The Women of the Dawn Icon

We publish the commentary of Sr. Maria Helena Morra, ISCM , to the new document of the Latin American Confederation of Religious (CLAR): "Women of the Dawn: Inspiring Horizon 2022-2025". (available only in Spanish)

The CLAR's Inspiring Horizon with the theme “Women of the Dawn the daring hope at sunrise” calls us to rethink the new that we can generate, even within a defined and consolidated structure such as the identity of Consecrated Life, today.  

The light of the passage from Mark (Mk 16,2) “Very early when the sun had risen, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb” we understand that the experience of crossing the dark night like the Women of Dawn invites us to be daring, to be in the most radical situations, in those that keep hope clinging to the promise, in those that break the night in a state of mission, opening gaps so that the Spirit can enter and fertilize everything. With this, the consecrated men and women of the continent are called to assume and grow in the art of listening, of the contemplative look at reality, of discernment, of existential and geographic itinerancy, and of the missionary outreach in intercongregational and intercultural contexts, being a Consecrated Life on the way out, open to the new generations, strengthening communion with the laity who walk with us.

The Women of Dawn Icon enables us to take a new and fruitful look, to a re-reading of the presence of the feminine in the history of salvation.  It challenges us to weave networks in the construction of a new place in society, in the Church, and in Consecrated Life, to mature in a relationship of reciprocity with our brothers and sisters who walk with us.

There is an increasing urgency to make visible the experience of the face of the Risen One that is witnessed in the partnership of Consecrated Life for Women and Men. Women of Dawn introduces us to this dynamic of following.

Rethinking the feminine at the crossroads of life, in between the lines that the weavers today understand the strength of their weaving, the beauty of their embroidery with varieties of threads and colors, strengthens us in the final design of this weaving.

We have learned that it is important to rescue the lost thread, to reweave from the gaps that the unpredictable imposes on us. In the loom of life, we have to testify, like the women of Dawn, that we are persistent in our commitment to follow Jesus Christ.

The icon that CLAR proposes as horizon for the Consecrated Life is illuminating, of a richness and profound fruitfulness that introduces us in the dynamics of the strength that the Spirit of the Risen one rehabilitates us to glimpse in a dawn of a new sunrise. We are always perpetuating the new that we are able to energize with our life. God confirms us in this dynamic of synodality - in this walking together as Pope Francis explains.

Seeing and listening to the context we live in, like the post-pandemic experience of Covid 19, has led us to recognize our fragility and vulnerability. The tenuous thread of the war in Ukraine and so many challenges that the world imposes on us, such as migration, human trafficking and feminicide, among others, makes us rethink our responsibility before the reality in which we are inserted. To glimpse a new place for Consecrated Life in today's world.

We must let ourselves be affected synodally by this reality that challenges us so much: to follow the focus of the women of Dawn and find paths of new possibilities.
The Consecrated Life has been graced by the Gift that CLAR is for the Congregations, for the consecrated ones. The light that the proposed icon has been bringing to our mission has no limit, it is a tear that opens many perspectives of possibilities to rethink the face of the Consecrated Life in a world that clamors for life and life in abundance. “The Women of Dawn” introduce us to the power of novelty and creativity. We are able to commit ourselves to the fruitfulness of our presence where we are inserted with the potentiality of our charisms.

May we, like “They... At the Dawn awakening”, be the memory of the love of a Love that is the mark of the deepest sense of the first love, which made us fruitful and called us to our consecration. We are responsible for the legacy of our founders who responded to the cries of their time.
 

Member of the Institute of the Sacred Heart of Mary. Member of the interdisciplinary team of the National CRB - Master in Theology - Doctor in Education.  Post-doctorate in the area of Teaching.  Assessor of Religious Life in the restructuring process. Member of the Theological Advisory Team of the Presidency - ETAP
 

Read the commentary of sr. Cristina Robaina, stj