OPENING ADDRESS
Christiane Mégarbané fmm
Sup. Gen
In welcoming you on behalf of the General Council, I would like to express to you the joy we feel in seeing us all together this morning at the opening of our General Chapter. 116 chapter members and invited members, of 44 nationalities, representing all the continents; Fr. Gilles Bourdeau ofm and the sisters of the moderating team; Sr. Merlyn D’Sa, secretary of the Chapter; the members of the editing team, the different Bureaus and services of the Generalate; the superiors and sisters of the Generalate House and of many provinces who were called to help with the smooth running of the Chapter. We regret very much the absence of Sr. Sister Antonia MONTIEL Amarilla, provincial of Paraguay, who was not able to come for health reasons. To all I would like to express the gratitude of the General Council. Thank you for being here, faithful to the rendez-vous of the General Chapter, this rendez-vous[1]that we have carried so much in our prayer for the Chapter.
Through you, I would like to greet also all the sisters of the Institute. Their prayer which is assured us and their great interest in following from day to day what we are going to live here, thanks to the communications team, will be a precious support. I would like to address a very special greeting to our sisters of China. We are happy to have for the first time, after so long, their delegate: Sister Madelena Hu Gai Qiao.
The General Council has named Fr. Gilles Bourdeau ofm – vicar general of the Order from 1991 to 1997 – and at present vicar provincial of the province of Canada, Sr. Silvana Gerosa, Sr. Helen Mendonça and Sr. Lydia Umipig, well known to all of you, to be the moderating team for the Chapter. In collaboration with the General Council, they have thought out and prepared the Chapter with competence and efficiency, consecrating their time and their energy to facilitate the smooth running of our Assembly, as we will see during the coming days.
This Chapter has benefited from a long preparation. It began right after the preceding one, with the meetings of 2004 and 2006 which enabled us to continue the journey begun in 2002, and inviting us to go still further. The Working Paper, fruit of the experience of life and the reflection of the whole Institute, offered the possibility of engaging each sister in the immediate preparation of the Chapter. In this regard, I would like to express our deep gratitude to Sr. Helen Mendonça, Sr. Mary Motte and Sr. Lydia Umipig who, in dialogue with Fr. Gilles Bourdeau and the General Council have prepared the document. The reflection which was requested impassioned us and engaged the communities and the provinces in a journeywhich was rich in participation, for which we would like also to express to you our appreciation.
The general chapter of 2002 had asked that work be done on the Constitutions and the Complementary Code to verify the consistency between the articles of the Constitutions and to study the possibility, if necessary, of transferring articles from the Constitutions to the Complementary Code.This task was confided to the General Council who asked Sr. Monique Choné to accomplish it in close collaboration with Sr. Françoise Pécresse. During the process, other sisters were engaged, notably Sr. Colette Payen and Sr. Genevieve Voiron for the revision of the French text, Sr. Pamela Dowdell and Sr. Arantxa Múgica for the revision and translation of the English and Spanish. We admired very much the serious commitment of the provinces in studying the propositions and the changes suggested. All of this will be reviewed at an opportune moment. Nevertheless it is important to note that this Chapter is not a chapter of Constitutions. The work realised until now is a necessary and indispensable stage, before the Institute commits itself in the future, if it so desires, to a revision of our Constitutions. We are aware that certain articles should be reviewed, as was expressed on different occasions, as moreover, the writing of a spiritual introduction to Chapter 7, which was also requested by the preceding general chapter. Nevertheless, without a minimum agreement on this basic stage in which we find ourselves at present, it is difficult to go further for the moment.
The experience of former chapters encouraged us in the General Council to foresee the editing team from outside the chapter members. Naming chapter members certainly has advantages, but the extra work usually required of them in order to assume this responsibility inevitably limits their participation in group work and other activities of the Chapter. We are grateful to Sr. Teresa Cachot, Sr. Mary Motte and Sr. Anne-Marie Saget for having accepted to render this service for us.
We have numerous questions at this moment: where do we wish to go and what do we want to live? How and with whom? The readings of today’s liturgy, a divine harmony, give us answers which keep us in trust and hope.
The General Chapter, the Institute in dialogue, is the place par excellence where, like a “Body”,the Spirit manifests Himself to us so that our faith might not repose on our wisdom but on the power of God.[2]Together, we can then again become aware of ourselves and express our reality, our preoccupations, our expectations, in order to look ahead, without centring ourselves exclusively on ourselves, but in order to discover where the Spirit wishes to lead us to respond to the needs of the Church and the world. At the beginning of our Chapter, He urges us to come out of our securities, to let ourselves be un-installed in order to undertake together this path towards the future.
To allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit is to discover God’s project for the Institute, his will with regard to us and the responses we should give today in order to be Franciscan women, living the kenosis of Christ (Ph 2: 5-11), in creative fidelity and solidarity with our suffering world. As a consequence, it is up to us now to confront the reality which we live and to ask ourselves if we are really living our consecration, our belonging to God. This time of grace that God gives us, this Kairos, invites us to deep changes, to a transformation.
As a chapter, we must discern in the Spirit what are the signs of new life that are emerging, because the Lord wants to do something new with us and He asks us to recognise it,[3] so we can welcome again today the newness of his sending to bring the Good News to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, and set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.[4]
To finish, I would like to share with you the message I received from the Holy Father, in response to the wishes I expressed to him on the occasion of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. “In prayer the Holy Father remembers especially your intentions, also those of all the Sisters, particularly at the approach of your General Chapter. Now that the jubilee year of Saint Paul has opened, he wishes that the testimony of the “Apostle of the Nations” renew in each one the apostolic ardour that flows from love, spread in our hearts by the Spirit of Christ. In repeating for you the prayer of Saint Paul: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope,”[5] his Holiness, with his whole heart, grants you his Apostolic Blessing, also to all the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary spread throughout “all the nations”.[6]
[1]Cf. Prayer for the general Chapter
[2]1 Cor.2: 4, 5
[3]Cf. Is 43: 19
[4]Cf Lk 4: 18, 19
[5]Rom 15: 13
[6]From the Vatican, 26th July 2008