English 
Today in our community of Torre Gaia, during the solemn Eucharistic celebration of the Immaculate Conception, the outgoing General Direction handed over the responsibility to the new General direction.
It is something normal after a General Chapter that was held in September the Institute re-evaluates the journey that is made and chooses the people who has to guide the Institute in the coming six years from 2018 to 2024. Observing from a certain distance, we perceive that the “new” enters slowly. It is like when someone arrives and inserts into a reality that is very little known.
One cannot run and be in a hurry. Everyone must learn, and know how to move in the new context. We are more careful to observe, to understand and to respect what is already existing. This is not a synonymous or static, but requires acceptance of a gradual development and dynamism that goes at another speed, because it allows you to continue the journey already started by others, but with new faces, voices and expressions. The General Chapter has already drawn objectives, indicating a possible journey, but it is left to each one to make her way of accepting it. This is true not only for the individual, but also for the whole group.
Therefore, today, we have gathered to celebrate the new: a new Direction that begins and a new journey for the sisters who until now have been members of the General Direction.
The new General Direction will prepare together to carry out their service, to know the different realities and to face the challenges of the Institute in order to favour its journey of growth. In them we foresee the preoccupations, the desire to give the best of themselves and their own experiences made over the years in different missionary contexts. Each one of them has brought to Rome not only their baggage, but also the life and mission experience that will surely make the difference. There are those who speak only English and only Italian. The effort to understand each other slows down the journey, but does not stop. On the contrary, it makes them richer because it helps them to grow in the desire to harmonize the differences.
In the outgoing General Direction we perceive the emotion to leave what they held and the lightness they feel to take up a new journey. There is also a new vision for themselves and a greater love for the mission and the life of the Institute. It is precisely this experience of life lived together with the service of the Institute that will make them a bridge capable of making an encounter and to share the beauty of being an exclusively missionary international Congregation.
The new members begin their journey and the old will renew the way of collecting the “pearl” of the experience in their future mission. We are in journey, therefore, the newness that the life offers us in every moment and occasion is important to perceive and gather the moment one is living as a new time of grace that will not be repeated!
Sr. Rosanna Marchetti, community GD
