For several months, a small group from the English-speaking Catholic community in Brno, Czech Republic - the "Upper Room Community" - met weekly to study the Synod's summary report on Synodality. We spoke to Sr Georgina, who took part in this study group.
She explains: "To be concrete, we worked in a synodal way, choosing together the passages on which we were going to reflect on each week and giving each other space to express our points of view, in an atmosphere of listening followed by a time of conversation in the Spirit. In reading the Synod document, I was struck on several occasions by the consonances between it and the spirituality of our Institute of the Sisters of the lnfant Jesus, where we have been living synodality for many years now, in our consultations, our discernment processes and our decision-making".
Yesterday and today: the same mission
According to Sr Georgina, this resonance can be found in the stories of the missionary Infant Jesus Sisters, who remain a source of inspiration and an invitation to open up new paths of mission in the 21st century. Our sisters and their first collaborators in the 17th century spread out,
first throughout France, then to more distant lands, including Malaysia and Japan in the 19th century.
If we look at the same subject in our own time, in today's digital culture, "online apostolic initiatives have a reach and scope that extend beyond the usual territorial boundaries" ... "Today, it is the apostolate that has the greatest impact... Today, it is our turn to reach out to contemporary cultures in all the places where people seek meaning and love, including their mobile phones and tablets". (Summary Report 17, h. c) For Sr Georgina, then, this is a "new continent" to be explored and evangelized, where we can bring the Gospel. At the same time, we must be aware of the new dangers posed by "harassment, disinformation, sexual exploitation and addiction" for the most vulnerable and exposed children and young people, since access to the Internet is now very easy, even within families (SR 17, f).
So, concludes Sr Georgina, we need to adapt our methods of evangelization to today's realities, while setting an example of wise, discerning and disciplined use of social networks and the Internet. A vast programme!
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