Cienfuego here
Two news items from Cuba have appeared in our publication. Our readers could conclude that they contain nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly, projects very similar to the ones described are carried out in numerous Marist educational works in the world. What is extraordinary is that the Brothers have the possibility of making contact with us via the internet. This is the news. With this facility we hope to continue learning about what the two communities established in the island of Cuba are experiencing and doing.
The first item informs us that the Brothers organized a retreat for Advent 2009 for the youth of the outskirts of Cienfuegos.
The second tells its story in images. The title was: Nativity in the Parish of Our Lady of Lourdes, in Cienfuegos and Batey de la Esperanza.
There was plenty about the Advent retreat. The report states: On Sunday 20 December, the youth of the outskirts of the community of Cienfuegos, held a retreat in the Botanical Gardens for Advent and as part of our preparation to welcome the Child Jesus at Nativity. The retreat was entitled: We youth prepare to receive Jesus as Mary did. It was oriented towards our saying YES, as young people and following Mary?s example, to the Lord of our lives, and ENTERING INTO SOLIDARITY with the most needy in our communities as she did with her cousin Elizabeth.
At the retreat, in the first part, each community was able to say what it was doing to prepare the way of the Lord and how it was making straight the crooked ways of juvenile life. Then, in the light of Luke?s Gospel 1: 26-38 and 38-45, we shared our lives in an atmosphere of prayer and in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
We thank God for the very special moments we were able to experience and we ask Mary of Nazareth to continue accompanying our journey as youthful disciples and missionaries in the midst of the concrete society in which we live.
The Lord came, because he found in the young Mary a person well disposed.
The Lord came, he clothed himself in our humanity so that man might reach up to the Divinity. They were expecting him amid glitter, and he came in the humility of a crib. They grieved for him in palaces, and he allowed himself to be adored in the simplicity of a humble stable.
The Lord came, continues to come, and will come at the end of time. We have him and we do not see him. But, in the end, he will present himself in a definitive way and forever.
The Lord came, and comes each day in the breaking of the Bread.
The Lord came, and at any moment, dear young person, he may arrive.
Youth of Cienfuegos, the Lord comes every day of our lives! Let us open up! Let us open wide the windows of our existence! So that, when the Lord arrives in the humility of Jesus, he does not find us closed.