From 11 to 15 May 2026, six sisters were invited by our provincials to participate in an online workshop on interculturality for Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by the CLAR, the UISG and the Hilton Foundation. The objective is to promote within Consecrated Life the importance of intercultural awareness and competence for mission and community life. It also seeks to integrate this dimension into formation and pastoral ministries in order to build communion.
It was a very enriching workshop; it opened a wide horizon for us on this aspect and left us with many challenges and calls to apply in our communities and apostolates. It is a topic closely linked to humanization and synodality.
We would like to share some of the themes we reflected on.
+Interculturality… It is an intentional search for new conditions that allow true and mutually enriching interactions between cultures. It is a path of conversion in response to the globalization of today’s world. It seeks equity and recognition. A horizontal relationship between cultures. It is the result of integrating the contributions of several cultural expressions in such a way that they form something NEW without diminishing the value of each of the cultural components…” (Pietrzak 2006:3).
As Pope Francis invited us: “Our intercultural coexistence is a sign of hope for today’s world. Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travellers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all” …Fratelli Tutti, 8.
+Our deep “identities” are not “pure” but plural: It is important to ask ourselves: What cultures, ways of acting, thinking, relating, living and interpreting time, space, relationships, technologies, work, choices, etc., exist in Latin America and in our countries? And also: How many cultures live or coexist within me? Not how many cultures I have encountered, but rather how many are already part of me, of my way of acting, thinking, relating, living with myself and with others… How do I live this internal plurality?
Our deep “identities” encounter others… and other ways of managing identity… What happens in my community with my plural belonging? Can I be myself? What happens in my social and cultural context with my plural belonging? Are there conflicts, encounters, misunderstandings, hidden parts?…
+Jesus was born into a specific culture: He was born into Jewish culture. He spoke Aramaic, thought like a Semite, dressed, taught and prayed like a Jew. His mission was directed mainly to his own people. He was conditioned and limited by his human culture. He had to distance himself and convert, separating himself from rules of exclusion.
One example is His relationship with the Canaanite woman (Mt 15:21-28): Jesus initially responds in an exclusionary way, but the woman’s faith and humility lead Him to change His attitude and heal her daughter. He goes beyond what was established, willing to be misunderstood, and establishes an intercultural and countercultural dialogue. Both (Jesus and the woman) must overcome their own perceptions and cultures in order to create a new space of encounter. Christian discipleship implies challenging cultural conventions in order to conform to the Gospel.
+Leadership and interculturality – We are sowers, disciples; we do not have all the answers before a complex reality. It is our task to sow in the night and rest our hearts in Jesus. It is about evangelical leadership, based on spreading these seeds: vocation-mission, gratuity, active listening, humility and closeness to reality. It invites us to lead through service, inclusion and communion, leaving behind hierarchical and self-referential styles, in order to build open, supportive communities committed to social and ecclesial transformation.
+Some intercultural and intercongregational experiences: In the Amazon there is a group called: “itinerant team with synodal spirituality in the open air”. It is a synodal missionary group which, since 1988, has travelled through the Amazon to accompany and defend indigenous peoples and the environment. Inspired by the Gospel and the spirituality of itinerancy, they promote an outgoing, flexible and open Church that works in a network with different institutions and congregations. They focus on listening, accompaniment and the defence of the most vulnerable, facing the social and ecological challenges of the region. Their main objective is the commitment to synodality, interinstitutional collaboration, gratuitous presence, and commitment to life and socio-environmental justice.
+Testimony of Sr. Roxanna Steffenon on an intercongregational and intercultural life within the Conference of Religious of Brazil (CRB). Since May 2024 she has been part of the community where religious women from different congregations, cultures and regions live together and share mission, prayer and daily life. It is a participatory and co-responsible dynamic, where each sister periodically assumes the coordination of the community and all collaborate in common commitments.
Each sister arrives with her own story, culture, way of praying, living the mission and understanding religious life. At first, these differences generate discomfort and questioning, because what for one person is “normal” may not be so for another. Leaving one’s own spaces of security and opening oneself to what is different requires unlearning many things in order to relearn through encounter.
Therefore, interculturality requires a conscious decision to listen, remain open to dialogue and not renounce encounter, even amid difficulties. Little by little, what seemed difficult is transformed into great human and spiritual richness.
The experience also allows one to discover the beauty of different religious charisms and to understand how each congregation lives the Gospel in a unique way. Interculturality is not a goal already achieved, but a permanent path of growth, learning and communion, full of challenges, but also profoundly enriching for the present and future of religious life.
+Formation from an intercultural perspective can be compared to a loom: It is the art of learning to live together in diversity and difference, discovering the other not as a threat but as a gift that makes possible a new weaving. From this intercultural perspective, our formation houses could be visualized as workshops where faces, cultures, accents and diverse spiritualities intersect. Each sister (or brother) arrives with the memory of their people, with wounds and hopes, with a unique thread woven from their history and their experience of God. Therefore, we need to learn to encounter one another without cancelling each other out. There are tensions, differences and knots that only patience, listening and care can transform into shared beauty.
Some questions that may help us in this search: What voices continue to be absent in our formation processes? What hegemonic cultures continue to occupy the centre while others remain on the margins? What models of spirituality, leadership or community life need to open themselves to new forms of expression born from our peoples and territories?
We hope that all this may resonate in our intercultural communities and that, through faith and from the heart, we may decide to live these attitudes of interculturality and synodality daily so that Consecrated Life may continue to be mysticism and prophecy of the Kingdom.
A hug: Claudia and Esperanza (CA-Cuba), Dora and Aparecida (Brazil-Argentina) and Margoth and Lola E (Ecuador-Mexico).