An Encouraging Consultation, RHN Netherlands

 Our brothers in The Netherlands, together with our associated members, form a Religious House. This form of community is between a province and a local community. We form a community not limited to one local place, but we equally have our superior and different kinds of meetings of all members. We celebrate feasts and funerals together, have reflection days, have our own magazines, website and Facebook page and easily inform each other about day-to-day matters. In short, we feel brotherly and sisterly united and are a living part of our whole Congregation.

As we are not a province we do not have a provincial chapter, but all the same we have our meetings every three years, with reports about the executed policy, the financial situation and reflect on proposals to improve the life in our House. We call this meeting a Consultation (in Dutch: Beraad). On 14 and 15 May 2025, we had our Consultation at the CB Sisters convent in Maastricht. The members were: eight brothers (out of 21) who felt able to participate, two present members of our council (while missing very much our late superior bro. Wim Luiten), two associated members, a staff member at our care house De Beyart and two advisors of the council. With our moderator and secretary, we had a total of 17 persons.

 After an opening prayer, in which we connected with our Founders, our deceased brothers, our pope of hope (Francis), and our local Saint, Servatius, brother Augustine encouraged us with warm words, entrusting us to the care of Mother Mary.

 We listened to each other's expectations and felt already both the reality and the confidence that carried us during the following exchanges. Reflecting on the Report of the council, we realized that the past three years were not easy because of aging, decreasing numbers, the loss of our superior and more. We expressed our great appreciation for all the commitment and efforts by our council, the staff and many others who kept the flame of hope, trust and life burning in different ways. We felt that we needed to unburden our council even more, sharing tasks and concerns together, utilizing our qualities and those of experts.