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16 December 2024

Southern Brazil : Formation Meeting of the Federation of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel

From 11th to 17th November, 25 sisters from the 11 Carmels of the Federation of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel (Southern Brazil) met together at the Sao Joao da Cruz Spiritual Centre, in the town of Porto Alegre, to follow a course on Saint John of the Cross, given by Brother Everton Berny Machado, the Provincial.  Starting with the biography of the saint, ‘a heavenly and divine person’, Brother Everton continued with the poem of the Spiritual Canticle, to arrive at the theme of the Dark Night.  Thus he presented the divine Pedagogy which, as a loving mother (cf. 1 N 1. 2-3), ‘births the soul anew’, and, ‘as the child grows older, the mother withholds her caresses’, training the person to autonomy, guiding him or her on a path lived in Faith and not on one of sentiments and emotions.  According to Brother Everton, it is the model of pedagogy and formation that we should use with all those that we direct.

In the context of  this meeting, on the 13th November, the sisters were able to benefit from the aid of Father Jadir Zaro, Pallotine, a canonist and lawyer, for the publication in civil law of the Federation Statutes. After the meeting of formation, the Federation Council met again in the same Centre to discuss various matters.