My name is Conchita Ochotorena, a Sister Hospitaller from the Province of Spain and member of the Commission tasked with preparing and promoting the project to review and update our Constitutions.
Contribution of the Constitutional Review to spirituality
Christian spirituality is a life in Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit. It is not reduced to worship and pious practices, nor is it limited to the privacy of a person’s inner being. Spirituality encompasses all life and every aspect is affected by the risen Lord and the proclamation of the Kingdom.
The Christian spirituality experienced in our Congregation is that life in the Spirit, inspiring us to embody and express our experience of the God of goodness and mercy, symbolised by the Heart of Christ. It inspires us to
embrace creation as a gift, to see and feel the reality and suffering of others with the lively heart of Christ’s charity and surrender ourselves unto Him. It makes us part of the history of humanity from within, it leads us to discover the joys and shadows of the men and women of our time and perceive the passage of God’s project of love and the mission to join Him in the history of today.
Through the Constitutional Review process, we have an opportunity to recreate the “gift, deepened and constantly developed in the experience of the Spirit, within the Church, under the guidance of the hierarchy and the superiors of the Congregation” (cf. MR 11). This is a calling and an opportunity within the realm of spirituality to express it in its original sense, as apostolic spirituality, with the rich, deep, and experiential style of the Founders. It gives us the chance to incorporate particularly significant Biblical texts, spiritual dynamism from the Congregation’s heritage, and updated modes that the Magisterium has recovered from the spirituality of Christian religious life.
Naturally, the Constitutional Review involves other spiritual values, such as the creation of communion, discernment, recreation, and the pursuit of what is good and what is best, etc.
