We are concluding an August very rich in events that were meant to bring us into the heart of what jubilee means. In the first part of the month we gathered for a community-wide jubilee retreat in the retreat house of Mariabesnyő in Hungary: 80 sisters gathered from each of our districts and from our other branches of the Federation for a shared retreat experience where they could choose the form of retreat that served them best at his time (guided, personally directed, or contemplative). The guided retreat could be followed online by those who could not be present in person. Our associates could also join us online.

Following the retreat we travelled to Oradea,* Romania where we had two international formation programs: a workshop for all the sisters in formation – candidates, novices, and temporary professed – from our branch as well as from the Federation; and then the formation forum for all the formators. In-between the two parts there was an open day the Sisters of Social Service offered for the Diocese of Oradea followed by a festive mass celebrated by the Bishop of Oradea. The choice of the venue was not accidental: the building where we gathered – now functioning as the pilgrim house of the diocese – used to be the novitiate of the Society up to the end of World War II. It was here where the first formation plan was put together, by which sisters had been formed who ended up in the different parts of the world starting new foundations. These present programs therefore were also a kind of historical and spiritual pilgrimage helping us to get in touch with the legacy of our predecessors as we were trying to return to the initial fire of our charism.

These August events somehow crowned our jubilee year, uniting all of us in our endeavor to unpack for ourselves the meaning and the message we had received from the Holy Father at the beginning of this year.

*These programs were made possible by the support of the Government of Hungary.