Between February and April 2025, Sisters María José Meira (Dedé) and Fatima Borges travel on behalf of the General Team to a part of the Province of Europe.
Below we share the second chronicle of their trip, between March 18 and April 3, 2025, during which they visited the communities of Villaviciosa, Bilbao (Deusto), Gernika and Bermeo, Vitoria, Pamplona, San Sebastian and Zaragoza. During the visit to the communities of Villaviciosa and the Basque Country, they were accompanied by Sister Teo Corral.
Villaviciosa
Here we find a community of three sisters, who are a living presence among the people and especially in the educational community of Colegio San Rafael. They were teachers there, and in fact, some of the current teachers were their students.
We visited the San Rafael School, where we met its cook, Encarna, as well as Estela, the school’s director. She told us that they have 287 students, and that given the low birth rate in the region, there are many Latin American and Ukrainian migrants.
We enjoyed visiting the Romanesque church of the village Amandi, where the parish priest Don Carlos Capellán showed us, in a detailed and very passionate way, the beauty of this Romanesque temple, from the first third of the 13th century, which is considered one of the most remarkable samples of Asturian Romanesque. We were also impressed by the church of La Oliva, which shows the transition from Romanesque to Gothic style.
Bilbao (Deusto)
In Bilbao, the community is organized into two presences. On the one hand, there are four older sisters who are engaged in volunteer work to the best of their ability; on the other hand, in the apartment next to the first, there are two younger sisters who coordinate a project to welcome migrant women who are in the process of legalizing their papers and looking for work and housing.
This project collaborates with the association Lagun Arteanwhich means “Among friends”, and is linked to Caritas. The women are directed by the association to our community house, where they are welcomed, together with their children. At the moment there are four women and two children, who come from Morocco, Cameroon and Paraguay.
During our visit, we also had the opportunity to visit the Guggenheim Museum, which impressed us with its architecture and exhibits.
We also visited the Colegio Nuestra Señora del Carmen.
Gernika and Bermeo
There are nine sisters from three communities, two from Gernika and one from Bermeo, who work together in periodic meetings for sharing, formation, retreats and other activities. The three communities are inserted in working class neighborhoods. They are involved in the local journey where they are inserted. In addition to the various activities they undertake, one of the sisters is on the management team of the Vedruna Education Foundation.
Vitoria
Casa Santa Joaquina Community
This is a community that accompanies elderly and/or sick sisters, of whom there are currently 32. It is organized with sisters who accompany them, together with nurses and caregivers, in all their needs, seeking to integrate all the dimensions of life, so that they can live serenely and with a sense of mission, this stage of their lives. They also provide volunteer and parish services, according to their possibilities.
Niño Jesús School
This is a school with an average of 700 students. They face the challenge of maintaining hope for the future, keeping the fire of the charism, in a context marked by a low birth rate and the so-called “recent schooling”: migrant students who come from other countries are included in the classrooms and have to be inserted in the process, being very different from the base they bring from their places of origin. Migrants are, in general, South Americans, Africans, Chinese and Pakistanis.
We were with Dario, the director; Mikel, the pastoral coordinator; and Mireya, the school’s primary coordinator.
Sacred Heart School
In this center, which has about 1300 students, we were with Nieves and Itziar from the Sagrado Corazón School Management Team. They shared with us that their biggest challenge is the low birth rate: every year there are fewer births. They highlighted the mountaineering group, with more than 500 participants, which is carried out by the Pastoral, with many former students. They promote camps of up to 10 days and other activities during the school year.
Estíbaliz Community
We were with the eight sisters of the Estíbaliz Community, five of whom are elderly. This community is organized around the care and accompaniment of these sisters. The three younger ones are divided between the work of caring for the older sisters and the sisters of the other communities. They also provide, as far as possible, some service in the parish and volunteer work.
Abetxuko Community
We shared with the sisters of the Abetxuko Community and the coordinators of the Caritas workshops. This is a community of insertion, with four sisters who are present in various volunteer service platforms, especially Caritas, and in the parish of the neighborhood.
Santa Lucia Community
This is a community whose six sisters assume a wide range of tasks, from the participation of one in the general Publications Team of the Congregation; another is part of the management team of the NGO Solive; and another is in charge of the secretariat of Zone A. The sisters also provide pastoral services in the local parish and in volunteer work, as well as actively collaborate in helping the sick sisters of St. Joaquina House and other communities where needed.
