The Plenary Assembly will be “an assembly of consecrated people, simple faithful, but rich in faith.” This is how Sr. Gemma Boschetto, Superior General of the Ursuline Sisters of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, views the great event of the UISG.

She hopes to walk in faith, to renew her trust in the Lord, as well as to learn the evangelical criteria to read reality and to live the feelings of compassion and forgiveness of Jesus which must be in me, and which can become ours, as a community of consecrated women today. Sr. Gemma sees this meeting of women through the lens of the feminine specificity, too:

“We are the Church, we are that feminine part which, in humility, tries to be a voice precisely by being together and offering life freely where life happens.”

Likewise, Sr. Gemma sees the Jubilee of the Pilgrims of Hope as an abundant grace, and a possibility of return and renewal:

“It is an invitation to interior conversion, respecting the times of each person, marked by falls and recoveries, in constant listening to the Word and words.”

And what does she expect from the next “government” of the UISG which will be elected in May?

“The experience of leadership is the new ‘calling within the calling’ to which I have been responding for a few months now by making use of gifts and talents, sowing hope.”

The recently elected Superior General identifies four elements of leadership: calling, task, service – mission, and power.

The calling comes from above, so the Holy Spirit is at work first with his powerful creative and renewing force.

Then, it is a task that calls for constant re-evaluation and dialogue, with the Word of God, with the general council and with the entire religious family. The Italian religious woman emphasizes that we live together listening to life, “in the shared search for answers to the appeals and challenges of different contexts.”

To describe service – mission as a crucial part of leadership, she quotes St. Angela Merici:

“Do, move, believe, strive, hope, cry out to Him with your heart… seek union and harmony, desire it, make it yours, preserve it with all your strength.”

Leadership, finally, is the power of service, “moved only by the love of God and zeal for souls, with marked by vigilance and care.”

The Ursuline Sisters of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, just like consecrated life in general, have always acted in the synodal style, Sr. Gemma specified. The Synod of synodality that ended in 2024 highlighted this way of doing and being the church. The formative journey of her congregation takes up the method of conversation in the Spirit that favors a new listening of the sisters. According to her, it is deeper and maintains attention to the proposed theme. Thus, everyone takes the floor, can go into depth and “converge on a final choice, a shared orientation”:

“The experience allows us to bring about a change to often tough meetings, to group work that is at risk of dominance of some people who are more talkative, with the unknown of losing the goal, expressing only tiredness, shortcomings, fragility, heaviness…”

Sr. Gemma admits that the described method can be very schematic, with well-defined times, but it offers lightness, reflections and preparation, as it calls for deep listening to oneself and others while avoiding chatter.

In the end, the Italian religious woman shared a wish with the UISG:

“We are at the beginning of the mandate, at the beginning of a new year, and yet we can already glimpse the almond flowers!”