The Daughters of Jesus of the Latin American Region gathered from the 5th to the 17th of January 2026 at the Formation and Retreat House of the Carmelite Sisters of Saint Joseph in Montaña Clara Maria, Honduras, for a time of Regional Assembly and spiritual exercises.
In preparing this meeting, we had envisaged it as a time to listen to Jesus’ calls, strengthen our bonds as Sisters, and renew our personal and communal response to Jesus today.
A time of grace listening to the Spirit
Sister Esperanza Avilez, our Regional Superior, opened the Assembly by declaring: “It is the Spirit of Jesus who calls us together, who gathers us as pilgrim women, called be in the same boat. At the beginning of this Assembly, we turn our gaze to the Sacred Humanity of the Son of God, whom we want to honour with our lives… In Him, we learn to love, to serve and to walk with the most vulnerable; in Him, we find the strength to respond faithfully today.”
A diversity of cultures united by the same desire
Twenty-two Daughters of Jesus who live and transmit the charism in this region participated in the Assembly. In her opening address, Sister Esperanza also welcomed to Sisters Irene Kouassi and Rosalinda Betancourth, who were participating for the first time in an assembly in Latin America; to Sisters Patricia Guillet and Elizabeth Blanc from the General Council, who, through their discreet, close, and prayerful presence, made us feel that spirit of unity which strengthens us as a Congregational Body.
Shared experiences
We succeeded in highlighting apostolic experiences that nourish our lives and respond to the diverse needs and realities of our continent. Each sister and each community is a sign of the vitality and creativity that also strengthens the Congregation Body and the life of the Church.
The metamorphosis of the butterfly
These shared experiences evoked thanksgiving to God and a desire to renew ourselves from within the community in order to deepen the meaning – the ‘why’ and the ‘what for’ – of our works and actions as Daughters of Jesus in Latin America.
In this sense and taking up the thread of the themes we have worked on in recent years, Sister Martha Pérez, of the Congregation of Our Lady, accompanied us for a day. She took The meaning of the vows in the consecrated life today’ as her subject, using the metaphor of the butterfly. We were impressed by the reading of our own process of metamorphosis, a natural process of transformation, at different levels personal, community, vocational as Daughters of Jesus, regional, Congregational, as Church.
Caring for our communities
In Assembly, we welcomed the call to care for our communities of life and our relationships as the cells of a living organism, a body in transformation. We are aware that we are experiencing changes that prepare us to ‘spread our wings,’ to CARE FOR and to ‘protect the species,’ ‘our ecosystem,’ oxygenated by the experience of the vows. While our communities are in a part of the world where individualistic, egocentric, manipulative and violent attitudes prevail, our religious life is a miracle, a sign of prophecy and hope. That is why we need to allow ourselves to be challenged and to renew our ‘Yes’ to Jesus’ call to live rooted in his way of being and acting. ‘It is He who gives meaning to our lives today’ (Rule of Life no 5).
Living as a Church that ‘goes forth’
We can add to this style of community life the current ecclesial transformation of a Church called to synodality, to be a Church that ‘is less self-referential and that goes forth’ together. In order to be faithful, we must maintain an attitude of discerning God’s will. Mother Marie de Saint Charles expresses this as a «will… which circumstances will dictate to you from moment to moment ” (27 Nov. 1881 as cited in the Rule of Life, p. 50). It is important that, together and personally, we maintain the spirit of Advent, of attention and vigilance, in order to discern the movements of the Spirit in ourselves today; the movements which give us life, meaning, and horizon.
At each stage of the transformation in our personal, community, regional, congregational, and ecclesial life, Jesus invites us to contribute to the preservation of our ‘species,’ our ecosystem of life, knowing that it is God who takes care of following through on what He has begun.
Like the transformed butterfly, we do our best to contribute to this moment in history, knowing that we will be judged only in Love, as Pope Francis said, ‘in the care of the life that has been given to us, that we have inherited today.’
Viviana Carolina Forero Angulo, FJ
Honduras
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