By S. Pilar Neira, CCVI.

As a member of the Synod Commission for the Peruvian Episcopate, I participated in a meeting in Quito from February 25 to March 4, 2023, along with the Andean countries: Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. There were 20 participants per country, and we continued in the LISTENING and SPIRITUAL CONVERSATION dynamic. Grateful for the support of the Congregation to be able to be present at this meeting.

I walked away experiencing with the People of God and with the confidence that the Spirit walks with us. As we in religious life, say: “we look with great hope at the path we have taken and those that open up for us as a Church,” called to overcome fears and to grow in confidence, to “respond to the challenge to which the Spirit calls us: to be prophecy and communion: a truly synodal Church.”

Today, we feel that we are advancing in our commitment to a synodal Church reaching out to the peripheries of our continent and as a school of synodality, where we all learn from everyone through listening, discernment and shared prayer.

In this continental phase of the Synod we will continue “walking together,” embracing this new way of being a synodal Church and expanding our tent, opening ourselves to the overflow of the Spirit to be a Church in the permanent outflow.

All participants in Quito, Ecuador

The religious women present at the meeting