Province of Spain – Shared Mission Meeting
“[…] a new thing is being born, do you not feel it?” (Is 43:19)
On 2 and 3 April, a meeting of Brothers, associates and collaborators was held at the “Santos Ángeles” Spiritual Retreat House in Zaragoza to discuss the theme: The charismatic family: sharing the mission is to become co-responsible for the mission.
Given the moment of restructuring that our Province is going through, we needed to reflect on how to share the responsibility of the educational mission, and to advance in the discernment of structures that allow this co-responsibility.
To motivate and energize the theme of the meeting, we had the presence of María Belén Blanco Rubio, a member of the Shared Mission Team of CONFER (Spanish Confederation of Religious), where she coordinates the team that advises and accompanies the Institutes of religious men and women in the journey of the Shared Mission.
After this intervention, the Brother Provincial, Faustino Besa, informed and placed us all in the context of our Province. He informed us of the decision of the Brothers to give continuity to our educational mission with the co-responsibility of the laity.
On Saturday afternoon, there was time for an exchange on what had been discussed, and to make progress in the discernment of the structures that allow for co-responsibility.
On Sunday morning, the lay people presented the results of these reflections, followed by a presentation by Brother Jean Paul Mbengue, Assistant to the General Council, on “United for an ever stronger Shared Mission”. He encouraged Brothers and lay people to show our witness as happy adults in our vocation, from which we have to announce the Good News as Montfort did.
He motivated us lay people to form ourselves and others, to carry Laudato Sí as a compass, to humanize from what we are, baptized Christians, and from the personal relationship with Mary as a privileged way for this mission. He encouraged the Brothers that their life should always be an expression of the absolute priority of their choice of God.
Finally, Br. Dionigi Taffarello addressed a few words to us in which he gathered the main ideas of the meeting. He urged us to maintain our identity as an irreplaceable richness in our mission of evangelization. And he urged us to walk the path of this new stage together and in synodality.
After the closing of the meeting, we celebrated the Eucharist. During the celebration, we solemnly renewed the Promise of Adhesion to the Gabrielite Shared Mission; some made it for the first time. The COVID-19 pandemic had interrupted this very emotional moment for all the associates.
To the joy of this meeting, in which we were able to look at each other face to face and heart to heart after such a long time, was added the joy of the presence of the Brothers of the Central Administration who, with their guidance and suggestions, encouraged us to continue on this path of the Shared Mission, now more together than ever.
