News
Some Impressions and Reflections: Provincial Congregation Journey
DEC 28
The recent Provincial Congregation was not merely an event but a sacred space for listening, discerning, and responding to the movements of the Spirit. It served as a moment of grace where shared experiences, open dialogues, and reflections shaped our journey as a community. Below are impressions and reflections from this significant encounter—snapshots of grace, lessons learned, and seeds of inspiration for the journey ahead.
The PC experience was truly a great gift of God at the end of 2024, a great "baon" as I go back to the mission. Loved every moment of listening to all of you, learning and updating from you, and bonding, filling up years I have not seen many of you! May our Triune God, the Blessed Mother and Mother Foundress guide us in our journey towards the pathway of HOPE in this Jubilee Year! Maraming salamat again Sisters for everything!
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The last Provincial Congregation brought me to a deeper experience of God through Sisters' interventions, and attitude of indifference. Everyone has her own beliefs and interests, but there's always a point where everybody unites, prays, and walks together. I appreciate the process where discernment and synodality were palpable. Indeed it was a spirit-filled "encounter". We go back to our respective communities with much hope and gratitude. My deepest gratitude to Sr. Lynn, to her council, to all the Sisters who, in one way or another, contributed a lot to make this PC a success. Blessed be God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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I am grateful to God for this grace-filled experience. The encounter with the sisters was filled with aspirations, desires, hope, faith, and trust in the Lord. All these and the sharings of the sisters have enriched me.
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It was truly a blessing to be one of the delegates in the Provincial Congregation. The days spent during daily masses, personal prayer, reflection, and discernment were sacred moments that led me to be intimate with the Lord. In these times, begging for the grace of the Holy Spirit was made real. The sessions, discussions, and group sharing were also blessed opportunities to profoundly know and understand our province's life and mission, which led me to love the Congregation all the more. God’s grace overflows for those who ask for it. The grace that the Provincial Congregation has gifted me, will always serve as a sweet and beautiful reminder to strive to become an authentic Hija de Jesus whose life is centered on Jesus with a deep longing to be a balm of warmth, kind presence, and hope and joy to the people around me, helping them recognize the loving presence of Jesus in their lives. And so, I thank the province, Sr. Lynn, and the sisters who have become instruments of this grace-filled experience. Arigatougozaimasu.
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The word “CHARISM” as significantly articulated in CFI 136 remained in me. This charismatic gift from M. Foundress, a patrimony of the Hijas de Jesus, calls forth a new way of living. Last Christmas, I visited our three elderly sisters who are mostly in bed. For me, they are the epitome of true Hijas de Jesus trying to live their consecrated life faithfully in whatever circumstances of their consecrated life.
I would like to share with you the acronym CHARISM by which to summarize my reflection on my PC experience.
C – It was a CHALLENGE to listen deeply to the Spirit, to one another, and to the many voices that arise in the plenary sessions which call for patience and humility.
H – We are called to be heralds of HOPE. Isn’t it a grace that our PC coincides with Pope Francis opening the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica and launching the “Jubilee of Hope?”
A – It is hope that challenges us before an AMBIVALENT world to assess our way of life as Hijas de Jesus; a call to conversion.
R – So, we may be RELEVANT and RESPONSIVE Hijas de Jesus to the needs of our brethren today; becoming true brothers and sisters for a better world to live.
I – This impels us to grow in INTERIORITY as Hijas de Jesus; to be “full of God,” configured with Jesus; with a discerning heart seeing in all things in the everyday life the ways of God for the common good of all.
S – Everything becomes possible through the SPIRIT who inspires, renews, sustains, and gives new life in becoming true Hijas de Jesus.
M – MARY becomes the star of our path and M. FOUNDRESS, St. Candida is our constant inspiration to be faithful to the charism she received in Rosarillo and she endeavored to live throughout her life.
I feel grateful and blessed.
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The lack of experience of the Provincial Congregation motivated me to take every orientation to heart. I fully understood that this was a defining moment in the congregation.
