morning at 11:30 the Superior General of the Oblates will come to celebrate the Eucharist in thanksgiving for the 150th anniversary of the Foundation of the contemplative vocation in the Holy Family.

We know that you will be present with us and that many will be the times when we shall meet again on the journey which began here during these days, - that is what our family is about! Thank you all for everything.

The members of the new council are:

Bernadette Taurinya (Vicaria)

Mª Dolores Sanzberro. Nacida en 1942. España

Lorenza Ponnanwila. Nacida en 1946. Sri-Lanka

Françoise Daigneault. Nacida en 1931. Canadá

Good morning!

The day began with some sad news : the death of a Contemplative sister:
Sister Marguerite Marie Le Coq (Martillac. France)

After a few words of introduction reminding us that today we must look beyond ourselves, our own interests and preferences, we spent some time in prayer repeating many times over the invocation to the Holy Spirit.

The final prayer:

God, our Father,
when we realise how much you love us,
something in our life becomes calm and we are transformed.
In Jesus, your well-beloved Son, our Peace and our Joy,
You bless us and call us to CHOOSE LIFE.
In your goodness, grant our prayer today so that,
through Him and in Him,
attentive to your Spirit,
in all our decisions and all our choices,
we may be a hymn of praise to your Glory.
We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.

After the prayer there followed the period of listening that we mentioned yesterday. The sisters expressed themselves in depth and sincerity. We then moved on to the next step: the indicative vote.

Malini and Malena handed a voting paper to each capitulant on which she was asked to write three names. From these a new list will be drawn up according to the number of votes each sister had received.

At 10:30 the sisters will be able go back to the hall to pick up this new list. From this time until 11:30 Margaret and the facilitator will be available to any sister who wishes to communicate the reasons why she would like her name to be taken off the list .

At 11:45 we will return to the chapter hall where we will find the definitive list and we will proceed with the election proper according to the Constitutions of the Institute:
the required majority, number of votes etc. (Art. Const. 230)

Oteiza (España)

On returning to the chapter hall each sister went to put in the appointed place the paper on which she had written the five names requested. From these names a list will be drawn up and will be made available to the capitulants in the chapter hall from 6:30pm.

To end the day the community of Oteiza(Spain) will present itself to the assembly.

Tomorrow we begin the Assembly at 9:00am so that those who wish may express themselves (reservations, difficulties etc) It will be a time of listening.

If a sister who is on the list is not present, she will be contacted and asked if she would like to say anything to the Assembly before the capitulants move to the final vote.
Any information received will be communicated to the Assembly.

The atmosphere is one of respectful silence.

We can say that the after noon was divided into two parts :

The first part consisted of taking another look at the final document: clarifications, observations, and it was decided by an absolute majority that this document will be called a Recommendation and the new Council will explain in a post-capitular letter exactly what is meant by that term, so that we all understand the same thing.

We began the election process for the Vicariate Council. First of all we read the
process to be followed and time was given for any clarifications required.

Bernadette informed the capitulants of the results of the consultation of the sisters concerning the number of councillors to be elected.
The Constitutions specify 4, but in the consultation 3 were proposed. An indult had been requested and the request was granted.
The econome is one of the Councillors and is elected by the Council once it has been elected.
The sisters were told that of the 50 sisters in the Vicariate, three have the right to Vote but are not eligible themselves not having the required number of years after final profession.
After this the process of election was voted on. It was accepted with an absolute majority.

Time was left for personal reflection so that on their return to the chapter hall they could proceed with the straw vote. Maria Carmen invited the sisters to recall the challenges facing the Vicariate and to consider of the names of 5 sisters they consider capable of rising to these challenges and see them through to the end.

We have taken the first step in the elaboration of our text and now the Drafting Committee will have to take it up again and improve it by including the suggestions that we made during our sharing.

When we had finished the facilitator asked us to take a moment of silence asking ourselves how we feel after having done what we could to improve the text. We expressed ourselves freely in one word:

Joy
Trust
Daring
Hope Gratitude
Zeal
Amazement
Magnificat
Happiness
Strengthened
Abandonment
Serenity
Go forward
Identity

We will meet again in the chapter hall at 3:00.

“This morning the Word of God spoke to us of a new Covenant, of new promises…”, said Maria Carmen Vilardell (facilitator) after welcoming us.

She gave us a short summary of what has happened since January 13th and helped us to realise that we are being continually linked up with the all embracing reality of the new vision which arose out of the General Chapter.

With the help of a song the Assembly asked Mary to accompany us in this new stage of our journey. After this the drafting committee presented the first draft of the conclusions that we have reached up till now. Time was given for a first reading of the draft after which we were invited to ask for any clarifications that we needed. We then went into our linguistic groups to:
- share our reactions to the text
- add points or remove them if necessary.

We return to the hall at 11:00am.

We concluded the journey we had made with Colleen during these last two days
with a celebration. This took the form of a sharing of the statements and meditations that had been given to us previously and giving thanks for what we had lived together.

These two days have been very intense. Now a special time for the Vicariat is fast approaching with the election of the new Council.

We celebrated the Eucharist at 6:15 and gave thanks for today.

We came back together in the hall at 3:00pm and shared our dreams. We include here some pictures and words which will give you some idea of these dreams. Between each group’s presentation we sang the chorus of an English song which said “I have a dream….which helps me to face whatever happens…all I know is that it is the right moment for me and I can cross to the other side of the stream”.

After this Colleen gave us some thoughts (printed) inviting us to discover the ones which touched us most and in which God is calling us to live something new.

Congratulations, Clare, on the ocasion of your birthday!

Now it’s time to start dreaming! This is what Colleen said to us when she began the session. But what do we have to dream about?

Margaret told us the story (a true story) of a Carmelite Monastery where the sisters, somewhat worried about the age gaps in their community (beween 90 and 50 years), were asking themselves seriously what they would have to offer to a thirty year-old woman if she were to present herself one day. They spent a lot of time discussing this. When they realised that they were ready to receive new members, they began a serious vocation campaign and various women between 30-40 presented themselves and began their formation. This convent is now flourishing. A dream must give a real impulse, must motivate people and get them moving (and Colleen k is really good at this!)

This will show us a way of dreaming that is both simple and objective at the same time:
Our dream must not come from to our desire to survive at all costs, but rather from the conviction that the world needs what we alone have to offer.

We must dream of a new way of being gift to the world by allowing our Corporate Commitment to light up the way.

She insisted that we try to forget the words that we use all the time, words that are worn out , and gave us the following task:In the light of our Corporate Commitment create a dream about how our Holy Family Contemplative life can be a light for the world within five years.

We came back to the hall for a period of sharing. As Colleen had told us to we tried to draw and cut out something in the shape of a balloon in which we wrote the fruits of our reflection. (You will be able to see these in the photos).

This was followed by a time of silence during which we were invited to ask ourselves: how do we feel when we see what we are already living of our Corporate commitment? The sharing which followed was rich, deep, sincere and full of joy. After a well deserved break we came back to the hall and took up the Corporate Commitment once more to see what the new vision adds to what we are already living.

Colleen Moore. sfb

We began the day with the song « God of Everything », and we had not been in the hall five minutes when Colleen put us into groups and presented us with a new challenge: to assess and appreciate the way we are already living the Corporate commitment, recalling what we have been living up to now.

We formed these group voluntarily according to the following themes:
- The Word of God
- The vows
- The Family
- The quality of our relationships
- Passion for the Kingdom

Martillac (Francia)

WEB. Sisters Contemplatives Holy Family of Bordeaux