PROPOSED METHOD OF WORK

                             FOR GC XXI

Confrontation  with the Word

1.  The booklet In preparation for General Chapter XXI that accompanied the reflection and proposals of the communities during the past year, has invited us to enter into a process of preparation starting from the Word of God for a deeper, more personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, foundation of vocational unity, to whom the Chapter theme refers.  Listening, the study and sharing of the Word were proposed as content and method of the evangelical journey to be carried out.  This was accepted in a group way throughout the Institute and still flows through the personal and community life journey.

Even at the Chapter, reference to the Word will be «the method for the reading of life, for accepting the appeals and becoming critically aware of social phenomena». (In preparation 8).

Method of working on the different parts of the Document

2.  The work of the Chapter will be particularly concentrated on the third part of the Working Document: Living evangelical citizenship.  Its three nuclei reflect the same configuration as Syntheses of responses from the Province Chapters.

In the nucleus: Evangelical roots of citizenship, there are expressed deep reasons supporting our identity as women consecrated to God for the educational mission.  The evangelical beatitudes constitute the inspiring motive of the Chapter theme.

This first nucleus, as also the Syntheses of responses from the Province Chapters, is offered especially for personal reflection in preparation for the General Chapter.  Each participant is, therefore, invited to read attentively the content and to make of it, eventually, an object of sharing.

The Spiritual Exercises in Mornese will constitute a significant occasion to situate ourselves vitally in the reality of the Covenant through the Word of God and to question ourselves on our responsibility as consecrated women who want to continue to live and share evangelical citizenship in the Third Millennium.

The second nucleus: challenges to our style of life is also entrusted prevalently to personal attention and study.  It allows us to situate ourselves in today’s reality with its positive notes and its problems.  The topic will be enriched by the contribution of some Experts who, on a day during the first week of the Chapter, will help us to situate ourselves in a substantiated way in the context of daily reality.

The third nucleus: Ways of evangelical citizenship - which constitutes the heart of the Chapter work - will be, instead, more directly the object of reflections in the Commissions and in the Chapter Assembly.

The Chapter research on the ways of evangelical citizenship should lead us to the identification of concrete strategies that will characterize our presence during these early years of the Third Millennium.