XXI GENERAL CHAPTER

OPENING SPEECH OF THE GENERAL SISTER, 7 SEPTIEMBRE 2010

My dear sisters: in a Franciscan way I greet you Peace and Goodness.

We have heard the text from Acts 2: 1-13 that narrates the event of the Pentecost. The text tells us that the disciples were together in prayer in the Cenacle with Mary the mother of God along with other women.

This day, the same event is repeated: with Mary we are forty two Capuchin Tertiary women together united in prayer. Disciples of Jesus invoking the Holy Spirit, without fear, but yes , with expectations.

We have prayed intensely putting into the hands of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit this ecclesial and congregational event. All the of us sisters, have reflected, discerned and shared what the Spirit of God have pointed us to follow in fidelity to Jesus Christ in order to serve our brothers and sisters now and in the future.

Like the disciples we wait for the new Pentecost, with it the Church started, in us a rebirth is possible for a new way of being a church for this new era where we are supposed to live in.

The disciples received the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is a unique experience, direct from God, and from this experience, they went out courageously and proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus Christ, plain men without any formation, they were not teachers of the law, they testified from the movement of the Holy Spirit telling what they have seen and heard together from the Master who have changed their existence, and, the text tells us, that those who were listening to them were understanding them in their own languages. 

The apostles understood and put together very well the contemplation and action, which we call today “the mystic and prophets”, this inseparable binomial that configures the following of Jesus, the intimacy with the Lord and the proclamation of the Kingdom. This is our identity in the church, the sense of our vocation as a person and a community: Friends of God, Spokesperson of the Gospel.

When one lives deeply and with coherence from the experience of God, everyone understands for whom ones testify because it is felt and experienced. With that we can say, not with words, but with in one’s life. “I have seen God”.

My dear sisters, convened for the XXI General Chapter, we wish to repeat and relive in us the experience of the overwhelming and expansive force of the Holy Spirit. So that when we go back to our own communities, to our countries of origin, we can truly say that “I have seen Jesus, I have felt His power within me and in my sisters” as we have just seen Him: “We want to see Jesus”. As what had happened to those who were gathered together, they didn´t remain confined in the Cenacle, rather, the mystical experience have loosened their tongue, so too for us, we should feel from our hearts the necessity to announce that Jesus Christ is alive, that God loves all men and women because all are His children. Let us transmit to our sisters this flame and power of God to announce the Good News of the Gospel.

We are a Church committed to life and the message of Jesus. In all the places where the Capuchin Tertiary sister is present, the message of healing, peace, joy and transformation should be announced.

To be mystics and prophets should be our mission now: to follow Jesus, to live like Him, to love ´till death like Him. In order to fulfill this sublime mission, we have to fill ourselves from the Fountain who is Christ.

During the last Plenary Assembly of the International Union of General Superiors celebrated in the month of May this Year, we had the theme from a phrase of St. John of the Cross: How good it is that I become a fountain that springs and flows even if it´s at night” Eighty General Superiors were gathered together to seek for the Fountain of Christ the Lord. We affirmed that the future of Religious Life lies in the force of its mystics and prophets.

Parting from this conviction and taking the message to a more than six hundred thousand sisters that we were representing, a compromise to illumine the ways of the Religious Life in the following years to the five continents was formulated.

At the beginning of our General Chapter we consider the same compromise since we belong to the common charisma of the Church:

• To rediscover and listen to the Fountain that speaks in our heart, in other person and in the Creation.
• To go without stopping to the fountain of our charisma and to extract once again the new dynamism of our call, from the intuition that is left to us by our Venerable Father Founder.
• To favor the dialogue between the Word of God and the present event of the world.
• To promote a mystic and prophetic way of life that is open, welcoming, respectful and able to recognize the richness of the diverse cultures and religions.
• Reinvent the art of living together, marked by a relationship that humanizes through listening, empathy and non-violence in order to become a witness to the Gospel.

Without fear and with lucidity we will recognize in our reflections and discernments “the nights”, the weaknesses and lack of coherence that we are having in our daily living, but, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, we will be able to discover the rays of light that are in our nights, in the congregation, in the church, in the world, because it is there, because God is present and acting “even if it is night”. With this power we will discover the new roads as consecrated women who offer a service of compassion and healing to those who are in need.

The studies and the deepening of our Charismatic Identity that we have done in this year in our communities as a preparation of the General Chapter, will be, not only a document file of work, but will rather be a message of hope, the feeling of the need to change that is felt by the sisters, in the dream to be happy and transmit this happiness to the world, to be a living presence of Jesus within the most unfortunate people.

In fidelity to the charisma received from our Venerable Father Founder, we will revise our style of life and mission from the text of our constitutions which is the norms of our life, so that the announcement of the Gospel will become understandable to the men and women of our time in the diverse cultures wherever we are present.

I invite all of you, with creativity, to live out these evangelical values that never change but take new forms without lowering the standards and demands of our vocation.

It is not the written language that convinces, but the language of love, self denial and the sacrifice lived in each Capuchin Tertiary Sister.

With that our task in this General Chapter has two aspects:

1. To know, analyze and evaluate our congregational reality and revitalize it.
2. To be conscious of our wishes, aspirations and the questions of our being human in the world of today and allow us to be shuddered by the dramatic situation of poverty and marginalization lived by millions of our brothers and sisters.

In fidelity to these realities and belonging to the Church of Christ, new compromise for the future will spring out.

The task is urgent, fascinating in the world that needs witnesses of God of Mercy, the Christ that walks in the History and saves it, forgiving and celebrating life. WE ARE HIS MESSENGERS.

There are a lot of men and women religious, lay people that share the passion for God and for the humanity, let us unite our strength, risking together our life in favor of those who are in need of us.

Like Mary, let us remain alert and vigilant in the constant search for the Fountain that flows and with certainty She will allow herself to be encountered even if it “is night”.

With the desire and effort by all so that this reality of Pentecost and counting in the protection of the Holy Family and blessing of our Venerable Father Founder, I declare this XXI General Chapter open.

Thank you very much.