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Mes: julio 2021

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Celebration of the Provincial Chapters in Latin America

Our Congregation, as an organic body, holds several internal structures that facilitate the organization of the sisters in the different countries of the world where they are present. We use the general term “demarcation” when we refer to Provinces, Viceprovince and Delegation, into whom the Congregation is divided.  “The Provincial Chapter is a collegial organism expressing the participation of all the sisters of the Province, responsible for taking appropriate measures and assuming commitments for their spiritual and apostolic growth, in communion with the Church and the Congregation” (cf. Const. 139) and it is celebrated every three years (cf. Const. 141).

The Coronavirus pandemic has affected the life of the whole humanity with very serious consequences for all people, that let and are still letting us to experience uncertainty, illness and death. In the same way, it has upset the agendas and programs of each institution or group, from the smallest to the biggest one and we have to think again about everything in order to give valid answers to the occurring reality.

In our Congregation, the Provinces to which belong the 19 Latin American countries where we are present, were supposed to celebrate their Provincial Chapters in the months of November / December 2020, but, due to the above mentioned situation, it has been necessary to postpone these ecclesial and congregational and very important events. Finally, it has been possible to summon them adapting their celebration to the present circumstances and adopting a methodology different from the one used on other occasions.

The Chapters will be held in three phases:

  • 1st phase: it has already started and all the sisters of the Province participate in it.
  • 2nd phase: it will be celebrated with the virtual participation of the elected capitulary sisters.
  • 3rd phase: it will be held with the physical presence of the elected capitulary sisters and it will take place in the coming month of August.

The Provincial Chapter is responsible, among other things, to analyze the situation, problems and aspirations of the Province, with a projection for the future, to seek the appropriate means to promote the religious and apostolic life, the formation in its different stages, etc., to study and to orient the administrative and economic questions, to redact appropriate agreements according to the reality and the needs of the moment… and to elect the Provincial Superior and her Councilors for a new triennium (cf. Const. 140).

It is up to the capitulary sisters who will attend the Provincial Chapter in its 3rd phase, the election of the new Government Team and also to deal with some of the above mentioned aspects. It is a time to redouble prayer and trust in the Lord, a time to search, to discern and to make important decisions for the life of the Province, sisters, communities, apostolic deeds, the members of the Amigonian Lay Movement and  persons sharing the mission with us or that we are serving in different places.

We like to inform about the dates of the celebration of each Provincial Chapter with the physical presence of the capitulary sisters, the place where it will take place and its theme, so that we the sisters may join together in a cenacle of prayer asking God for the light of the Spirit.

  • Province «Mother of the Good Shepherd». From August 12th to 16th in Bogotá – Colombia. Theme: «The nowadays history challenges our charismatic identity as Capuchin Tertiary … It is urgent to give an evangelical response generating life and hope».
  • Province «Our Lady of Divine Providence». From August 12th to 16th in Medellín – Colombia. Theme: «The Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family in a changing and different world: we are called to recreate our consecrated life in fraternity and mission in the light of the charism».
  • Province «Our Lady of Guadalupe». From August 19th to 23rd in San José – Costa Rica. Theme: «The Tertiary Capuchin adhering to Christ, compassionate and merciful, promptly responding to a wounded world».
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G7 leaders look to post pandemic recovery promising to learn from past mistakes

The G7 is an international organization formed by the seven countries economically most advanced and was founded in 1975, primarily  to facilitate shared macroeconomic initiatives in response to contemporary economic problems. The representatives of the countries meet every year and this year the summit took place in Cornwall (England – UK).

The main topic of conversation for the 2021 meeting, the first face-to-face summit since the pandemic began in early 2020, was Covid recovery, including «a stronger global health system that can protect us all from future pandemics».

It is significant that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the G7 summit is a chance to learn lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic and wished do not repeat the errors made during it.

In his opening remarks to the G-7 leaders, Johnson said as the world recovered from the pandemic it was important to “level up across our societies” and build back better. He remarked that the G7 nations are expected to commit to sharing at least one billion coronavirus vaccines; Britain pledged to donate more than 100 million Covid vaccines to poorer countries and U.S. promised 500 million doses of vaccines to low and middle income countries and the African Union.