Solive: Vedruna Solidarity Association
During our days in Vitoria, we had the opportunity to visit the headquarters of the association in Vitoria. This is an NGO that works to generate links that facilitate mutual awareness among the peoples of the world and active participation in the transformation of reality towards societies based on human rights and the integral growth of people. It develops projects in Africa, America and Asia.
Pamplona: La Txantrea Community
In this insertion community, three sisters live in a peripheral area of Pamplona. They are dedicated to being a marked presence in the life of the parish and the neighborhood. They are involved in faith formation, with different formation courses, in processes that include spiritual retreats, in addition to the systematic deepening of the Christian faith.
San Sebastian: Larratxo Community
In this neighborhood on the outskirts of San Sebastian, there are three sisters in a community of insertion. All of them assume a strong presence in the parish life and social accompaniment of the neighborhood. One of the sisters serves weekly on the coordination team of Casa Santa Joaquina in Vitoria. They are involved and committed to the journey of women in the Church, especially in the Women’s Revolt group.
Zaragoza: La Almozara Community
This is also an insertion community in a popular suburb of Zaragoza. There are ten sisters here, several of whom are elderly. They make a joint journey with the Community of the Vedruna Lay Associates. This journey includes a project that is becoming more and more communitarian, in which they take on community moments of formation, deepening and sharing together; of prayer and celebration of the faith and of assuming mission commitments. It is a path assumed by the whole group, which is giving them a great sense of mission, from the charism that makes us equal in the belonging that unites us.
Meeting of communities
We have celebrated the Meeting of the Communities, gathering sisters from all the communities of this region. More than 50 sisters participated. As in the other three community meetings (Madrid, Valladolid and Leon), we shared with the sisters the theme “Synodality and Shared Leadership”, with moments of presentation, others of silence and two strong moments of resonance.
The experience was good, there were significant contributions that help us to confirm the path and broaden our vision. Expressions such as these resonated with us:
- The Vedruna Charism is alive and invites us today to contribute especially in the small, in the daily life.
- We carry a lot of noise, so we need inner silence.
- From where we are, doing what we can
- How am I living this in my life?
- Synodality is a path to be followed
- It touches on the complex and very important issue of sustainability.
- Clear and transparent information is so important!
Some particularities that caught our attention were:
- In Villaviciosa:
- The beautiful tradition of apple growing, with figures of the fruit on the ground of many streets and squares of the city and a monument to the apple in one of the central squares. And the production of cider, with the famous brand “La gaitera, known throughout the world”. It is one of the prides of this town.
- The “Plaza Cubierta”, where there are many city events. They told us that when there is an outside event and it rains, they move the event to this square. very creative!
- In Deusto, Bilbao:
- The experience of the Sisters’ Community organized in two presences, one of them being a place of welcome for migrant women with their children, who are in the process of legalizing their papers. The collaboration and the effective and affective support of the sisters of the other presence is precious!
- The grandeur of the Guggenheim Museum, both in its architectural ensemble and in the exhibition “The Matter of Time” by Richard Serra, is impressive!
- In Vitoria
- Urdaibai Circle: the valuable joint journey, already several years old, lived by this group of 3 communities, which enables them to make discernment processes and take steps as a group.
- Basque language: it is very present in the Basque Country, not only among the elderly, but also in schools and among young people.
- The coordination of Casa Santa Joaquina, run by a team of three sisters, with two sisters from outside Vitoria. Besides being a very concrete collaboration of these two communities from different cities, it is an effective experience of teamwork that guarantees the care and accompaniment of the sisters of the Community.
- The beautiful collaboration of the communities of Vitoria with regard to the sick sisters. All of them are unveiled in the care and accompaniment, either in permanent work, or in occasional help when a sister is hospitalized.
- To participate in the Mass and the funeral of Sr. Ana Maria Seguin, who died in St. Joaquina House during the days we visited this community: with what love and care the community accompanied her in her final moments and with what friendship and mutual accompaniment they lived everything together with the relatives of this sister. This gave us the dimension of the depth of being a Vedruna Family in all the moments, including these of the Easter experience.
- Visiting the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Estíbaliz brought us closer to the beloved devotion of the people of Alava to this dedication of the Virgin. A Sanctuary whose beauty shines in the austerity of the Romanesque and the exuberance and simplicity of the surrounding nature. An unforgettable walk!
- In San Sebastian:
- The beauty of the Peine del Viento, a group of sculptures by Eduardo Chillida, a place where mountains and sea meet, generating strong waves and the whistling of the wind among the rocks, an impressive spectacle of nature!
The other chronicles of the visit are already available:
