SENDEROS: the PATHS traversed

Holy Week marked the halfway point of our SENDEROS Programme. The passing of the first two months may be compared with the migration of the storks, observed almost every day by some Brothers of the group during their walk to an ancient monastery. The storks are the emblem of the traveller: they show the way, invite on pilgrimage, indicate the horizons, provide motivation for research and discovery.

Our itinerary has become more definite, week after week, with route maps, with suggestive goals: to contemplate one?s story as a meeting place with God and life. To have experience of community as a theological place where one can attain fullness in one?s relationship with God. To assume one?s sexuality as a celibate as a call to be a joyful and integrated person. To discover the new way of being Brother for the new times. To consolidate an enlightened, joyful and unified spiritual existence. To become more familiar with the Bible, seen as a way of understanding life. To regard religious life as a paradigm for searching?

The paths traversed in these first months were inspired by the « go in haste » of our General Chapter. Movement, road, displacement : passage from a clearly defined role to the evangelical seed being buried in the ground, from the attitude of officials of the Gospel to that of witnesses of the Lord, from quantity to quality, from the centre to the periphery, from an individualistic spirituality to meeting the Lord of history?

In the second part of the path left to travel, we catch a glimpse of the same questing spirit. There will be the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the pilgrimage to the Marist Places, the pilgrimage of solidarity. An interior journey to the land of Jesus, who announces the Gospel; to the God of Jesus, who humbles himself in the poor, in the suffering; to our origins, place of the newness of God realized in the Marist charism. There will still be paths to travel!

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Br. Javier E.
Los Negrales, Madrid (Spain)