Audience with Pope Francis

24 July 2023

Today, July 24, we left the Spirituality Center early for Rome for the private audience with Pope Francis. It has been a wonderful experience for each of the chapter members. As the Holy Father entered the room, we sang “New Church, Always New” and noticed how the Pope paid attention.

He addressed us some beautiful words that you can find in the following link:

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-07/pope-francis-claretians-gods-overflowing-love.html

Priscilla, our new superior general, read a small summary of what the chapter has been to date, she made a very concise and beautiful summary:

Word of Priscilla Latela Superior general addressed to Holy Father

We share that the Spirit, through the voice of the sisters, the laity, of   the Claretian Family has led us to agree and promote our Claretian mission today in a key of care in a triple dimension. Care of vocation, recognizing that God calls and wants to bring to fullness all human beings in his plan of salvation. We want to be caretakers of God’s work in ourselves, in others, and with others. (cf. LS 217)

Caring for the global fraternity and sisterhood, we feel part of the human family as brothers and as children and we want the measure of evangelical love to make us collaborators of this design, recognizing in each sister and each brother another self.

Care for our common home with the awareness that everything is intimately interconnected and, together with others,  we want to invest the best energies, walking especially with young people, as protagonists of transformation,  and with the poor, contributing to their dignity.

We consider the need to review our style of government and training, thus contributing to being generators of quality life and humanization.

Our entrails are full of love for the Church and that is why we live the synodal journey with intensity and hope.

Deeply grateful, we entrust to the Lord as a Chapter community and as a Congregation his intentions and the needs of the Church.

 Each sister had the opportunity to greet the Holy Father personally and take a photo with him. When we left, the Pope told us, “Make a mess, eh! Which we welcomed enthusiastically. With hearts filled with gratitude, we returned home to continue our chapter work. Today the groups presented their work detailing options for the 3 Calls.

We ended the day with the celebration of the Eucharist and the opportunity to deepen what we lived on this day.

God bless Pope Francis, let us pray for his service to the Church.

During these days, the text “María Antonia París, friend and companion in the journey” is being distributed.