After the opening of the chapter, the capitulants retired for two days of recollection, accompanied by Mme Béatrice Oiry, a biblical scholar who teaches at the Institut Catholique de Paris. The sisters were invited to allow themselves to be guided along a paschal path, because ‘the paschal experience is at the foundation of the whole Bible’.
Mme Oiry introduced the complexity of the Hebrew translation and showed how ‘grammar is theological, it is the carrier of God’s revelation’. ‘The name of God is a name that is declined according to circumstances’.
She compared a General Chapter to a time of community gardening, where each person prepares the soil of her heart and becomes available for collective discernment.
Finally, she drew attention to the smallest gestures, in the daily life of the missions and in community life, which give us a foretaste of the Kingdom of God and make it come.
After these days of recollection, the capitulants began their review of the last six years (since the last chapter) by presenting the life of their units.
