Did you know that some people close to our Institution, through their commitment grounded in faith and accepting their calling as laypeople in the Church, want to live the Hospitaller charism…
… spirituality and mission the same way our founders did? Discover how this movement is developing in the Latin American Province.
My name is Angélica Flores, Sister Hospitaller of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Currently, I am Second Provincial Councillor of the Latin American Province. For many years, I have felt that God is calling me to live the Hospitaller vocation, recognising, accepting, taking on and living with others the gift of hospitality that many laypeople have received. I am sure that laypeople and sisters must drink from the same well and practise hospitality together in a new way.
Since we began the restructuring process in Latin America, we have detected the need to move the ‘Hospitaller discipleship’, (what we call the Hospitaller laypeople movement in our province) training process forward, inviting collaborators, volunteers, benefactors and others to ‘become part of an association inspired and encouraged by the spirit of the Congregation’ (Cf. 19th Gen. Ch. No. 26).
In January 2010, the Youth Vocation Ministry Commission of the former Vice Province of Argentina decided to begin to create a training programme for the ‘Hospitaller discipleship’. We chose this name following the invitation from the Church of Latin America, specifically the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopate, to be missionary disciples.
By accepting this invitation from the Church, we realised that we are not the first ones to take this path and we hoped we weren’t the last. So, on 21 June of that same year we began this lay movement, following our founders’ example of courage and dreaming that the discipleship in Latin America was a branch of the leafy tree of hospitality; we feel that Hospitaller charism is a gift from God to the Church and it must be shared.
