Rome (Italy). On 13 December 2024 in Rome, at the Generalate, the General Council of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and the Sector collaborators met for a meeting about the progress of the updating of the documents “Plan of Formation” and “Guidelines for the Educational Mission”, entrusted to the General Council by the General Chapter XXIV.
The aim of the meeting was to resume together the process of updating the documents and discussing in groups on some nuclei, sharing the steps taken so far.
The Sector Collaborators were involved on 18 December 2023, for a first encounter of formation and of deepened insight on the focus group. The unstructured interview method was used in the first phase of the process for the initial collection of data from the Educating Communities around the world, in relation to some nuclei.
After the focus groups, held online in the different contexts/languages of FMA presences around the world, the phase of codifing the data gathered was entrusted to a group of 22 FMA of the world and a re-reading of the documents, keeping in mind the summarized results of the focus group.
To facilitate the work, two different FMA groups were set up to deal more specifically with the particular themes of each Sector, with the task of individualizing the fundamental points for the two documents and preparing draft plans, to be submitted to the General Council and the Sector Sisters.
After the initial prayer, Sister Piera Ruffinatto, Dean of the Pontifical Faculty of Education “Auxilium”; Sister Enrica Ottone and Sister Marthe Séide, Faculty teachers engaged in coordinating the work of updating, briefly illustrated the schematics with the identified nuclei for the respective documents.
The day proceeded by a personal preparation with the reading of the focus group summaries, the modules with the draft plans, and the module, “Good Christians and honest citizens” prepared by Sister Piera.
Based on the supply of this material, the Councilors and collaborators divided themselves into three sub-groups to discuss the patterns of the two documents and to gather possible suggestions.
The second part of the morning was dedicated to the intervention of Prof. Michael Vojtas, Professor of History and Salesian Pedagogy at the Pontifical Salesian University (UPS) in Rome on the theme, “Good Christian and honest citizen: the way of the Beatitudes for the integral education of the person. Implications for the relationship between education and evangelization.”
During the course of the process, it was felt that ideas about the relationship between education and evangelization should be developed and therefore the themes, “good Christians and honest citizens” and the Beatitudes should be explored in order to integrate the educative commitment with evangelization, creating a common growth path. The intervention of Fr. Vojtas was followed by some resonances and questions from the assembly.
At the end of the morning, Mother Chiara Cazzuola expressed some considerations about the documents, saying that they are not written once and for all, but are an open processes in which it is necessary to be aware of the places and times we are living, with diversified proclamation modes. She also recalled the importance of the involvement of the Educating Communities in the process and the greater effort that will be required, once the documents are finished, to speed up their translation into languages and their inculturation in the different countries where FMA are present.
