The Provincial Council of the Mission met for the first time in person on 7 and 8 October. It was a necessary and long-awaited meeting, which allowed for personal interaction and a much higher quality of serene reflection than was possible in the online meetings held during the previous academic year.
This council is a new structure, which aims to fulfil the Chapter’s vision of a ‘living mission’, aligned with the discernment process we undertook to develop the provincial mission plan. We dedicated ample space to reflection, contribution, and the realisation of our own identity as a Council. We identified our role as a ‘council’, a body that:
a) Has received the Mission Plan developed by the Province and helps the Provincial Government to implement it, acting as a source of impetus, leadership, and dynamism.
b) Reflects, offers guidelines, and makes proposals for action, which, once approved by the government, are implemented by the province’s pastoral platforms.
c) Relies on the knowledge of reality brought by the members of the Council and the contributions of the teams that help illuminate reflections on the mission’s focal points (ECEM, SOMI, PJV).
d) Centres its action on the Mission Plan, and above all, its apostolic focuses, which should unify us as a Province in the field of mission.
The Council is composed of people from all the provincial realities (sectors, territories, platforms… including the three prefects linked to mission and formation). But within the Council, we all strive to think in terms of the whole province. This way, we aim to better coordinate reflections, proposals, and agendas across each area, ensuring that provincial cohesion is more visible and our actions less compartmentalised.
During the meeting, we spent some time reviewing the way we have been preparing and developing the pastoral proposal based on the mission plan, drawing lessons for improving our functioning. We also began to indicate proposals for the way forward, which still need to be specified and organised.
In the photo, you can see the members of the Council, including the Provincial Superior, as well as the external facilitator who assisted us during the meeting.
