On the morning of July 27, the last day of the Poitiers Session, Sister Noemí García sscc took the floor to introduce the closing day of the formative itinerary, presenting the day's central proposal: to experience among brothers and sisters the method of spiritual conversation, the same dynamic of listening and dialogue that Pope Francis has been promoting at the ecclesial level since the Synod on Synodality. She recalled that Francis draws, among others, on theologian Timothy Radcliffe, who warns that religious life runs the risk of “talking a great deal and living little”: we are given the word to address others, but what we say is not always in real connection with what we live. According to Radcliffe, we almost always talk more about what is hardest for us to live.
Noemí also pointed to a void the Pope detects: faced with a world of excessive diagnosis, many young Christians today do not find a way to discern God's will. The response Francis proposes —and which the Session sought to experience firsthand— is not to possess that will, but to fall silent so that the Spirit may speak.
Spiritual conversation, renewal of vows, and shared gratitude
The morning was structured in two moments. First, a time of personal prayer with four proposals: to get in touch with what was truly lived, without goals to achieve; to look back with gratitude toward those who made the Session possible; to write to one's own future self from the legacy of the Founders, identifying the non-negotiable elements of the sscc vocation; and to keep in mind the communities of origin that send each participant to the mission, recalling that common life is a fundamental feature of sscc consecration.
Participants then moved into the experience of spiritual conversation in small groups, applying the method in its three moments: speaking briefly and from what is essential, listening without the interference of one's own judgment or the response being prepared, and keeping silence without discomfort, later safeguarding with confidentiality what each brother or sister shared.
The day continued with the midday meal and, in the afternoon, a time was opened for personal evaluation, recorded in a form whose aim was for each participant to make their own synthesis of what was lived: how they arrived, how they prepared, and how their time in the Session unfolded.
The closing Eucharist at the Grand'Maison
In the afternoon, at the Grand'Maison, the community celebrated the closing Eucharist of the Poitiers Session 2026, in which participants renewed their vows, giving new meaning to their consecration from an emblematic place, alongside the group of sscc brothers and sisters who had walked together for three weeks.
The Eucharist was presided over by Jean Blaise Mwanda sscc, who in his homily drew on the day's two Gospel parables —the mustard seed and the leaven— to invite the community to recognize the value of small gestures: a brother or sister who continues to speak gently amid a tense community, who refuses to respond with anger, who takes up again the greeting, forgiveness, or work well done out of love and honesty, is living, he said, the same disproportion that exists between the tiny seed and the fruit it bears, between a little leaven and the whole mass it transforms. Leaven, he noted, “makes no noise and works in silence,” just as God works in each person's life, even when results are not immediately visible.
Father Mwanda also connected the three-week experience to the Transfiguration: going up the mountain —to Picpus, to Louvain, to Poitou— to “drink at the source,” in historic places, through conferences, silence, adoration, and community life, but without being able to remain there, as Peter wished. Just as after the Transfiguration one must come back down to the plain, the community is now called to return to their respective communities and share with their brothers and sisters the fruits of this experience of God through the Founders, living the sscc consecration in daily prayer and service to the poor. Also present at the Eucharist were the three SSCC brothers from the Buxerolles community and a married couple from the secular branch in Usseau.
Farewell dinner and gratitude
The sscc sisters of the Grand'Maison invited all participants to dinner. The evening closed with songs and dances by continent, in an atmosphere filled with gratitude toward all those who made the Session possible: the accompanying team —Noemí García, Jean Blaise Mwanda, Valentinus Sedu Ritan, María del Mar Pérez, Enrique Ramírez and Fernando Cordero— and the sscc brothers, sisters, and laity of France and Belgium who accompanied the journey through their respective countries.
As we close the daily chronicle of these three weeks of the Poitiers Session, here are some videos with reflections from some of our participants, in different languages:
You can also watch the Session in videos at this link to our YouTube channel's playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsqJAkvzLYk&list=PLAL4PbbncOe4
On July 28 the group travels by bus from Poitiers to Paris, where each participant will continue on their respective journeys. Thank you to everyone who has followed us and prayed for us — we have felt you very close and present in this Session, which now comes to an end.
07/28/2026