The 2023 Heads Meeting for spiritual formation titled “Leading With the Spiritual Gift of Ethical and Synodal Discernment” was planned for and led by the Global Network Coordinator, Sue Kumnick, and the members of the GN Committee. The implementation of many months of planning and prayer with the Committee was enabled through the wonderful organization and attention to detail of our host, Martha Tajonar, head of Marymount Cuernavaca, and her dedicated team from the Rancho Tetela and Chapultepec campuses.
What marked this particular Heads Meeting was, for the first time in our history, the active engagement of the whole Committee of lay leaders in delivering the Program of spiritual formation for our school heads. This year, of the 19 schools in the Global Network, 17 school heads attended the meeting along with the RSHM Area Leaders from Brazil and Portugal. The key speaker during our two days and nights at the Benedictine Monastery was the former abbot, Father Konrad Schaefer, O.S.B.. A sister from the EAA Leadership Council who attended the meeting, Sister Catherine Vincie, contributed with a reflection on our days together at the very end of the meeting.
Our “vacation with God” reminded us of the need to establish in our too often hectic and noisy daily schedules a sacred time and space, to open ourselves to God’s promptings in everyday things and situations, to see and hear differently using the eyes and ears of our hearts, to be more aware of living the present moment, and to believe that we are truly loved by our ever-faithful and omni-vulnerable Father and, filled with that love, to reach out as Gailhac did “to make God known, to make Him generously loved, to establish that love in the hearts of those confided to…” us, in our families, our schools, and our Church.
