This is the dream of our First Provincial Chapter for our mission: a living mission (I PC 7). This dream, expressed in the XXVI General Chapter, and a provincial participatory process that culminated in the Provincial Assembly, gave rise to our Provincial Mission Plan.
What value does this Provincial Plan bring to our Mission?
- It connects our daily mission with what has been discerned and proposed by the Provincial and General Chapters: it helps us to be in communion with the Congregation.
- It was jointly discerned and enables us to act together: it helps us to combat the individualism that threatens us (I PC 2b).
- It identifies three apostolic priorities (along with preferred recipients and a style): it helps us focus in the face of the activism and dispersion we suffer (I PC 2c).
To translate this living mission into structures, the Province now has the Provincial Mission Council, which takes on functions that were previously divided among various councils and bodies. In coherence with the Plan, it seeks to serve as a tool for reflection and discernment, enabling us to organize our mission service in a simpler, more unified, and more focused manner.
We still have a way to go in understanding our provincial mission and its choices. Fortunately, God always calls us to be on the way: in exodus and in synod. Some honest questions could help us move forward. How can we ensure that the priorities truly remain priorities? When we focus, we direct our attention to something, knowing that everything else will become somewhat out of focus; when we use a spotlight, we also illuminate everything around it… What resistances do we find within ourselves? How can we better implement this proposal? Our response cannot be to add new actions to what we already do: that would not be focusing but rather losing focus.
The pastoral initiative we have been developing since last April under the theme of migration has sought to put all this into practice. Now, in its final phase, the evaluation and practical applications we undertake from our communities and positions will help us take further steps. It is beautiful to think that we have a path ahead of us. Let us keep walking toward the land that God shows us—and let us do so together!
Fr. Jorge R. Sánchez Palacios, cmf
