41 participate in the first Assembly of the Marist Life and Mission
Forty-one participants attended the first Assembly of the Marist Life and Mission of the Arco Norte region in Guatemala City from Oct. 19 – 23.
“I believe that this meeting is a very important moment for our region, since the Institute has promoted the project of new models of animation, government and management, which aims at giving strength to the development of Marist life and mission through regions,” said Brother César Augusto Rojas Carvajal, provincial of Norandina and one of the participants.
“It is a privileged moment to continue to deepen this future challenge, to envision together – brothers and laity – paths of communion (…) and take concrete steps in consolidating structures that allow us subsidiarity, networking and a vision of globalization from our local realities,” he told the general house press office on Oct. 22.
The aim of the encounter, he continued, was to give continuity to the II International Marist Mission Assembly, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya, last year.
“A group of brothers and lay people, who attended the Assembly, organized this event in order to realise the proposals from the International Assembly and to help make them become a reality in our region,” he affirmed.
Br César underscored that aside from the Brothers provincial, a Marist sister, laity and other Brothers, there were seven youths “who remind us who the Marist mission is aimed at.”
“Their presence was a breath of renewing and fresh air,” stated the Colombian.
He stressed the goals for this encounter included “growing in hope and knowledge of our region, strengthening the personal commitment to the Marist mission, and proposing one or two goals (or projects) as Arco Norte.
Other goals were also to “embody the calls of the AIMM in our Arco Norte reality, to live as an international Marist community and to generate significant meeting spaces, discernment, prayer and reflection.”
The Arco Norte region is formed by 6 Provinces: Norandina, América Central, México Central, México Occidental, United States of America and Canada.
Claudia Rojas, Alfonso Luis de Chavez Estrada and Brothers Daniel Martín, Agustín Acevedo, Steve Milan and Real Sauvageau organised the event.