Novices, San Jose Province
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” Luke 4, 18
Jesus continues calling us to be sowers of hope, justice, love, joy and solidarity…
We are eight novices. Two of us in the confrontation stage: Angelica (Mexican) and Onelia (Guatemalan) and six in the projection stage: Leticia and Matilde (Guatemalans) Frania, Georgina, yaneth and Eveling (Nicaraguans).In this process we have been accompanied by our sisters Estibaliz Ladron de Guevara and Geraldina Cespedes.
It is a moment to thank God Father-Mother, Heart of Heaven and Earth, for the gift that each of us is.
I think it has been an experience that has helped us a lot in the process of knowing each other, sharing, supporting one another; a space for building alliances among us as young girls in their formation process.
For this year, 2020, we have planned three online meetings and especially one of them, which has the objective of strengthening, going deep and enriching our knowledge and experience about the vows from what each of us is.
In our first meeting, we reflected about vows in general, allowing ourselves to be enlightened by a small document: “Vows in times of paradigms changes” written by our sister Geraldina Cespedes. These are also topics we have been sharing and reflecting in community.
The second meeting was about how we had lived our first months in the new communities (most of us have arrived at a new community in 2020), which for many of us implied a country or community change.
In our third meeting we shared our feelings, contributions and attitude we have had throughout these months of pandemic and the experiences in the community, study and mission.
Due to Covid-19 we have not had our face-to-face meeting, but thanks to technology we have met online.
The face-to-face meeting was replaced by a three-day meeting that was carried out only in the mornings, there we could share and go deeper in the experiences and challenges of each of the vows. In this space we were accompanied by some sisters: Humbelina del Cano, Dioselin Ulloa, Estebania Felipe Cruz, who shared their experience-testimony of living their vows. They invited us to: assume a simple life and to be grateful; never forget our origins, not lose sight of Jesus dream and practice; prioritize dialogue, listening and prayer; select what is different, the creativity of each of us; to value to be women who are called to gestate life, be fertile, fecund and to continue living each day with joy.
Let’s hope that God, Divine Source of Wisdom, continues helping us and that we allowed ourselves to help and to be God’s best version.
Eveling Rodriguez
Dominican Missionary of the Rosary Novice.
El Seibo Community
Dominican Republic