Get Connected!
The project Get Connected!
aims to offer a process of development and human growth to our young
Puerto Ricans between the ages of 18 and 35. Through a group
experience, they can acquire greater understanding and integration of
human life in its various dimensions... affective, social, spiritual,
etc.
Reality is complex and difficult, and the needs
that face today's young people demand creative responses. Since 2001,
then, we have been providing them with the experience of Get Connected! so that they can:
- Have
a living experience of the love of Jesus, for "in Him all find their
true growth as persons and the way towards reconciliation with one
another".
- "become ever more aware of truth, of love and of freedom".
- "discover the significance of their lives and devote themselves to others".
- Help to build a world with more justice, solidarity and humanity.
(cf. Constitutions, Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, #11)
Get Connected! is spread over a year, and includes the following five stages:
click to download the manual in pdf
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GET CONNECTED with yourself
(Self-knowledge)
GET CONNECTED with other men and women
(Communication, managing one's feelings, interpersonal relations)
GET CONNECTED with the world
(Contemplation of Reality)
GET CONNECTED with a Spirituality
(Deepen your experience of Christian spirituality)
GET CONNECTED with a voluntary service or mission
(Collaboration and Solidarity in projects and communities)
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The experiences of our young people show that the project Get Connected! generates a process of formation in which they are finding the meaning of their lives?
Madeline Ortiz, rscj
Province of Puerto Rico - Haiti
Sharing Experiences
Get Connected!
has added a new dimension to my life. I think it's a marvellous
experience. At first I wasn't very clear about what it was, though I
knew its aims, but I didn't know what I was in for.
I
think that all the programmes we have taken part in, from getting to
know our own selves, the Enneagram, to the theme of sexuality, are
experiences that have had an impact on me. This has helped me to grow
personally as well as spiritually. Besides, ever since I came to the
use of reason, the idea of helping others has always been at the back
of my mind.
Get Connected! has also meant that I have been meeting God more, something that I had lost at one time of my life.
"If you walk along the path of simplicity, you are walking towards Peace."
For me, the process of Get Connected!
has been one of self-knowledge; it has allowed me to reflect and
explore aspects of my being that I had never experienced before, not
because I didn't know they existed, but because I hadn't found a way of
working with them.
This experience allows me to see
certain aspects of myself, personality, tastes, anxieties and attitudes
that form the background of my life-experiences. Relationship with my
parents, myself as an integral part of my surroundings, nature, all
that I have inherited, and personal relationships, are some examples of
the themes I've been working on, with the freedom to do so at my own
pace.
I suppose that self-knowledge is a process that lasts the whole of one's life, but in the personal sphere, Get Connected!
has been a way of beginning the journey. I don't yet know where it will
take me, nor how it will affect my outlook on the world and the future,
but I am sure that the better I know and accept myself, and face up to
life while acknowledging myself, the more God's love will fill my heart.
I
know that as yet I'm barely beginning, but the very desire to keep on
with the process is an incentive to integrate it into my life.
I don't yet have any clear idea of how it will end, but I do know that this is "the first day of the rest of my life".
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