Final preparations are underway for the SVD General Chapter to be held at Nemi, outside Rome next month, with Divine Word Missionaries from all around the world, including the AUS Province, set to take part in the important gathering, held once every three years.

And for the first time there will be a significant presence of lay partners at the Chapter, highlighting the Society’s growing formal relationship with its lay collaborators.

AUS Provincial, Fr Henry Adler SVD will attend the Chapter from June 16 to July 15, along with Provincial Delegate, Fr Anthony Le Duc SVD, from the Thai District. Former Provincial, Fr Tim Norton SVD, who is now based at Nemi, will facilitate the meeting.

“We are in the final stages of preparing for the Chapter,” says Fr Henry. “The Generalate has asked all of the Provinces to focus on a few key tasks ahead of the Chapter, which we are attending to now.

“Our own Provincial Assembly and Chapter helped us to prepare, especially in regards to the overall theme of the General Chapter, which is ‘The Love of Christ Impels us’: Rooted in the Word, Committed to His Mission’.

“We took that as the theme for our Assembly and Chapter earlier this year and we have been thinking about what that means for us for some time. So this will be helpful when we get to Rome.”

In a letter to Provincials last year, the SVD Superior General, Fr Heinz Kuluke said: “The objective of the 18th General Chapter is to foster a process of a spiritual rekindling, bringing us back to the Word of God as the source of our life, vocation, and mission and our religious missionary commitment. Thus the aim of this Chapter is the renewal of oneself, community life and mission”.

Fr Henry says that having considered the theme within the Province and discerned what it might mean for the SVD at the local level, they will now be asked to take it a step further.

“The Generalate has pushed us identify priorities, to make an action plan and to follow it,” he says.“As a Province we have been preparing ourselves spirituality for this experience of the General Chapter in a rang of ways, including praying the prayer of the Chapter each day.

“And of course we have been preparing in other ways too, by submitting all the necessary documents and papers.”

Fr Henry says he is delighted that lay people will have a more formal participatory presence at the General Chapter this time.

“Lay partners have been present in some ways at previous Chapters, but this time they will be participating in their own right,” he says.

“This is a significant acknowledgement that we see our future as missionaries in collaboration with lay partners.”

The SVD Generalate recently approved the AUS Province to form a lay partners group, giving official backing to an already existing reality. Fr Henry is scheduled to speak to the lay partners in Marsfield soon about the General Chapter process.

“We want our lay partners to be spiritually involved with what’s happening in Rome in the same way as the missionary confreres are,” he says.