29
Fri, Mar

We are still in the first fifteen days of September and in this month, or next October, some countries of the world where we are present are planning to reopen schools. We hope that the Lord will help us to overcome this very difficult moment all over the world, due to the Covid-19 scourge which is making us reflect on so many habits and ways of living that we thought we had already acquired forever. Many thought we were “supermen”, but this invisible enemy made us lose our certainties and put our “feet on the ground” and review many things. This does not prevent us from trusting in God to restart our commitments with creativity, responsibility and audacity and confident of getting out of it and moving forward, just as they say in Italy, “Together we will do it”.

Faced with this pandemic situation, we cannot leave the formation of the people whom the Lord continues to send to our Congregation “adrift”, as well as to help in formation those who have already made their final choice for the Lord. A phrase that is now part of our common lexicon and that does not lose its validity even if it has been said 30 years ago by the Magisterium of the Church: “The renewal of religious institutes depends mainly on the formation of their members” (Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL): Directives on Formation in Religious Institutes, 2 February 1990).

In this sense, I present the concern of the Superior General who expresses these words, which I transcribe from his intervention at the opening of the 2nd SIFPAM: «Dedicating a Seminar to formation requires putting the person in the foreground and situating him in the concrete world in which he lives. The person is the greatest wealth of a Congregation, because it is on this that the development and the impetus of the mission largely depend. As our Founder very well considers, “the apostolate is a fruit, and the fruit comes from the plant: if the plant is healthy, the fruit will be abundant; but if the plant is sick, the fruit will either be missing or scarce».

Now we present these two formation aids prepared for the reading and study of the different texts that make up the “Acts” of this Seminar. It is a work done by the Preparatory Commission of the 2nd SIPFAM, on the recommendation of the General Government. We work as a “team” for several days and via online because of the causes known to all.

  1. Reading Key (download). This “key” acts as a guide for the reading-understanding of all the reports, round tables, questionnaires, etc., presented during the Seminar. From this perspective, we take a look at the days of the Seminar and present two aspects that we consider very important: the main ideas that emerged from all the interventions and the people or groups to whom each reading of the conferences is most useful.
  2. Decalogue for the Pauline Formation for the Mission. It is a text made after the reading and reflection of the various interventions. It has two purposes: a) help in our integral formative itinerary, in order to better respond to the call and mission; b) for the updating of our formative norms.

I end with the words that Fr. Valdir writes in the presentation of the “Acts”: «We are confident that these reflections can help the Circumscriptions to deepen and update initial and ongoing formation. In this regard, it is important to organize moments of study or “weeks of ongoing formation”, taking up the topics presented here, or some other themes in particular, always trying to apply them in individual situations».

 

Agenda Paolina

March 29, 2024

Passione del Signore (viola)
Astinenza e digiuno
Is 52,13–53,12; Sal 30; Eb 4,14-16; 5,7-9; Gv 18,1–19,42

March 29, 2024

* SSP: 1947 a Santiago de Chile (Cile).

March 29, 2024SSP: D. Felipe Gutiérrez (2004) - Fr. Natale Luigi Corso (2014) • FSP: Sr. Teresa Bianco (1995) - Sr. Guglielmina Oliboni (1995) - Sr. Mansueta Chiesa (2005) - Sr. Lucia Migliore (2007) - Sr. Carla (Clelia) Ferrari (2012) - Sr. Mary Bernadette Fitzgerald (2020) - Sr. Maria Carmen Conti (2020) • PD: Sr. M. Cornelia De Toffoli (1996) - Sr. M. Veritas Montecchio (2017) • IGS: D. Michele Sarullo (1993) • IMSA: Giuseppina Sanfilippo (2009) - Rosetta Budelacci (2022) • ISF: Egidio Pitzus (1997) - Giovanni Sticca (1997) - Antonietta Turco (1997) - Isabel Sabugo (2002) - Giovanni Italiano (2011).