On March 14, 2026, at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Sr. Simona Brambilla, MC, Prefect of our Dicastery, addressed the students and organizers of the Joint Diploma Program on the Spirituality of Religious Families with a greeting and a brief message. This is a program of study on the various spiritualities that gave rise to “Religious Families,” organized jointly by several institutions, which brings together students from various families of Consecrated Life.
“This journey strikes me as a beautiful and effective example of walking together—a synodal pilgrimage during which the diverse spiritualities of religious families come to know one another, engage in dialogue, enrich one another, and weave a virtuous and fruitful network of positive connections, of bridges where the various experiences of the Spirit meet and illuminate one another,” commented Sister Simona Brambilla, MC, at the beginning of her address.
Especially in these times marked by deep divisions and conflicts, the Holy Spirit calls the Church—and in a special way, consecrated life—to live the grace of synodality. Recalling a phrase from Pope Francis, the Prefect reiterated the importance of learning to walk together, to live the “mysticism of the ‘we’, rediscovering the need to meet in a ‘we’ that is stronger than the sum of small individualities” (Fratelli tutti, 78). In this way, the synodal interaction among the various spiritualities of religious families can also be a prophetic voice and bear good fruit in the “synodal, missionary, and merciful Church” (XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Final Document, Rome, October 26, 2024, n. 73).
