I was asked to contribute a short reflection on our internationality from my experience of the international meeting of formation teams, in Mexico where some 45 participants from 22 provinces from all continents were gathered from July 21st August 4th.
I was fortunate enough to have also been at the international formation meeting in Barcelona in 1990, so I asked myself how the two experiences of internationality differed. In 1990, it was the richness of our differences that really struck me and left me excited. By contrast, in Mexico what struck me was the similarities of our context in our increasingly globalised world where the global and local interact on our doorsteps. Working in regional groups, we were asked to identify the five most striking realities of our respective continents. Four out of five were the same for each continent: economic crisis, the growing exclusion and suffering of poor people, migration,and the breakdown of institutions: political church and family. It was the similarity of our contexts that took us aback. In short the cry of the people is one and the same cry clamouring for justice and compassion.
The diversity amongst us was marked in the expression of our rich spirituality. Our prayer together, led by different provinces, reflected this: from the exuberant, joyful praise expressed in colour, dance and drums of our African sisters, to the stillness and silence of the Korean prayer only punctuated by the echo of the gong and every gradation between these two ends of the spectrum.
I am reminded of the insight of Chapter 1994 that our internationality is no longer a choice but is a responsibility. The question posed by that same Chapter is as relevant today as it was nearly 20 years ago: can we see in our efforts to become an international community a parable of what it could mean if the human community were to make of our world an international community?
Once again, in Mexico, we felt called to strengthen our community life as a witness to the possibility of relationships of love and forgiveness, that can make its small contribution to healing a broken world that longs for relationships of tenderness and mercy.
Mary Hinde RSCJ
