From 9-11 March 2020, the FSP General Government held an online formation meeting for the new provincial government of Brazil. The theme of the meeting was: Serving Communion, Animating the Mission. The sisters of our Brazilian governing team were enthusiastic about this possibility, from which they drew ideas and incentives for realizing in their turn online meetings with their communities and book centers. In fact, in those few days of the encounter, they had at their disposal not only a variety of input and aids useful for launching their service of authority, but also moments of dialogue and the direct exchange with the Superior General, the Councilors in charge of animation, and the Secretary General and Bursar General in their respective areas of responsibility. It would not have been possible to realize all this in a single, on site visit to the circumscription.
The move to equip the General Government’s conference room with the technology required for online meetings was already underway before the eruption of the coronavirus epidemic, but the decision to invest in the necessary multimedia devices turned out to be truly providential in the current moment of enforced “time out.” It also transformed the problem of being unable to travel into an opportunity to explore other modes of presence and sharing.
The sisters of the General Government were also very satisfied with this way of being close to the various realities of the Congregation, which allows us to imagine new forms of collaboration, participation and synodality, overcoming geographical distances, time zone differences and travel restrictions imposed for security reasons.
