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“Creation at the Heart of Mission” Participating in the 2009 SEDOS (Service of Documentation and Study) seminar for missionary communities is one of hundreds of ways in which Medical Mission Sisters around the world try to be a healing presence to others today. Our Society Coordinator, Sister Carmelita Perez, and Sister Rowena Pineda, our Sector Coordinator of East Asia, recently participated in the 2009 SEDOS seminar, “Creation at the Heart of Mission,” in Assisi, Italy. The seminar, co-sponsored by the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission of the Union of Superiors General of men and women religious, drew 240 attendees from 58 countries. 82 religious and lay institutes concerned about the future of our planet were represented. The two main speakers were Father Sean McDonagh, an Irish Columban Missionary working in the Philippines, and Father Denis Edwards, a well-known theologian from Flinders University, Australia. The conferences, liturgies, and small group sessions were held in 4 languages, and Sister Carmelita served as a leader-moderator in one of the English-speaking groups. Father Sean gave the opening address on, “The Story of the Universe: Our Story,” in which he spoke of the history of our universe, how rapidly the Earth’s resources are being consumed, and the Church’s mission of disclosing God’s creative power working in and through each person and being. Father Denis focused on the Biblical context of creation, incarnation, and redemption in three talks, “Ecology and Jesus Christ: Ecological Conversion; Eucharist and Ecology; and the Final Redemption of All Things.” Our Sisters stopped in Rome at St. Peter’s Basilica, St. Paul’s Basilica, and at the grave of our Foundress, Mother Anna Dengel, to pray for our upcoming global Chapter meeting. They reflect, “This journey, which felt more like a pilgrimage, helped us connect the sacred journeys walked by the early disciples and missionaries, who walked beyond the boundaries of their times, with our sacred journey as a Society, called to walk beyond the boundaries of our time.” September 15, 2009
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