On its part, Caritas International appealed to the Group of Seven rich nations of the world, declaring that it is impossible to “build back better” without cancelling the debt of poor countries and reinvesting these funds in Covid-19 response and recovery and to combat the climate crisis. 

As we can see, international organizations are striving to search out the solution for the most serious problems and challenges of the present moment, sharing creative ideas and initiatives that we hope will bear fruit of goodness for the whole humanity.

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Iran expels italian nun who has spent her life for the poor of the country

Seventy-five-year-old Sister Giuseppina Berti, who has worked for 26 years in the leprosarium of Tabriz and now lives in Isfahan in the house of the Congregation of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, will have to leave Iran in the coming days because  her visa has not been renewed and she has received a travel order. Her departure will make it difficult for her fellow nun, Sister Fabiola Weiss, who has dedicated 38 years to the poor and the sick in the leprosy hospital, and whose residence permit has been renewed for another year.

She and her fellow sister Fabiola, a 77-year years old Austrian, they have dedicated their lives to the country’s sick without distinction of religious or ethnic affiliation, to the education and training of young people, children, refugees and war orphans but in recent years, the two sisters did not carry out any outside activities, to avoid being accused of proselytizing. Their house is currently the only reality of the Latin Catholic Church in Isfahan and their chapel, built in 1939, serves as the parish of the «Powerful Virgin», which is occasionally made available to visitors for the celebration of Mass.

In Iran the Catholic Church is integrated by two Assyrian-Chaldean archdioceses (Tehran-Ahwaz and Urmia-Salmas) which have one bishop and four priests (in 2019, the patriarchal administrator of Tehran of the Chaldeans, was also denied a visa renewal and could no longer return to the country), an Armenian diocese in which there is only a bishop and the Latin archdiocese which currently has no priest and is awaiting the arrival of its newly appointed pastor, Archbishop Dominique Mathieu.  As for the religious presence, the Daughters of Charity operate in the country, with three sisters in Tehran and two sisters in Isfahan. There are also two consecrated laywomen. The faithful number about 3,000. With the departure of the nuns, the presence of the Latin Catholic Church in Isfahan would be permanently lost.

This news puts us in contacts with a quite unknown reality of several countries where Christianism is a very little presence and religious intolerance continues limiting and sometimes suffocating the life and mission of the Church. On the other side we know that the humble and often unseen presence of the Christians, is always a seed of God’s kingdom that sprouts up its fruit of compassion and mercy for the poorest and weakest ones and their silenced voice continues announcing to the people, messages of peace and hope.

By VATICAN NEWS

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Inés Arango: to surrender one’s life for the gospel

When we talk about Sr. Inés Arango, we spontaneously talk also about Bishop Alejandro Labaka and that is because their lives have been united forever in our memory and in our hearts, since they gave up their life  for the love of their brothers, on July 21st, 1987.

Otherwise, Inés, had been unnoticed in the simple daily tasks, like anyone of us, her sisters, in the Aguarico mission or in any other of the 34 countries in which we live. Anyhow, in the people hearts had remained , the mark and testimony of her life as a woman of faith, joyful, committed to Jesus Christ in her community and for the most in need people, courageous and determined to live coherently with what she was believing… and something more.

One day someone asked me which is the best thing we can be said about Inés? I answered, without hesitation, that she gave up her life. The surrender of one’s life is not a matter of a specific moment, but it is true that sometimes it happens as it occurred to Inés… “the critical moment of giving up the life”. Giving up life is rather a «long moment«, a long way lasting the whole existence, until the moment when it is given up completely and without reservation.

Therefore, when we approach Inés’ life, it is good to think about her “root”, support, source, nourishing, and relief … all that stands «behind» her person and fashions it.

Inés was born in «the city of eternal spring», in Medellín (Colombia), in the year 1937. She had the great luck of being born into a believing and deeply religious family. From her parents and siblings, she learned by osmosis, the values of believing, praying, serving the neighbor …They were freely living their faith in the everyday life and in the simplest things and she made her own this same attitude throughout her whole life. From them she inherited also vitality, energy, genius and a sense of the unusual, aspects allowing her to face with a great freedom, the difficult moments of her existence.

