As we progress in our formation for mission programme, we had an input from our Superior General Sr. Josephine D’Souza, SAC on “Faith and Community Life.” During her talk, Sr. Josephina insisted that, the religious life is a beautiful call which brings us to rely on God. It calls us to live our faith in harmony and to know the unconditional love of God in our daily experiences. The strength of our vocation is living by the inspiration of the Gospel with renewed enthusiasm and bearing witness to the world. She also emphasized that we religious are called to live in the community with the spirit of communion, by imitating the models of Trinity, Holy Family of Nazareth and Cenacle. We are encouraged to revive our baptismal call to rediscover our journey of faith and to live it with awareness and maturity.
The Feast of St. Joseph Celebrated in Anticipation
In anticipation to the feast of St. Joseph, on 23rd April 2024, we celebrated the feast day of our Superior General Sr. Josephina at Laki Tatu Community in Arusha. The sisters from Noviciate and Leadership communities joined us for evening Mass and celebration. The Holy Mass was presided over by Rev. Fr. Joseph Shio and Rev. Fr. Florentine Mallya, the Provincial Superior, both of them from the Congregation of Holy Ghost Fathers. In his homily, Fr. Mallya stressed the importance of religious to imitate the humility, silence and obedience of St. Joseph. After the Holy Mass we had a colourful celebration with a variety of international entertainment and agape. The joy of intercultural living was incredible and will be a memorable one forever.
Models of Our Missionary Journey
As we come closer to the end of our program in preparation for mission, we were blessed to encounter the Archbishop of Arusha, Most. Rev. Isaac Amani.
On 24th April, he visited us and gave us a talk on the models of missionaries referring to Acts 10:34-48. He insisted that, in going for mission we must have our models. Imitating the first apostles who worked so hard after the resurrection, we go out to spread the good news to all nations. He encouraged us to live well in the mission areas, with commitment and dedication, keeping Christ as our center of life.
After the input, the Archbishop celebrated Holy Mass and we had lunch together.
Learn from the Past and Prepare for the Future 
On our second part of formation program, we had a moment to learn about the History of our Congregation by Sr. Josephina. In her teaching, she traced the foundation of our Congregation from 1838, by St. Vincent Pallotti. She emphasized that it is important that in our life situation we must know where we come from, since the missionary experience of our sisters will enrich and help those in formation to be ready to go out. 
It is through the same experience that we deepen our missionary zeal and life as we respond to God’s call in our time. We learned that the first missionaries of our Congregation were engaged in the work of evangelization, responding to the needs of their time doing various apostolates as our Holy Founder St. Vincent Pallotti had desired.
Sr. Josephina made it clear that, our Pallottine mission is two-fold; namely, to spread the Gospel message by all means. Secondly, to empower the laity to focus on their God-given talents and gifts so that they may fully live out their vocation to which God has called them. Going through the statistics of our Congregation, we learned about the reality of our communities so that we become ready to go for new missions and support the existing communities throughout the world.
Missioning Ceremony
At the climax of the of our Formation for Mission we had the missioning ceremony on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, 28 April 2024. During the Eucharistic celebration, presided over by Rev. Fr. John Onna, SAC the Regional Superior of the Pallottine Fathers in East Africa, he encouraged the sisters who are going for mission to remain in the love of God. He stressed on going into mission with a positive attitude which will help them to cope with the new environment.
Marking the end of the first sessions of the program of Formation for Mission, 15 sisters from different Provinces were sent into mission to Rome, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and to start a new mission in Malawi. We thank God for the gift of our vocation in the Pallottine Congregation and wish our sisters in different missions successful apostolate in the vineyard of the Lord.
We are grateful to our Superior General and her Councillors who thought of bringing us together from different Provinces to be prepared before being sent into the mission. In memory of our stay in Tanzania we planted fruit trees in the garden of the Provincial House to bear fruit abundantly.
Text: Sr. Florentine Uwayezu, SAC and Sr. Rashmi Augustine, SAC
Photos by courtesy of the participants.
See also the event gallery.
