Interview with Sr. Maria De Fatima Vieira Diniz, Superior General Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, during the joint UISG-USG meeting (November 22-24, 2023).

In this synodal journey that we have made in the Church, it has filled me with much hope to participate in the Synod that just ended in October of this year.
It was an experience that brought us all together as Church, people of God, to share what we bring from our local communities and also what we hope for our local church.

The word "synodality" may scare us because we are not familiar with it, but it simply means to walk together as a Church: something that was very characteristic of the first Christians and the first communities.

In other words, synodality is reminding us of our way of being Church by walking together, searching together and discerning what the Spirit wants for his people today. In this synodal journey, the International Union of Superiors General in Rome with the Union of Superiors General, religious men and women together, have organized this first Joint Assembly. It is a beautiful experience and although in Latin America we are accustomed to meeting and working together, for the Church here in Rome it is a novelty.

The motto has been "Synodality: A renewed call to the prophecy of hope" and I believe that our prophecy today could be to walk together, to see ourselves as brothers and sisters because it gives us hope to know that we are all beloved sons and daughters of God.

Synodality also invites us to recover our dignity as beloved sons and daughters of God. How good it is that religious life is beginning to take these steps; to see us walking together as the people of God and also incorporating the laity, the bishops and the whole Church of our people where we walk in our local Churches.