New initiatives and renewals: Interview with the new Philippines Delegation Team

We continue with the series of interviews with the new Provincial / Delegation Teams, this week we interview the Philippines Delegation Team. In this conversation, we explore the proposals and strategies that have emerged from the recent Chapter, with the objective of understanding how they plan to address current and future realities. From the need to leave behind certain attitudes and practices to the implementation of new initiatives and renewals, the team shares their reflections and plans to strengthen the mission and community life of the delegation.

1. Facing the most challenging realities in your Delegation , what strategies has the new Delegation Team considered to address them and to sow life as part of the Vedruna Family?

More than ever we, as a delegation, are very much conscious of the urgency of  responding to the challenging realities in the delegation which we have already seen in the past years. Our diminishing human and drowning financial resources are a worrisome and limiting factor in our life and mission. The reality of the consequences of being few and aging together with our personal weaknesses and woundedness is right before our eyes. We believe each one has something to contribute and we will address these challenges promoting synodality, co-responsibility, shared leadership and responsible integral self-care with attentive listening, dialogue, personal and common discernment. 

2. In light of the proposals emerging from the Chapter, what specific aspects do you consider your Delegation could leave behind to make room for new initiatives and renewal?

We could leave behind the attitude of mediocrity in our spiritual life, the easy comfort zone of simply continuing what has been done or the ways of the past or routine and the attitude and sense of individualism, superiority and submission and entitlement. We want to nurture and live an integral spirituality that integrates life-prayer-life, to be open to the transformation of our mental structures and to walk in synodality, discerning together and listening to the Spirit. 

3. What are the main goals and objectives that the Delegation Team aims to achieve during this new period, in response to the needs and challenges identified in the Chapter and the reality of the delegation? What expectation can we have or what result can we expect during these years of your leadership?

a. To strengthen our Vedruna family ties and personal and community witnessing of a joyful and fraternal religious life. 

  • Promote commitment to learn and practice building healthy relationships within and outside the community.
  • Encourage responsible involvement of each one in the community in facing and solving conflicts and difficulties with open and trustful communication and transcending personal attitudes instead of denying conflicts, backbiting or becoming defensive. 
  • Provide formation means appropriate at each stage of life

b. To ensure the sustainability of our life and mission. 

  • Seek professional advice and help to study and make a viability plan to manage our fixed assets as significant sources of income. Practice a synodal process where everyone takes responsibility for the sustainability of our life and mission, receives the necessary information, participates in the dialogue and common discernment. 
  • Motivate the search for new and renewed sources of income as community and delegation urging community sharing and dialogue before taking on a project which will be managed with transparency by a team as a community/ delegation project, not a personal project.
  • Continue the process of reflection and dialogue to welcome the new that the Spirit inspires in our life and mission. Foster openness to reflect on our community and mission challenges and calls, to examine our structures and organization to know what to let go, continue and adapt that are adequate for our present reality in order to facilitate a dynamic and prophetic living of Religious Life and the carrying out of the project entrusted to us.

c. To strengthen the option to walk with the youth and vocation promotion

  • Offer formation and training to be animators, mentors and companion of the young people today.
  • Prepare ourselves and communities to understand the world of the young, to welcome the interested ones to our community and to accompany them in their search for meaning and purpose. 
  • Constant encouragement of all communities to supports and help in the work of vocation promotion.
  • Have an updated formation plan and formation community structures and environment responsive to the world and reality of young people today and facilitative of their formation.

4. In the current context of the degradation of our common home, how do you plan to address environmental challenges as a Delegation, and what specific actions could you undertake to contribute to sustainability?

  • To urge the constant awareness and living out that integral spirituality includes care of the cosmos. Encourage constant practice of simple and small personal and community deeds like proper waste disposal, cutting down on throw away things like plastics especially when shopping, conserving water, using long-lasting light bulbs or solar energy, etc.
  • To use any platform of education we are in to teach and promote care of our common home stressing the importance of trees for human life and the life of other created things. Whenever possible organize or join in activities of Tree Planting where the community is. 
  • Commit to the project of preparing seedlings making use of used plastics to share them to friends or groups organizing Tree Planting activities. 
  • Participate in actions with other religious congregations and organizations advocating for the care and protection of our Mother Earth

5.  How do you plan to facilitate open and constructive dialogue among different communities and members of the Vedruna Family in your Delegation, in a way that promotes a synodal culture?

  • Give always a space for dialogue and sharing during the Delegation Annual Assembly with a “spirit-inspired” and fraternal atmosphere. Encourage everyone, especially the younger ones, to share and to feel that one’s opinion matters. Organize online gatherings for all the communities to share about our life in mission experiences and on particular topic preferably using the Chapter document.
  • Provide more accompaniment to communities experiencing more challenges in this aspect. 
  • Encourage a daily commitment to live life as a mission in a lifestyle that is simple, joyful and fraternal to make our life an invitation for members of the Vedruna Family especially our Lay Vedruna to live the same. Keep our house open to them where we welcome and value their involvement in our ministries, gather to share our faith-life and to celebrate life and feast days.