Every person needs a “space of encounter”, a space of freedom in which to be themselves and to express their joys, their fears and their dreams. The ability of our communities to become these “oases of encounter” will depend on their capacity to welcome without judgement and with respect. (The Importance of Encounter. Manila Document 2018)
In the teams of the Instituto Asunción de México, we are renewing ourselves in this conviction from the Manila 2018 Education Meeting. There we experienced powerfully that encounter is an essential part of our transformative pedagogy of the Assumption.
Today we are aware that, in our daily life, making time for encounters is important for building the team, appreciating one another’s talents, sharing what we are and what we know, encouraging one another, talking together and discerning the path of each pupil and of the section we accompany, and so for all of us to enter into this transformative dynamism that comes about through encounter.
This year, the Secondary “leadership team” was entrusted with coordinating the “ofrenda de muertos” (Day of the Dead altar), setting the objectives and content that would guide the participation of the other sections.
We wanted not only to “set up the ofrenda for the departed”, a Mexican tradition that adorns our churches, squares, streets and museums at this time of year as we remember our loved ones. This year, recalling one of the priorities of the 2024 General Chapter, “prophecy”, we decided to honour “the prophets”: their word and their life, and the inspiration they leave us through their passion and commitment to justice, peace and reconciliation, which are Gospel values. We linked them to our motto for this year: “an open mind, an attentive heart and hands that transform” or, as St Marie Eugenie would say, a philosophy, passion and tempered character… to transform society.
Our ofrenda, then, honours biblical prophets of the Old and New Testaments, but also those who, throughout world history, shed light on the way we see reality and on our commitment. We honour St Marie Eugenie and Mother Marie Denyse; Dom Hélder Câmara, Óscar Romero and the prophets of Latin America. We also honour great leaders such as Gandhi, Mandela, Nyerere, Martin Luther King, Etty Hillesum, Pope Francis, the Cristera women[1] and many more.
This timeless encounter with all these figures and their ideals transforms us. We were also transformed by all the meetings in which we dreamed up and built this activity together, preparing the materials and setting it up over many hours, rekindling our passion to bring this message to the members of the Educational Community and to everyone who visited the ofrenda: we are all called to be prophets, drawing inspiration from those who have gone before us.
Our Secondary “leadership team” finished tired but happy, knowing that everyone who visited the ofrenda took away from this encounter the longing and the utopian dream of making a difference, of marking our time with the Gospel. They left with a symbolic flame and a question: what reality am I called to listen to today in order to leave a prophetic and transformative mark on our history?
Sr Ana Sentíes, r.a.
Referent Sister for the Institute
[1] While thousands of men fought the Mexican Federal Army during the Cristero War (1926–1929), a vast secret network of thousands of women sustained the Catholic resistance in Mexico.