25 March 2023. A day marked in our calendar as a Piarist commemoration; it is also a day that commemorates the echo of the first Piarists in connection with the founding of the Pious Schools in 1617. It is also a day on which we look to Mary, a woman who listens attentively to the God of promises, who makes the event of Jesus possible through her availability. She opens her life to the work of the Holy Spirit and shapes history forever.
In this context, the Provincial Council of the Piarist Presence met in Zaragoza and in an atmosphere of prayer – the culmination of many months of work, of three phases of evaluation and planning – approved the Provincial Project of the Emmaus Piarist Presence for the coming years, 2023-2027. All the members of the local presence teams of the 16 realities that make up our geography and the members of the provincial teams have come together. More than 80 of us feel that we represent many more people who make up the totality of the Pious Schools of Emmaus.
We intend to follow his footsteps, walking with simplicity and attentive listening: the proposal of the Spirit, always surprising and always disproportionate to our strength, opening ourselves to God’s action. A project that is the legacy of many previous analyses and commitments, marked by work on various documents and above all by personal experiences that we call “LET US LISTEN TO HIS VOICE TODAY…”
Throughout the first ten years as Emmaus Pious Schools (Aragon, Vasconia and Andalusia), we have sown through: meetings with the poorest people, presence in Mozambique, growth of our social projects promoted from Itaka-Escolapios, quality schooling, dedication to the most vulnerable people, etc. The voice of the Spirit has given us: to grow in Piarist Fraternity, to centre our lives and communities in Jesus Christ, to sustain us in difficult times (pandemic, economic crisis, personal and institutional pain …) and has kept us faithful to the intuition of Calasanz to transform our world and our Church.
As we begin this new quadrennium, we are grateful for so many opportunities to meet, to discern, to rejoice together and to mature in faith. We can also look with hope at our fragility and be grateful for this document that expresses our best intentions and dreams. These lines form the backbone of our life and mission, which is always addressed to the most vulnerable, to young people, to this society that continues to need Pious Schools to fertilise it with the seeds of the Kingdom of God. With all this, we begin Phase 4, where the strategic plans and local projects will help us continue our journey…
We are also grateful for the work we have done together to evaluate our being and work as teams, communities and individuals and to continue to find new responses to the challenges we have always faced and the challenges we are facing now. Because of this “synodal” discernment, five axis lines were defined, five ways to listen to the voice of the Spirit in depth and also through the young people, the world and the Church, Calasanz and all the people who belong to our great family, especially the most vulnerable. Moreover, from there to set accents and priorities that illuminate the daily lives of works, teams, communities and people. Accents that underline options that are already being developed and others new ones that open horizons for creativity and the action of the Spirit.
It is time to pray with these lines, to ask the Spirit for the strength and courage we will need, to feel the sisterly hand of the people God has given us in our presence and to walk with them.
At this link you can download the magazine No. 16 of the Emmaus Pious Schools Collection, which includes the Provincial Project of Presence together with the echoes and resonances of the meeting:
Jesus Elizari
