Newness in ?Gathered around the Same Table?
A talk titled ‘Newness in “Gathered around the Same Table”’ took place at the Marist School of Sargodha, Pakistan, from June 21 – 22. Brother Teófilo Minga, of the Compostela Province, dedicated a talk to Superior General Brother Emili Turú’s letter, “Fourvière – the Revolution of Tenderness.”
Five Marist Brothers, 35 teachers of the school and Lay Marists attended the seminar.
“It was worth the initiative to be able to listen to each other and to learn new things about the relationship between Brothers and lay,” affirmed Brother Paul Bhatti in a statement dated June 23 to the general house press office.
Brother Rohail Niamat underscored that the seminar “came in good time, when the question of the relationship between brothers and lay Marist people is becoming a crucial one in the Marist world.”
He called on participants to pay attention to cultural matters when thinking of lay Marist communities or mixed communities in the future.
But some more informal activities were also considered, such as collaboration in youth ministry programmes in various localities in Sargodha and youth sports clubs, irrespective of religion.
Along with these ideas Anil, who has participated in the II MIMA in Nairobi, and Anum Maria presented a report of their groups underlining the need of more sessions like the one offered now to the teachers: they could be a way to have in the future Marist people from Pakistan participating in international communities.
Anum Maria approached the facilitator to elaborate more in some points raised during the exchanging of ideas. He chose two head titles of the letter: 1) God is community; 2) Fourvière, a Dream and a Promise.
God is community, but very often not much attention is payed to this reality and therefore do not act as “communion people”.
The facilitator remembered an impacting experience he had in the 7th Assembly of the World Council of Churches. The young theologian from the Presbyterian Church of Korea opened the Assembly with a beautiful dance accompanied with a song and a narrative text.
At one moment she said: “In the beginning God was relationship…” and she was applauded by the whole assembly. To be Christian is to live and to give life through communion, creating a network of living relationships.
Br. Emili reminds Marists of this important principle in Christian life and quoting Pope Francis he speaks of a “web of relationships.”
The second point is the recall of Fourvière, a dream and a promise. This point is developed later in the biggest paragraph of the letter, “Marist Community, a Charismatic Family”.