The time to make decisions has come

During the weekend of the 3rd and 4th December, the second session of the Provincial Chapter of Canada was held. The House of Our Lady at the Sanctuary of Cap-de-la-Madeleine(Quebec)welcomed the brothers and lay participants, under the presidency of Brother Réal Cloutier who had started his second mandate in the middle of the year. On this occasion, the brothers had invited nine laypeople in order to specify together Province lines of action for the following three years.
Brother Pedro Herreros brought to the Chapter the greetings of the Superior General and his Council, as well as the orientations that the General Conference and regional context offer to the Province. Brother Réal Cloutier evaluated the programme that he had presented at the start of his mandate and the tasks planned for the future. ?As the Superior General had repeated to us at the General Conference, the time to make decisions has come. In our Province, we cannot allow ourselves to wait another ten years to transmit the Marist charism to the next generations.?
Five groups of capitulants studied the propositions in the domains of vitality and viability, of mission, of laypeople and various other initiatives. In general, there were words of encouragement for the Provincial and his Council for the initiatives that they have developed and for those that are being realised: the transfer of Haiti to the region of Central America, interprovincial community among young Canadians, meeting of a number of groups of lay Marists under the name of the Marist Movement of Quebec, the project of Valcartier for the animation of young people, the hiring of a layperson to co-ordinate Province pastoral ministry, etc. These propositions encourage the continued shared mission with laypeople in looking for the most adequate structures to promote it, to set up renewed communities welcoming and open to young people, to make the brothers ready to move according to the needs of the mission, to participate actively in the International Marist Mission Assembly, etc.
The final celebration of the Chapter was developed around a significant gesture of ?building and rebuilding the Hermitage.? All participants were invited to say once more what they were ready to contribute to their task of bringing a stone to the building in construction.