Bienvenues! Bem Vindas! Bienvenidas! Welcome to our Institute’s 24th General Chapter!
We have gathered here from many parts of the world, bringing our hopes, dreams and concerns, and carrying in our hearts also, the hopes, dreams and concerns of those we have left behind: our Sisters in community, our colleagues in ministry, the members of our Extended Family and of our Global Network of Schools. All are with us in spirit, united with us in prayer, and they will be present with us throughout the Chapter. Many have sent greetings and messages of support, which we will post up in the foyer.
We come as we are, with our riches and our poverty, with all our gifts and all our fragilities, called to be – and desiring to be – “Women of Prophetic Hope, Walking together, Risking the new, that All may have Life.” As we gather here, we remember all those who have walked the journey before us, our ancestors in faith and time – they were women like us, with gifts and limitations like ours. It was their deep faith and trust in God that led them to accomplish things they, perhaps, never thought they could accomplish. May their memory and the memory of God’s presence with us in our past, reignite and fan into flame our confidence and trust in God’s presence with us today. We also remember Mary, Woman of Faith, whose feast day we so recently celebrated. May Mary’s acceptance in faith of God’s invitation to an unknown future inspire us, as we discern the way forward during this Chapter, confident that God who has journeyed with us in the past continues to walk with us today.
The retreat that we are about to enter this evening, will offer us time and space to be silent, to immerse ourselves in that presence, God’s presence, to allow our hearts to be still, to listen, to ponder and to dream anew God’s dream for our world. In this Chapter, we face important choices and decisions, that will determine our future as an Institute and the future of the Church itself (remembering that our Chapter is an ‘ecclesial event’). So, we ask to have open hearts that make space for the grace of the Spirit, God’s amazing grace, to work in us and bear fruit. We ask to have hearts and minds that listen deeply to one another, leaving no-one behind, that speak with honesty, discern wisely, and welcome the new things that God is doing, the new paths that God’s Spirit is opening up, paths that will enable us to live more fully our mission in the Church and world of today and tomorrow. We do so in the firm belief that as RSHM, “called to share in the life-giving mission of Jesus Christ” (MS) we have an invaluable and unique contribution to make in bringing about God’s dream for our world today.
We ask the Holy Spirit, then, for an abundance of hope during this Chapter, prophetic hope, the kind of hope that gives us the courage to listen deeply to the Spirit’s promptings, in the calls that emerge during this Chapter. The hope that emboldens us to risk the new, to take the first step along the way that God is opening up for us at this time in our history. This is the hope so beautifully expressed by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, when he prayed “that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened in order that we may see the hope to which God has called us, and know how rich are the blessings that God has promised will be ours”. (Eph. 1:18)
It is the hope that we find repeatedly expressed in the letters of our Founder, Ven. Jean Gailhac, and that he surely desires for us as we enter Chapter 2025. He writes: “May the God of peace and consolation fill you more and more with his graces. May faith, HOPE and love abound more and more in your hearts and make you holy “. (GS/8/VIII/79/A. Vol. II, p. 81).
May we receive the gift of hope in abundance during the coming weeks!
Margaret Fielding, RSHM
