The  AMRSWP National Convention  2002 was held on June 27-30, 2002 at the Betania Retreat  House in Tagaytay City.  The theme was “ Women Religious:  Making a Difference in Building a Society of Peace marked by Justice, Forgiveness and Solidarity… to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God…” (Micah 6:8)

 These four (4) days were days of a God-Encounter.  We experienced a celebration of our interconnectedness with one another and with many other people outside this Convention through  small stories and long stories that bonded us, women that we are, with the women victims of war from whose power as victims, salvation could come.

 Having harnessed the power of the reflections and insights shared on the Convention Theme as inspired by the Prophet Micah 6:8 as well as the Talk and Dialogue on Peace Building in Mindanao expounded by the Resource Persons, we were humbled and disturbed by the questions asked by fellow-Christians in Mindanao,  “Do the Moro People really want peace?   We want peace but they do not want peace.”  We compare ourselves with our Brother /Sister Moros and judge them as bad, at least believing we are better than they are.  And the Moro People also ask, “Do the Christians really want peace?  We want peace but they do not want peace.”  We both claim the moral high ground and engage in a dialogue of the deaf, which does not begin from the grassroots.  While we are grateful that we can remember, yet we are wounded and forgetful.  We need a New Heart for the world that can respond to Micah’s call to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with our God.

 In faith and in grateful memory, we walk humbly with God living out hesed to take hold of directing our choices versus the traditional mold of our world of privileges and prejudices, letting Him lead us to life and freedom.  We accept that true love reaches out to us tenderly and also tenaciously because it brings with it the awareness of the capacity of other women to suffer pain by remembering their roots, thus the need for us to experience self-forgiveness, to be compassionate and empowering to these victims that we may be in solidarity with them and with others towards a Culture of Peace.

 Soul-searching questions continue to sear our hearts as we pursue our efforts in firming-up our Persons as Women who plant the seed of goodness within ourselves and in others not even knowing if and when it is going to grow.  Yet with faith that whatever goodness one has planted will blossom only with goodness, we believe that this goodness alone will remain in the end to enlighten us to whatever responses there are to these questions:

 In Formation, in Community Life and in Leadership as well as in our works in theMission, how can the dangerous memory of women being marginal in society be humanized for works for justice?

How can we as Women Religious be a testimony of a covenant love that is tender  and tenacious?

How do we work on a shift from being “answer” persons and “service to” persons into becoming companions, co-journeyers who listen and who enable another to a “humble walk”.

 We listened intently and discerned what fits our psyche and our convictions on the varied inputs from a Talk on Making a Bio-Behavioral Difference across Life Span among Women Religious and another Talk on Walking with Sister-Companions towards Fullest Womanhood.  These experiences helped us rebuild our confidence as women servant leaders in the ministry of accompaniment of Sister-Companions towards just, loving and life-giving relationships.

 Our dialogue with one another on some creative ways of coping with leadership stresses inspired us to continue to assume our responsibilities as Major Superiors of our Religious Congregations making a difference in building a society of Peace with a heart that loves tenderly and tenaciously, with actions that are just towards fellow human beings and towards creation and in humble walk with our God.

 RESOLUTIONS

Having been inspired by the AMRSWP Vision-Mission and with a context provided by the Resource Persons’ Talks, Reflections and Insights, we have chosen to focus our concern on the following priorities for the period 2002-2004