The 3rd day of the Vice Provincial Chapter falls on the 3rd Sunday of Lent on which the Gospel speaks about the Samaritan woman on the well. Jesus told the woman, “Give me something to drink”. The liturgist of the day posted a compelling question for the Capitulars that says ¨For you, what is that drink that Jesus is asking from you?
In the morning session, Fr. Agustinos Supur from the Claretian Missionaries was invited to talk about “Consecrated Women, Generators of Life – in the Context of Asian Mission”.
The talk was a moment of grace in which the Capitulars together with some of the sisters attending online are confronted with the different realities in life as consecrated women. Fr. Agustinos was talking about Mission as a Journey. Journey not only with the Christians but with all the people of the world. He also mentioned that God is also a Journeying Trinity as he quoted Vita Consecrata 17-19 that tells about the Vocation and Mission as consecrated individuals is in the initiative of the Father, for the following of the Son in the power of the Spirit. He too stressed that in the following of the kenosis of Christ, all are included, “Not one left behind”.
The second part of his talk is a challenge on how to journey upward – the Spiritual Aspect, journey inward – to self, journey outward – with others and journey downward – discovering mother earth. All these had been a very profound topic that invite everyone to live a life of a journeying mystic. Not the concept of a mystic that levitates and floats in the air… but Mystics that contemplate on God’s hidden face on the poor, the strangers, the refugees, the lonely… Persons that walk with their sisters and brothers not just side by side but face to face, persons that inspire the people and give taste to faith as salt of the earth and light of the world – thus called as generators of life.
As for the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters in particular, basing from the Document of the XXIII General Chapter given him, he said that he is being edified by the way of life the sisters are trying to live and telling the sisters that they are in the right track as journeying sowers/farmers of the seeds – the Gospel. His parting words was telling the sisters to “Continue to be farmers as Generators of life”.
In the afternoon, the sisters proceeded to their group works to study their life and mission. In the Plenary, the sacred discussions and evaluations of the reality of the sisters and their communities led to the conclusion that the Document of the XXIII General Chapter is somehow being lived in the Vice Province, though for sure everyone are still in the journey of perfection.
The last part of the session was the presentation of the Document of the XXIII General Chapter that the Congregation is invited to observe and grow with for the next 6 years. Sr. Ma. Luisa Garcia Casamian, the General Vicar and one of the members of the Commission who elaborated the Document invited the sisters to make a qualitative leap and move on their own experience not just as a community or a Vice Province, but that each sister must enter, immerse, and allow herself to be affected and be confronted by the Document.
She said that we are often told to live with fewer structures but finally it seems that we look for them in order not to get lost… That this document is open for the “fundamental intuitions” that each one will be challenged to reflect, and name her experience in the depths of her being, as everyone is a sacred and a unique story. Also, that from the Document, the community will be left in their creativity of making their Life and Mission Project something vital and unitive that will give more reason to the sisters’ daily waking and doing.
Lastly, each Capitular was solemnly given their own copy of the Document with the formula: You are Charism, You are Mission, You are Congregation… Thus, God help them to be truly one.
