As you read about on the 'Changes to Locality Leadership' The Territorial and Local College have recently approved a change to the Women's Section leadership.
Alicia Cestra has been leading the Women’s Section for the past 4 years in a very dedicated and capable way. She had extended her formal 3-year term for an additional year in response to the need of the Section, but as she is taking on more demanding tasks in her home life, she is ready to pass on the leadership role.
There is now a group of 4 women who will make up the Women's Section Leadership Team and thankfully, Alicia is one of them.
The four women are: Sonja DalleAve as the point person and College Member, Daniela Dalla Via (who has been Section Assistant over the past few years), Louela Manankil-Rankin, and Alicia Cestra.
Please feel free to approach any one from this group with suggestions, concerns, ideas, comments, or whatever is on your heart about our RC women’s section.
The members of the Women’s Section Leadership Team are:
Sonja Dalle Ave: Sonja has been a Regnum Christi member since December 2004 and has grown a lot in her faith through the ongoing formation opportunities and Spiritual Direction offered by RC. As a wife to Tony and a mother of 3 active sons, and with a busy job, it was difficult in these early days to make the time for team meetings and retreats, but these activities turned out to be true blessings for all her family. Now retired and with all her children grown up, she enjoys having more time to be with Our Lord and more leeway to be active in the movement and in her parish. She treasures the friendships and the team life of her RC group and the support from her local LC Fathers and hopes to do what Christ is asking of her at this particular time.
Alicia Cestra has always been an active volunteer in her community. What attracted her to Regnum Christi was the integral formation which transformed her from a “volunteer” to an “apostle” … to do something with greater meaning and eternal significance. Under the spiritual guidance of Fr. LeBlanc, she turned her passionate study of Sacred Scripture into an Adult Formation apostolate which, since 2013, she has joyfully led with her husband.
Alicia has been a member of Regnum Christi since 2014. She has served in several internal apostolates including the Local College since its inception in 2015 as the Formation Coordinator. For the past four years, as the Women’s Section Director where she has been blessed to accompany her sisters in living out our mission and spirituality.
Daniela Dalla Via, originally from Italy, now lives in Brampton Ontario. She was an entrepreneur until she became a full time mom to her three sons, now aged 27 and 24 year old twins. With her retired husband Peter, she enjoys long walks, gardening and entertaining. She's involved in her parish life as a minister of hospitality and the Eucharist. Daniela treasures the authentic friendships and life purpose she has found in Regnum Christi
Louela Manankil-Rankin is a mother, nurse, Nursing Educator, and a Regnum Christi Lay member since 2018. She is originally from the Catholic country of the Philippines. She arrived in Canada with her parents in 1974. The Catholic faith is a strong dimension in her life. In her youth, she has been involved in youth groups and church folk groups. Her passion for the music ministry continues into her adult life as she praises our Lord through song with her husband, Peter, in their Church’s Contemporary Choir.
She has two children; Daniel, 29 and Hannah, 26. Both of them have illuminated the meaning of the experience of God’s love in her life. She has been married for 30 years to Peter who loves to sail and garden. Since joining Regnum Christi she has been enthusiastically vested into making visible the Kingdom of God within her community.
Please support these women with your prayers as they prepare to step out boldly in mission to let Christ be known and loved.
Let us pray that they help the Women’s Section and us all “to live as vibrant communities of apostles who will reflect the dynamics/reality of family allowing for members of different generations, teams, and sections to work together to take Christ into our society.”
God bless each one of you!