The fourteenth session of the Josefa Segovia Academic Chair of the Universidad de la Mística, took place from 28 to 30 March at the Centro Internacional Teresiano y Sanjuanista (CITeS), in Avila in Spain. The topic was ‘Repairing a broken world’.
On the first day, Friday 28th, Jerzy Nawojowski, director of the Centro Internacional Teresiano Sanjuanista CITeS Universidad de la Mística, referred to the title of the course when he said that repairing this broken world ‘is not only a challenge but is also an imperative in these times’.
Carmen Azaústre, academic director of the Chair, welcomed the participants and presented the topic of the conference and its motivation. In the first session, Maria Jesús González Garmendia presented the book Beber en las fuentes: Los primeros cristianos [Drink from the source: The first Christians] which is a compilation of the content of the 13th course held by the Chair in 2024. The book can be purchased on the CITeS website.
Fragility, Leonard Cohen and fractures
On the morning of the 29th, three keynote lectures were given. The first speaker was Javier de la Torre Díaz, Director of the Department of Moral Theology and Christian Life Praxis at Comillas Pontifical University. During his lecture entitled ‘The Spirit is poured out in fragility: vulnerability and love’, he explained the different dimensions of fragility. He highlighted cultural fragility, social fragility and the ‘risks of coexistence that can be a threat’.
Then, quoting Pope Francis, he focused on the fragility of relationships and pointed to the fact that the Church must ‘accompany with mercy’. He added that we must go beyond appearances and that the ‘Spirit of Jesus is poured out in fragility’.
This was followed by a talk entitled ‘There's a crack in everything.... This is how the light enters’, by Professor Sean Góan, a graduate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He gave an overview of the life of the Jewish poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and analysed some of the lyrics of his songs and how they reveal his religious upbringing, his faith and his thinking, and how he was always drawn to the way Jesus lived.
This performer struggled throughout his life with depression and different types of drugs. ‘He said he did not want to be a teacher or a spiritual guide, but wanted to invite listeners to identify with the experience,’ Góan said.
The day was brought to a close by Margarita Saldaña Mostajo, a graduate in Journalism and Dogmatic Theology, with her talk entitled ‘Repairer of the breach (Isaiah 58:12) -- The caring face of the biblical God’. In her presentation she spoke of the ‘repairer of the breach’ as a concept of God's transcendence. ‘The repairer of the breach may be another name to describe the God of the Jews. It is a title that God offers to us too.’
She then pointed out that human history is marked by fissures and listed different types of breaches to be found throughout the Scriptures. She also spoke about the stories of care and nurturing about women in the Bible.
The day concluded with a concert entitled ‘Reunión de amigos’ by Marta Boldú and José M. Micó. In the evening, there was a cinema session with the screening of the film, The Queen of Katwe, which tells the story of a young Ugandan woman, Phiona Mutesi. 
Families and experiences
On the closing day, Fernando Vidal, Professor of Psychology and Social Work at Comillas Pontifical University, focused on ‘Breakages, abandonment and redemption within families’. He said that ‘the home is a second skin’, and that the family home is where we share the rawness of limitations and greatness, of glory and of our own misery.
There was a panel discussion in which different voices related to education, medicine, volunteering and music were heard. Lola Moreno García, Thomas Sheehan, Consuelo Millán Herrera and Rufina Cárdenas shared stories from their experience of their respective professions.
Jerzy Nawojowski and Carmen Azaústre closed the meeting and invited everyone to the next one, which will take place from 27 to 29 March 2026.
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