XXIII General Chapter - July 12th

2007-07-12 12 July 07

A new day begins; a new gift from God…

It is a joy to contemplate the beauty of our environment in radiant sunshine; not that we have much time to be outside because the work is intense.

After hearing some explanations in the chapter room we returned to group work to continue our reflections on the themes we wish to present to the congregation

The Jesuit priest who usually celebrates Mass with us at 8 each morning was absent for medical reasons. This gave us the chance of a little further rest and a longer time for personal prayer. He told us that on 17th he will have heart surgery, a double by-pass.
We assure him of our prayers. He has a beautiful simplicity and a good sense of humour. Our Mass was at the end of the morning’s work and was animated by the sisters from Mauritius/Rodrigues, in French and Creole.

At lunch time we celebrated Ann Kasparak’s birthday. Veronica Blake and Judy Frasinetti, from the USA Region, made a solemn entrance to the dining-room with balloons and a cake complete with lighted candles. Ann made several attempts to blow them out, without much success, which provoked much fun and laughter. Happy birthday Ann!

During the afternoon we exchanged on a diversity of important questions: the formation and accompaniment of the young Professed (those who have made temporary commitments); international reunions between the young sisters of Latin America and those of Africa. We were about to begin our reflections on the subject of Lay Associates when, to our surprise, the electricity/microphones broke down. That ended our work for the evening.

As you know, each evening different provinces/regions have been invited to present something of their culture. This evening it will be the turn of our Spanish sisters.



Tomorrow, July 13, we have a free day and will go by coach to visit two of our communities in Bilbao. We hope the sunshine will remain. We continue our work on Saturday 14th.