The Sisters of Charity of Australia
26th General Chapter

“Cease dwelling on days gone by and brooding over past events!
Look! Here and now I am doing something new;
at any moment it will break from the bud.
Can you not see it?”
Is 43:18-19(a)

On Sunday 28th September, all Chapter participants will gather at St Joseph’s Conference Centre, Baulkham Hills. These include 87 delegates, 15 observers, 2 faciliatators, our canon lawyer and secretarial staff. We will also welcome one of the General Councillors from our founding Sisters of Charity congregation who has come from Dublin to share in the Chapter celebrations.

The Chapter begins at 9.00am on Monday 29th September with the Opening Ritual. This will be followed by the Congregational Leader’s presentation of her report on the past six years of her leadership. Responses to the report will round off the morning’s activities.

In the afternoon, the focus will be on the wider world and church scene, led by two guest speakers, Professor Desmond Cahill and Sr Patricia Madigan OP on the topic, Engagement with Church and World: “Advance our charism where?” Responses and conversation will set the context for our reflections over the coming days.

On the evening of Tuesday 30th September, we will participate in a Eucharistic celebration of the life of the 37 sisters who have died since our 25th General Chapter.

From Tuesday 30th to Friday 3rd October, we will engage in conversation on the “Matters for Discernment” that have been gathered from our communal and individual reflections over the past several months.

At past Chapters, the focus has been on submission of proposals. These were discussed and debated and straw votes taken to determine which would go forward for further discussion and decision-making at the Chapter. Over the past few months, our gatherings have focussed rather on our process of Ignatian discernment: open sharing that has drawn on our life experience, together with our reading and reflection on where God is calling us at this unique stage of our congregation’s life and mission. In this way, we have arrived at key issues or Matters for Discernment at our coming Chapter. This change of style in our Chapter process is explained in the following reflection provided for us by one of our Chapter facilitators, Jill McCorquodale SGS.