Among mischiefs and adolescent rebellions, Ines was growing in faith. We know that, first of all, the seed of faith must be sown and then it will germinate and bear fruit … may be an abundant fruit. Because of that, it is important that the Word be announced to us… through the word and the testimony of life… and also listening without silencing our concerns, desires, and yearnings. Some of that happened in Inés’ life.

Let us approach her life to verify what was resounding in her «inside» and was the engine of her existence, the deepest reason moving her to live a total dedication and to act risky and that was sustaining her whole life. The missionary concern experienced in her family, in the parish, in the school … was an abundant seed in the person of Inés, a seed sown in a fertile and good soil. And, actually Inés, from her very early age, did not silence her concerns. She always warmed up her desire and knew how to nourish it amid difficulties and sufferings.

And also the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters left their mark on Inés; in her daily experience with the group of girls in the boarding school in Yarumal, she noticed how they were living the Franciscan and in addition Capuchin style of life, enriched with the «charisma», and  «special touch l” received from their founder, Luis Amigó. This «special touch» was nothing else than an unconditional dedication to the least ones, to those to whom no one goes …living in the simplicity and joy of fraternal charity … nourished by the Word of God and the Eucharist… unconditional committed, out of love for Jesus Christ incarnate and made one of us, born of Mary, out of love for Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd seeking those who are lost, out of love for Jesus Christ who gave his life for us, dying on the cross and rising again and all that, according to the style of the Holy Family, living in fraternity, available and dedicated. The Capuchin Tertiary Sisters, who came from Spain to Colombia to be missionaries … We know that Inés was repeating that many times! And being already a Capuchin Tertiary Sister she was reclaiming the missionary commitment among us, sisters of her Congregation.

We can imagine Inés in this environment. Undoubtedly, in her dreaming heart, there were decisive moments of missionary seeding. Inés’s dreams will turn, little by little, into wishes and, at the end, her wishes into reality.

Let us go back to the life of Inés to see how she was daily listening to the deep music filling her with an evangelizing vigor and was able to discover what was before her, how she was discovering that life is meaningful only if it is offered and, furthermore, holding the Gospel in her hand and at the whisper of our Charism.

The Capuchin Tertiary Sisters, according to the expressed wish of our Founder, received this task: «to be the trainees of the Good Shepherd, looking for the lost sheep». In today’s language, it means to live in favor of the “least ones”, of the disinherited of the earth and that is a call to be a courageous woman ready to give up her life if necessary.

Inés faithfully lived so. She learned to receive as a GIFT this charismatic experience which marked her forever and also as a TASK and a duty that no one could accomplish on her place. Inés was a very receptive and determined woman, dreaming and critical, happy and cheerful. The «music» that Inés was listening in her inmost as well as all that was happening to her brothers, the Huaorani, were tending her heart, more and more, towards the “last ones”.

On these days of the month of July, being fulfilled on the 21st, the 34th anniversary of her life given up together with the Capuchin Bishop Alejandro Labaka, we are invited to participate in the events that the Vicariate of Aguarico organizes every year in memory of Alejandro and Inés and especially in the 15th Walk, that this year will be virtual and physical. We can follow it through the website: www.alejandroeines.org.

Let us celebrate also the commitment of our sister Inés reading again her biography “Clay and vessel in the wounded jungle” available in the congregational website in PDF format. Let us spread her story among young people and let us see in her a fulfilled experience of our missionary dedication to the most disadvantaged people. Let us also put her as our intercessor and let us pray for her beatification.

