The prayer was centred on God inviting us to co-create with him the new reality we want for our congregation and for each one of us.
We had the joy of receiving a video from our elderly sisters from Cartierville community in Canada, giving their personal message for the chapter and telling us they are praying for us.
The program of the two weeks to come was presented. The capitulants were reminded to keep in mind what needs to be changed and what needs to be transformed.
The butterfly framework becoming alive in the MSOLA chapter.
A framework is a tool that gives boundaries within which to work. The butterfly model is the framework for the MSOLA chapter. To deepen the transformation attitudes, the animators looked at how transformation is happening concretely during the chapter and how because of the “here and now”, plans have been changed.
They tracked the journeys done so far. This journey of transformation, like the one of the butterfly, has its stages. The capitulants are activating the present moment by trusting the natural process. As the caterpillar in its first stages needs to eat a lot to grow, the capitulants have been fed with a lot of information: the sharing, the reports and the documents have helped them to build their awareness. They have also created a safe space to build trust and be able to share deeply, bringing out what was hidden. They are interconnecting and honouring deep democracy by valuing each word and expression. They are normalising chaos and confusion (expressing it in different ways through free movement in the group). Just as the caterpillar sheds its skin and then eats it to grow, the capitulants are becoming aware of what needs to die in them, of what is not needed, while finding the energy to get rid of it. They become aware of the layers of the onion they have to peel and discard in order to allow the hidden parts of their own being and of the MSOLA being to emerge.
This has allowed them to do a lot of recycling of their past, throwing off what they don’t need and taking with them just what is needed, as part of the shedding of their coat-skin.
Recycling everything needed and learning from their past, they are on the way to shift perspectives, being empowered by their imagination and the imagination of the group. This whole process cannot be rushed. It is necessary first to pass through a time of confusion and chaos, of changing perspectives, of daring. Then, it needs a time of reflection, looking inward and allowing the process to take its place and its course, going with the flow of nature, acknowledging what happens as the needed thing in order to become a fully-fledged butterfly.
To be able to fly, the Co-Facilitators emphasized that, the butterfly needs to pump its blood into its wings. In this photo of the butterfly, each capitulant is represented by this heart at the centre, which is her experience lived here that is activating the present moment, awakening who she is (self-knowledge) and who WE (MSOLA) are. What is being pumped into the wings is the lifeblood (love, zeal, fire) going out to the 4 wings: 1. Review the past (the last 6 years or back even further); 2. One’s inner life (evaluate our patterns, mental models, soul); 3. One’s external life (evaluate our life in structures, relationships, policies that are part of our life and mission). 4. The future we want to attract (plans for the coming 6 years).
Linking a beautiful adult butterfly and the beautiful Madonna-Our Lady of Africa statue:
The Co-facilitators Perceived Mary’s attentiveness to the Spirit in the here and now, as a young girl in Nazareth, and her “let it be done to me as you have said”, which is where her process of transformation started and continued all during her life. In the statue of Our Lady of Africa, Mary seems to be expanding her tent in an attitude of openness and attentiveness. She looks like a fully- fledged butterfly, reminding us of the journey of the butterfly. She invites us to do the same, allowing transformation to take place in us.
The Spirit of God living in the heart of Jesus who moved him to establish the Kingdom of God in the world, will also descend upon us and transform us by leading us into the desert and making us agents of the Kingdom of God. (From Fr. Dave’s Homily)
After sharing on Who is Mary Magdalene for you as an icon of transformation? the capitulants were invited to take a walk in the company of Mary Magdalene and then go to their work in groups.
