October 17, 2017: Month of October arrived with lot of freshness, newness and bounty of goodness. On the1st of this month we celebrated feast of St Therese our Second Patroness and having the privilege of being in her land, France it is our joy and we feel proud of our Fr Founder who 96 years ago, even before she was canonised, gave her as our patroness. I don’t think that he or our pioneers imagined one-day Bethany will be planted in France, her own native place!
October 10, 2017 was a red letter day for the communities in France, as for the first time we had the joy of coming together around our Superior General Sr Rose Celine and Sr Shanthi Priya, the Second General Councillor, who were on their canonical visitation of our communities in the Delegation Abroad.With a great desire of reenergizing our spirit and revitalizing our lives, we the six sisters of two communities came together for a seminar at Petite fleur de Béthanie, cormeilles- en-Parisis.
Our Superior General addressed us on “Mary’s Fiat- a model for our faith response,” and formation of conscience; and Sr Shanthi Priya spoke to us on mission Spirituality with some of the examples of her own personal experience in the mission. It was enriching and thought provoking. Both of them challenged us to be God oriented and mission oriented by being open to the Spirit of God who speaks to us in the sacred dwelling place of our being, through the daily situations of life, in our pastoral ministry.
We were made aware of the clarion call of the XVIth General Chapter- A call towards transformation unto Christ and the ‘fiat’ spirituality which is an invitation towards transparency, accountability, building community of communion and especially caring for the elderly, couples, children, single parents, poor in all spheres of the society.