Recollection Day

16 January 2018 – 3th Day of the Apostolic Congress

We started the second day of the Congress with morning prayer led by Br. Martin Dariyo on behalf of Malawian Delegates. The theme of our morning prayer was “Work and Mission”. Some bible quotations from the Gospel of St. Matthew (28:16-20), Gospel of St. Marcus (1:21-22), and letter of St. Paul to the Collosians (2:23) were read to inspire us in pondering the theme. Some excerpt from Church document “Laborem Excercens” was also used to help us go deeper in our reflection. This morning prayer opened the way that lead us to enter to the second day of our recollection.

The aim of the recollection today, as it was said by Bro. Guido, was to help us to become aware of our blessings in our life as religious. When we aware of our blessings, hopefuly we will be able to derive some advantages that will bring benefit to our apostolic mission. Bro. Guido took the use of our mobilephone as an example. When we aware that our mobilephone provides us so many positive functions, it will help us in so many ways, as such, connection with others becomes easier, the way of doing our work will probably be more effective, and even our vocation promotion could be done in a such betterway.

One of our blessing as religious is our prophetic character, which became the center of our reflection today. The structure of our recollection day was as follow:

08.30 - 10.00 input

10.30 - 12.00 personal reflection

16.00 - 16.30 Sharing in provincial group

16.30 - 18.00 plenary and conclusion.

During the input session, Bro. Guido delivered explanation based on some various sources, like paper entitled  “Task of Those who Choose The Prophetic Lifestyle” from Sr. Sandra Schneiders and “The Dimensions of Prophecy of Religious Life” which was a presentation during the general assembly of the Union of Superior Generals (USG) of Male Religious meeting in Rome, May 2016 prepared by Fr. Heinz Kulüke.  The explanation helped us to have a deeper understanding of our prophetic character in our life as consecrated people in the Church who are sent to promote alternative values to the present world.

For our personal reflection, he provided very rich materials as our spiritual reading, taken from “Vita Consecrata” (numbers 84-95 on “A Prophetic Witness in the Face of Great Challenges” ) and “The Identity and Mission of Religious Brother in The Church”, especially number 37 under the sub title “Prophets for our Time”. The last paper given to us was the reflection guide in connection with the theme of our apostolic congress which is “Called Together and Sent Out” (FIC Constitutions art. 15).

After sharing in provincial group and having a plenary in the afternoon session, we concluded our recollection day with some interesting points to continue to reflect on along with the dynamics of the congress.

Valent. Daru. S