World Assembly Reflections - Day #4
Greetings from Buenos Aires and the CLC World Assembly on this Day #4
Today was more of a prayerful and reflective day, thankfully. It was a day spent reflecting upon on our CLC blessed history through the vision of the time line, a time of personal prayer and what has moved us about our World and National CLC history, and a sharing of this history. In the afternoon we then spent more prayerful time reflecting upon and sharing how we were moved with what was revealed in the morning visually shared on the timeline.
Because we have spent more time in personal prayer and small group reflections today Michelle, Catherine and I have not seen as much of each other. Plus the seating arrangement is getting more fluid…. when people are starting to sit in different places each time we gather people are starting to get to know each other more… looking to sit beside a wider circle of new friends:) But don’t worry, Michelle, Catherine, and I are still friends… I think:) Michelle and Catherine share a room for this Assembly… and Michelle has a cough. Coughing so much last night Michelle had to find a couch somewhere in kindness to Catherine so she could sleep. Then the local CLC members had pity on Michelle, and Catherine, offering them all kinds of home remedies.
Some of us had a free evening… I and the other EA’s met with Fr. General after dinner for question and answer time. Some of the questions that were brought up were how Jesuits and CLC’s can collaborate more together, particularly younger Jesuits. For this collaboration to deepen between us Fr. General mentioned that a conversion needed to continue to take place amongst Jesuits in learning to work with CLC’s. One difficulty in this was suggested… that Jesuits are being asked to collaborate with CLC members and its leaders in a truly collaborative manner… and so many Jesuits are not used to that way of working with others. Jesuits are used to being in charge and directors of works. Our presence with CLC’s requires of us a different way of working together. Certainly thoughts to prayerfully ponder and consider for our future formation in what it means to be truly collaborative.
One other highlight of the day was in coming together with our French Canadian counterparts, along with Sr. Nadia from Haiti, to reflect with each on what has been moving us during this Assembly. Because our days are fulled, we only met briefly after lunch. But we will continue to meet each day like this. On our outing yesterday I had the pleasure of walking with the new President of CVX french Canada, Andrée Richard, who was once a member of CLC english Canada before moving back to Quebec. We had a wonderful talk about the possibilities of CLC and CVX english and french Canada working and interacting more closely together in the future. I do hope this can come about… Andrée is very much excited about these possibilities, and Michelle certainly is too:)
Because wifi is so limited here I only share with you a few photos… one of our CLC Canada presentation… we even provided sweets for people… maple sugar candies in the shape of maple leafs:) And the other of the 3 of us with a CLC elder from Mexico who broke open for us in the morning our CLC history timeline.
For more photos and documents from our Assembly don’t forget about the Assembly website: http://assembly.cvx-clc.net/en/
Blessings to each of you,
Trevor
Events in Canada