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Journeying Towards Wholeness
Finally Professed from 2013-2015 Bhubaneswar Province
The purpose of our journey was to restore ourselves to wholeness. Twenty young Sisters who had made Final Profession between the years 2013 and 2015, together with Sr. Lizy, gathered in Cuttack from 30th April to 5th May. It was a time of realization, rejuvenation and revitalization of our lives and missionary zeal.
We began our programme with an opening prayer in which we used the wheel as the symbol for wholeness. Just like the spoke is connected to the hub for its proper functioning, we realized that we need to be connected to God and to one another in our journey to wholeness. Our sessions began with Sr. Lizy’s explanation of the seven means given by the Holy Father, Pope Francis, regarding living the joy of the Gospel. According to him the joy increases manifold, when we have the openness to allow Jesus to encounter us. In the light of the Pope’s message, we were drawn towards our personal charism. We recalled it fondly in order to make it vivid and vivacious in the present context of our lives. We were challenged to move to something new and to walk an extra mile in order to be radical followers of Jesus. Each one realized that it was their responsibility to keep the fire of the charism alive by possessing the spirit of Christ in us. A deeper reflection on our personal charism enabled us to identify our own dominating type of personalities and behavior patterns. It also helped us to appreciate our own uniqueness and to embrace others as they are.
Reflecting on our lives, we realized that a valley of tears can become a mountain of glory and sunshine for us - as happened in the lives of Abraham, Jacob, and our Mother Mary. God meets us in our brokenness and we are invited into a healing and purifying relationship with the Lord through our life of consecration, commitment and connectivity. As a whole, the theme that was running throughout the classes, a voice that was re-echoing in our ears, a thought that was provoking and instilling in our hearts, was a wakeup call for us to be integrated into the present. These five days were like an invitation offered by Jesus to go to Him, to discover our gifts and charisms, to take part in the communion offered in order to live lives of service for others.
Some of us were meeting in a group after a long interval so this gathering was also a time of reviving bonds of love and friendship while we exchanged our pleasantries and experiences. It was a time for spiritual renewal and personal introspection. The sessions concluded with a day of recollection and ended on a happy note.
