“Communities Immersed in the Spirit, Connected with the World”.

The Province of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambéry in Brazil has proposed a challenge for all the Sisters to live in communities of faith. This is the 3^rd Provincial Chapter, after the unification of the Brazilian Provinces in 2016.

In March 2022, our Provincial Superior convoked the Provincial Chapter, encouraging each Sister to live the Chapter Year intensely. Provincial Chapters are challenging and decisive moments in all Congregations.

“The Provincial Chapter which is lived out in union with the entire congregation fosters the spiritual and apostolic life of the Province” (Const. pg. 32). It is a moment of great importance for guiding the life and mission of the Sisters who make the Province. So we can say:

• Provincial Chapter intensifies our prayer life.
• It is a time to resume the journey as a Congregational Body, to evaluate, to perceive points of growth, deviations, or weaknesses.
• It is time to hover judiciously over our reality, human resources, and their conditions to respond adequately to the reality in which live.
• It is time to cast our gaze to the future and outline the goals to be achieved in the coming years, and give dynamic and creative responses today, in harmony with the Congregation and the Church.
• It is time to choose the leaders who will animate the life and the mission in the next mandate, which according to our Constitutions, can vary from 3 to 6 years of mandate.

In the year 2022, on our Chapter journey, the theme and motto that enlightened, encouraged, and helped us plan the steps were:

Theme: Communities immersed in the Spirit, connected with the world.

Motto: “One heart and one soul” (Acts 4:32).

We held 3 online sessions (on the Zoom platform). All the Communities of the Sisters of St. Joseph, from the most diverse corners of our immense Brazil, were connected in prayer, reflection, and deepening of themes, such as our identity as Sisters of St. Joseph today; analysis of the social, political, economic situation; religious, the Church and the Congregation. In these sessions, in addition to the Sisters of St. Joseph, Associates who are engaged in living the charism of the Congregation and collaborating in our works participated. They were moments of grace and animation for us to walk together in revitalizing our essence and our missionary call, to become ever more the Congregation of the great love of God, as our founder Father Médaille, SJ wished, confirming the leading role of the Spirit Holy.

From the 26th to the 31st of January 2023, the in-person chapter session will take place in Curitiba-PR. 80 Sisters will be participating in the chapter.  They will focus on re-reading the evaluations made at the bases; design steps for the next group of leadership and life of the Province, as well as elect the Coordination and Animation Team of the Province of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambéry in Brazil.

By the Communications Group, Sr. Leni Menegat