October Meeting in Dublin 2007

 

The team met in Drumcondra before the sunflower gathering.

 

 

 

Formation Team Meeting: October 12th 2007: 72 Upper Drumcondra Rd.

 

Attendance: Pierre, Dominique, Margaret, Anne, Patrice (Link person with us for pre-lunch and afternoon session))

Chair: Pierre Minutes: Anne Prayer:  Margaret Lee:

Margaret led us in our opening prayer on the theme: ‘One with the Universe’.

The prayer had an autumnal feel, with lovely, seasonal images evoking surrender, insecurity, risk, and eventual transformation. We asked the God of the harvest, of misty days and moonlit nights, that we might recognise the dimension of mystery and wonder in our lives. We asked for patience and faith, insight and vision; we asked for trust, and for love enough to keep from growing cold in the empty seasons as we wait for harvest in ourselves. 

Marie France, no longer in our team, sent us a kind card of encouragement, for which we thank her sincerely. Gabrielle also sent us a card of welcome to ‘72’.  We thank Gabrielle and Kathleen for the hospitality of the house for our day of meeting.

 

Ø     AGENDA: Summary of outcomes:

Ø     Who we are and what we can offer as individuals and as a group

  • We feel that formal visiting of communities is not what is needed. Instead, we invite individuals, groups, communities, to contact us regarding areas of interest and concern, and to let us know what we can do, or what resources we might provide in this regard.
  • We want to keep communities abreast of what we are doing by sharing our thinking and ‘work’ on occasions when we are together, as people wish it, as seems appropriate, in an informal and way and in an effort to ‘listen’ to what is being asked of us.
  • We want to encourage ‘Aging Gracefully’, at all ages and stages (Institute Guidelines for Ongoing Formation: 1.6).  We want to celebrate gifts of life rather than dwell on negative aspects of ‘aging’.

Ø     Post- Chapter  material re Formation/On-going Formation

·       We commit ourselves to relating our work as a Formation Team to the call of   

      the General Chapter (Rome, June 27-July 19, 2007) in the document  

      ‘Commitments and Action Steps’.

·    As an initial step in this work, we identified themes/calls in the Institute Guidelines for Ongoing Formation and we undertook to review, study and reflect upon these themes/calls in preparation for our next meeting.

·     Before our next meeting, we will reflect on Marie Chin’s Address and prepare a condensed version to offer to communities for reflection.

·     We agreed that it would be useful to work with the Health and Wellbeing

      Advisory Group in whatever ways seem appropriate and relevant.

 

·       Next meeting: Provisional date: Monday 11th February for lunch/afternoon meeting and early Tuesday 12th February 2008.  

Venue: Seafield, kind permission sought.

 

We invite comments, questions, ideas from communities and individuals,

for discussion and illumination at this meeting.

 

Anne Murphy RSHM, pp. Pierre Dullaghan, Dominique Treacy, Margaret Lee 

 

Recommended : Reading

Albert Nolan, Jesus Today: A Spirituality of Radical Freedom,

            Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 10545

Michael H.Crosby, O.F.M.Cap. Can Religious Life be Prophetic?

            A Crossroad Book, New York 2005

Frederica R. Halligan, Listening Deeply to God, Exploring Spirituality in an Interreligious Age, Twenty-Third Publications, CT 2003

Nellie McLaughlin, The Unfolding Story of the Universe

Thomas Berry, The Universe Story

            Pamphlet: Vocation for Justice (Faith and Justice Team)

            Missionary Society of St. Columba JPICSSC@compuserve.com