At the beginning of the sessions, I saw myself as an empty vessel waiting to be filled… allowing myself to be soaked with the reflections. I am awed and filled with wonder about how my co-delegates expressed themselves during the interventions. The group sharing made me feel comfortable as I was able to share more of what I have in mind and heart. That was a jump start for me to feel excited and passionate in treating matters for reflection… with the motivation to see the world with the eyes of God and respond according to His most holy will. At one point, I experienced strong inspiration from the Holy Spirit when I realized that none of the accepted postulates explicitly mentioned refugees, migrants, and internally displaced people. Different faces of people in the refugee camps and on the borders flashed in my mind. Faces of uncertainties, hopelessness, reluctant smiles trying to hide their anguish…their silent cry for peace, justice, and freedom from being caged in the camps for several decades. My experience serving and living with them provided a clear context and reasons for a strong postulate. It was only then when I felt the interior peace that I advocated for the voice of the refugees, migrants, Internally Displaced People, and in addition, people on the move. I realized that it is only when I allow myself to be led by the Holy Spirit that I become strong when I am weak. My vulnerabilities become possibilities.
I hope and pray that would hear the cry “We are here…. We exist … Help us. “ May our response as Hijas de Jesus not only be in beautiful and strong words written as a document. May those people in difficult situations feel that they are part of the family of God- that God is their Father, and they have dignity as His children, our brothers and sisters. May their cries be no longer of anguish but a voice of hope saying “I am not forgotten…. I am loved.”
To be a part of it calls for a radical transformation and becoming articulate witnesses of what we proclaim “ God is our Father and we are all brothers and Sisters.
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The Provincial Congregation was accompanied by the Holy Spirit throughout its journey. I could sense the Lord’s gifts of respect, humility, acceptance, forgiveness, and sensitivity to where the Lord was leading us. The delegates were faithful to fulfill the responsibilities assigned to them. There was peace in general. May we bring the “seed” of the Provincial Congregation into our hearts and let it create ripples anywhere we are. May God bless us.
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I am grateful for the trust and chance given by the sisters to be one of the delegates in this 19th PC. A palpable gift and grace of the holy spirit. A call to live the charism of Mother Candida Filiation-Fraternity with creative fidelity and authenticity. It ignited my passion to be committed to the mystic-prophetic dimension of my vocation as an Hija de Jesus: a witness of kind presence in the mission, with my sisters, in the spirit of synodality. Thank you.
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Looking back at our recently ended Provincial Congregation, I could say that it was indeed Spirit-filled and done in “synodal style”! I saw how those 12 days of the PC were characterized by constant listening to the Spirit, dynamic collaboration, active participation, and a great sense of mission by the 35 sister delegates.
Our reception of the sacrament of reconciliation and listening to two conferences on “Four Pathways of Synodality ” and “Review of Discernment” before the official opening of the PC helped set our “hearts on fire” to carry out the big responsibility entrusted to us by the congregation.
I am very grateful that participating in this PC afforded me a beautiful experience of communal discernment with my sisters coming from five countries --reformulating the postulates, electing the four delegates to the 19th GC, and drafting the nuclear points-- were all done in deep prayer, reflection, study and constant listening to the Spirit’s lead. Indeed, the tasks were serious and hard but with the Holy Spirit backing us up with His unseen but empowering presence every step of the way, we were able to finish them as best we could. I enjoyed working very much in our small group composed of seven sisters, -- six of whom had been sent /are still sent to foreign missions and one not yet, but equally having the “passion for Christ” in typing the postulates assigned to us for reformulation.
Lastly, I would like to thank Sr. Lynn, the sisters of the Prep Com, all the sisters of the different PC committees, the lay staff of the PC Secretariat, and MRH lay collaborators for facilitating a very engaging PC that strongly “breathed” the spirit of synodality.
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I feel so blessed and grateful for the opportunity to be a member of this Provincial Congregation. The thought that we are doing and giving ourselves for the love of God, our vocation, the Congregation, and the Church as a whole made the experience more beautiful and meaningful even as a first-timer. From the preparations, the talk of the two priest speakers, the recollection, and during the days of the PC, I feel how the Holy Spirit works in each of the sister delegates. In the reflection group, in the plenary, and even during breaks, how each one valued the person, the experience, and the context was also very palpable. There was a strong sense of listening attentively to the sharing and allowing the spirit of love, collaboration, and union to work in us. I believe that to be configured with Jesus is the one that moved us to be more generous, responsive, and committed to the tasks at hand during the whole process of the Provincial Congregation. It was a humbling experience to be trusted by the sisters to bring their petitions and echo their heart’s deepest longings and desire which is to be “authentic Hijas de Jesus” in this complex and challenging world today. Truly, with Him, the pathway of Hope, we also become bearers of hope. Blessed be God forever!