During morning prayer of May 14, the sisters who represent Belgian, Netherlands, Sweden and France , presented us with the image of Jesus’ disciples, Mary and some other women gathered with one heart and mind in the Upper Room.  In Loyola, we Reparatrixes are gathered in a basement room to strengthen the unity we share in the midst of our diversity so that we, and all our sisters, might express it better among ourselves and in all the parts of the world in which we live the Mission of our charism.

This beautiful and interesting artist piece was accompanied by the following prayer:

After the prayer, we looked at and talked about the remaining images that were created to express how we might organize the Congregation as an organic whole.  Of course, each was different from every other in its expression of important elements and perspectives, values and ways of organizing.   Collectively, they express aspects that will certainly be included in what we consider important for living our reparative internationality well during the coming years.

Before lunch, Piluca took us a step further in our considerations about internationality.  She invited us to meet in our continental subgroups so that we could talk about the commonalities we share with other parts of the congregation, commonalities such as geography, culture, language, aspects of SMR life, etc.  This was meant to be simply another way of looking at the reality of our internationality.  After lunch we went back into our theme-groups to integrate comments made on the first drafts.  This kind of work is always a challenge because all three languages are represented in the groups.  But we always manage to arrive at something meaningful and cohesive.