16th of May

We began the day with the Eucharist, having in mind the life of Madrid´s patron saint, “San Isidro”, we are grateful for his testimony of life as a farmer and as a lay person.

Sister Geraldina Cespedes, has guided us throughout the day with the theme “Mission and Formation, for what do we form ourselves? We´d like to share some ideas of her reflections:

• We are urged to a Papal invitation, he said: Wake the world up! However, we must be awake ourselves, towards what do we need to be awakened?
• Mission and formation are intimately united, in what source do we drink from and, from where do we feed ourselves? What is it that gives us authority in mission?
• It is necessary that we have a common vision and criterion about mission, to be focused and united in the same dream. We need to reassess ourselves anew: what do we do? where are we? How are we, till where can we be and why do we remain?
• It is important to conscientiously form ourselves with the idea of “remnants” (such as the remnants of Israel) which will be helpful to us in our missionary impulse.
• That, our mission must return to Jesus and to the poor.
• The great preoccupations of Jesus then, were the shared table, the integral health and human relations.
• The missionary style of Jesus was one of nearness. How to develop such spiritual quest to stay close to people?
• There are two sources which exist in the mission: 1. The experience of “gift”: we have received a lot and we feel blessed. 2. The cries of the present reality: we can not respond to all these… But we can ask ourselves: in what are our lives consumed, what do we do to this life we were gifted with? In what are our resources spent, and how do we administer all these?
• Jesus, likewise, has His methodology and teaching ability:
• Create community: by His closeness, establishes human relations.
• Formative strategy: He forms His disciples with the values of the Kingdom
• Empowers them for the mission: He sent them to do what He did.
• Jesus is the paradigm of authority in the mission by Hs closeness to people, the service, and the coherence of life. What can possibly give authority to a Missionary Dominican of the Rosary?
• It is but important to form ourselves and accompany us in the inculturation, interculturality, transculturation and counterculturality. It is indeed, in our living in common day by day that we are tested.
• How do we manage the community to be receptive of the diverse and at the same time be a critic of our own cultures, while being a prophetic testimony as Jesus was in His own culture, breaking schemes, and customs?
• One inspiring principle would be in being a new model of coexistence, of living in common: self-care, mutual care, socio-care, and eco-care.