Every year, it is a well-established custom with the “Filles de Jésus de Bretagne” to offer various workshops and activities for renewal or spiritual formation for their Sisters.

Within this context, in September 2014, the community of the Filles de Jésus de Kermaria, a pleasant little village in Brittany, invited me to lead a workshop focused on the psycho spiritual journey. I was very pleased to find several Sisters who had attended the very first formation sessions which I had offered in France, more than ten years ago.

At that time, several Congregations had enthusiastically attended the sessions aimed at promoting a journey of psycho-spiritual growth. We had stayed in Ploërmel, with the Frères de l’Instruction chrétienne, in Lamennais High School, a highly-ranked high school in France.

This formation, which was spread out over 8 days, shed light on the part of the mystery that each one carries within.  During the 1st phase, each participant was called to acknowledge her own personal value so as to own her potential, a process necessary for attaining greater inner freedom.

The 2nd phase proposed going a step further by reflecting on the issues related to hurts experienced at the different stages of their personal history. This approach encouraged each one to go through some necessary steps, such as accepting their personal history with all its beauty and limitations, forgiving others, and creating an openness to life/Life. All these steps towards inner healing are prerequisites for entering into the Joy of the Kingdom which Jesus speaks about in the Gospel. 

This experience, human as well as spiritual, lived out by 40 Sisters provided me with an occasion to encounter women who overcame the scourges of the last World War, with courage and resilience. I was impressed by their strong belief in the future by assuring an apostolic presence in all realms of society.

Yolande Frappier S.N.J.M