Friday, January 29th, 2016 our attendance at “Consecrated Life in Communion,” began in earnest. The early morning became routine: a quick breakfast with 38 Visitandines in a private refectory setting with the Sisters of Charity, off to the bus, or in our case, sometimes a taxi and then to our place of meeting.
Because Mother Emmanuel’s walker wasn’t the best vehicle for transport for cobblestoned streets and swarming crowds of religious, the Sisters of Charity lent us a wheelchair and Mother Rosemarie became her main companion. One of the other of us would take a leisurely ride in the taxi with them.
When we arrived to enter Paul the 6th Hall at the Vatican, we were again met by the scanners and long lines of 4000 religious. Thus we were separated as those with special needs were taken to different areas.
The Hall was spacious enough for all of us. In our bags we were given tiny red “translator” machines with earphones and these worked fora while, at least, although many of them needed battery changes and that ran out eventually too.
The first talk was by Cardinal A João Braz de Aviz the prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life . He spoke about Consecrated life in the unity of charisms.Some of his key points were:
The closing of the Year of Consecrated Life is an historic event. Five continents of religious were meeting for the first time in the “House of Peter”
He emphasized: joy, waking up the world, religious as experts in communion, going to the existential outskirts, to listen and be courageous.
Religious are to confess the Holy Trinity and insert ourselves into the life of the Trinity.
To be compassionate and joyous; service is a source of joy.
We are to be prophets and a prophet testifies how Jesus lived on this earth, not solitary but in communion. We are to be a school of communion.
We must adapt to new needs and not have a self-referential approach.
Unfortunately, this writer’s translation device then failed and I was unable to understand the remaining talks, which were in Italian or Spanish.
We lunched at Urbano College, and had evening prayer there as well.