May Inés and Alejandro, disciples and missionaries dedicated to the heart of the Ecuadorian jungle, be for us a breath of fresh air, a whisper of the Gospel, a fraternal rumor, an evangelizing fire …

Hna. Isabel Valdizán Valledor, Tc

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“I have seen how cruelly my people are being treated… I have heard their cry”

Thanks to my Congregation of Capuchin Tertiary Sisters, and especially to Sr. Ana Tulia López, Superior General and her Council, to Sr. Yolanda de María Arriaga, Provincial Superior and her Council of my Province “Our Lady of Guadalupe ”and to the Latin American Conference of Religious (CLAR), who provided me with a scholarship, it has been possible that, five months ago, I could begin a path of knowledge, accompaniment and painful discovery of a reality of death and resurrection, that our Church is living at present. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, our group has been the first international and multicultural group, most of its members Spanish speaking people that, at the Pontifical Gregorian University, could complete the Diploma in Minors safeguarding, attending classes physically, during the months from February to June 2021.

It is not easy to acknowledge one of the wounds that the Church must take care of, beginning a path of conversion and reparation before the situations of abuse. It is illogical to pretend to make God speaking since forgiveness, as a characteristic of a compassionate God or that divine justice act on the sinful deeds of humanity. These ones are responses, often erroneous, given without knowing how to care for victims of sexual abuse or, in other words, without engaging themselves in the restorative healing task and assuming the humiliation, preferring to choose a defensive attitude for the good name or status of the Church.

It is the necessary to make visible the victims remained unattended and that is why it is requested their intervention and to accompany them through an empathic treatment that will cure them humanely and emotionally. Those who have courageously assumed their responsibility had to learn how to cope with the case processes and have offered the means of due treatment and compensation to the affected persons.

It is an obligation of the Church to care for the victims through the recognition, closeness and a good fraternal treatment approaching them like the God of Israel who listens to the cry of his people (Ex 3,7), creating spaces for dialogue and encounter, bending over to know their suffering and pain, attending to the needs of the brothers affected by the events and offering them the opportunity to express their feelings, emotions and unshared silences. That is the occasion to re-establish the faithful that are part of a community, giving them the possibility to be solidary through the reception that offers the strength to recover. This is a path of prevention and safeguarding in an ecclesial communion, creating support networks to work as a team with institutions, professionals and people with whom, in this course, we have woven fraternal ties and created a support network, because we have acknowledged that we also are vulnerable and we need to be supported and accompanied. This will be the task to carry on through the different commissions formed in the dioceses, parishes, religious congregations, CLAR and various International Conferences of Religious working for the prevention culture.

The healing process involves to accompany the victims without haste and without looking for immediate results. Rather, it consists in caring with a heart of mercy, walking alongside with those who carry difficult situations, taking each one his own responsibility towards their reality; it consists in listening to the cry, bending over and looking at them like God looks at his people, listening, approaching, overcoming prejudices, risking, being creative in inventing gestures of tenderness so that a gradual and patient process may take place and it may involve healthy symmetrical relationships and also inclusive understanding to welcome even the aggressors. In the community or the Church, must be offered a space for attention, openness and welcoming attentive listening; all that should be provided in an atmosphere of freedom and respect for each situation, always gazing like God, compassionate and moved by the caused wound, opening new possibilities to comprehend the experienced situation and to start a healing path, beginning with the “verbal testimony” presented as part of a salvation history, perceiving God of life’s acting and keeping in our memory that God’ s action, revealed in the pain of the past is transcended and gives meaning to the present.

The Church in her evangelizing task, walks alongside as a mother with its children and offers itself as an intermediary: it reveals the salvation through the events of a personal story manifesting love in the midst of suffering and offering a path of life and hope. I echo the words of Sister Nathalie Becquart, whom, in February 2021, Pope Francis appointed as one of the two Undersecretaries of the Synod of Bishops; affirming that “All of us, as baptized, are called to fight against clericalism which has been identified as the root of any abuse that is always the consequence of an abuse of power”, she remarked that it is necessary to promote discernment and to seek co-responsibility and subsidiarity, since a new style of governance, in the Church and that is the path of synodality involving the active participation of all the members in the shared mission, seeking consensus together since a free leadership, allowing the community to participate in the decision-making avoiding being the protagonists or a selfish narcissism, overcoming great institutional temptations of concealment, impunity, silence and deception … building again he coherent articulation (leaving dualism) mercy-justice, synodality-collegiality, vulnerability-precariousness.

The culture of prevention begins in the ecclesial life, in all its structures, dimensions and representativeness of all the members of the people of God; the Church mission, especially with regard with the most vulnerable («minors»), is to announce the Good News to all creation through an oblative service without domination.

At the end of this time of grace we return to our communities, parishes, dioceses with the hope of serving and helping the most vulnerable who demand love, sowing a culture of good treatment.

Hna. Priscila Brenes Granados, Tc

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ckmetktzoy9xib5/video%20FINAL%20Diploma%20CCP%202021.mp4?dl=0

 

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Artículos

Education in times of pandemic

It is known by all that COVID19 has permeated all the spheres of the human life. This pandemic surprised us when we were absorbed in what we were calling «normality» and asleep in our comforts and personal anxieties. We never imagined that something so miniscule would have the power to take away thousands of human lives around the world and in a record time. Neither social status, nor fame, nor money have been useful as “saving-life” pass. This reality made us to see that we are not as powerful as we believe and, as Pope Francis affirms, “our vulnerability was exposed”.

This pandemic has also unmasked the gaps existing in many areas of society and the educational field has not been an exception. The educational systems of the world have been confronted and challenged to change their dynamics and some of them did so with a higher speed and effectiveness than others. The great powers countries of the world, thanks to the virtual and digital media, managed to give continuity to the educational processes in a short time but unfortunately, for the so-called third world countries, the reality has been very different: in addition to the lack of connectivity in various territories, they could not rely on  electronic equipment and devices and so be able to access virtual classes and, as an important fact in this historical moment, a large number of the teaching population that we could classify as “digital illiterate”, has also slowed down the processes.

Since all this reality, great questions arise to challenge the education agents: What to teach? Why to teach? How to evaluate? What to do in a virtual classroom or how to design a didactic guide to keep alive interest and motivation about learning? These are only some of the many questions that the reality of COVID-19 involves in the education sector. And it is not so simple to think about education in times of pandemic.

In the first months, when we were confined, education experts spoke out and said that the school could not be the same once it would be possible to go back to the physical presence in classroom in the dynamic we now know as “alternation”. And it is so; many will surely have achieved this urgent and necessary innovation, but many others will continue to be submerged in the lags of a traditional education that does not permeate the students’ lives, nor does it enable them to become transforming agents of society.

Consequently, the roles and the scenario of the educational process have changed. The exigency is not only for the teachers about the use of technological media or in the urgent need to achieve a true curricular transformation committed to improve the educational quality. Parents and caregivers have also been forced to learn again and to place themselves in the perspective of teaching and, in most of the cases, they were not trained or accustomed to do it, because they do not have the tools or the basic educational level to accompany the academic process of their children. That has generated stress, fatigue and even school dropout within the houses, especially in the most vulnerable population.

We always say that responsibility for the educational process is a commitment concerning both educational institutions and families but, in theory, until before the pandemic, only the first instance really assumed this commitment. We must acknowledge that the task of “reinventing ourselves” has been assigned to both students, parents and educators.

It is common to hear a phrase that, at a given time, was valid: «we were not prepared»; now it is time to leave behind this justification and to arm ourselves with passion, dynamism and creativity to face the historical moment urging us. This challenge entails to recognize the structural problem of education, the evident disparity in educational and technological opportunities as a reality that cannot be ignored, but we should not rule out the possibility of developing a humanizing process within the educational institutions and whose priority is to train resilient students, capable of getting out of themselves, understanding life since an altruistic sense and aware of the need to work for an integral ecology. The 21st century education has to be an education encouraging rather than teaching how to think and to live together.

 

Initiatives like the Global Educational Pact, promoted by Pope Francis, aim exactly to open doors so that, education and real processes of social transformation can take place. Now it is the moment: let’s not lose the opportunity to re-signify the educational environment starting with small actions.

The pandemic has put us in front of this great challenge and according to our being and doing as Capuchin Tertiaries we own all the tools that we need to give a coherent response based on the Gospel and the tenacity of our Charism.

Hna. Yury Tatiana Amaya Mendoza, Tc

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