Archbishop Julian Barrio |
Javier Cortés addresses de audience, Mónica González,
Maria Rita Martín, Claudia Gamarra |
View of the Auditorium in session |
Hilda Geraghty, Irlanda, Reeves Rodrigues, India,
Katia Medeiros, Brasil, Laurentine Lumbundji, Rep.Congo |
Cristine Lim, an Indian rite to invoque the Spirit of God |
Mary Ann Escucha, Reeves Rodrigues, Laurentine Lumbundji |
Young people salute as they are indtroduced |
Oscar Mateo at the guitar with Samuel Medina,
singuing to Poveda |
During a recess, Loreto Ballester with Assembly members |
LOS NEGRALES (July, 2006).- “Believe, dream, be daring” are
the words that appear on the banner for the Plenary Assembly of the Teresian
Association, celebrated in Los Negrales from the 15th to the 23rd of July.
With these words, also the invitation of Saint Pedro Poveda: “Look
at the mission entrusted to you”.
At the opening session, the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Msgr.
Julian Barrio encouraged the participants “to meet the challenge
of our current moment… as St. Pedro Poveda did in his time, when
the debate between modernism and faith, culture and religion, Christian
life and secular life were burning issues”.
Before the 122 participants, coming from 29 countries and 4 continents,
the President of the Lay Apostolate Commission of the Spanish Episcopal
Conference, recalled that “St. Pedro Poveda fostered the involvement
of lay people in the civil affairs of society, encouraging them to be
men and women of deep spiritual life”.
Loreto Ballester, President of the Teresian Association, acknowledged
that “this Assembly, formed by representatives of members and associations,
is an intense experience of co-responsibility that reminds us of Pedro
Poveda’s words: “we all have to collaborate”.
Ballester, presiding the inaugural session next to Archbishop Barrio,
observed that this Assembly receives a legacy of 95 years of existence,
and at the same time it shows “in this 21st century the new path
open in the Church of the laity”, as Poveda himself did it in his
time.
“The passing of time and the developments in the Church of a great
variety of gifts, charisms, and ministries, confirm that “Pedro
Poveda was ahead of his time”, remarked Ballester, who went on to
say that, “although the Teresian Association is quite rich in its
presence in diversity of contexts, cultures, and life experiences…
This encounter will help us respond to the question;
‘Teresian Association, what do you feel you are being sent to in
this 21st century?’”
During the morning there had been a prayer service with the symbol of
light and the invocation to the Holy Spirit expressed by representatives
from four continents.
The President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Monsignor Stanislaw
Rylko, sent a message to the Assembly, inviting the participants to fulfill
their mission “living intensely a harmonious synthesis of faith-culture
and faith-life, and producing the fruits of sanctity and evangelization
so needed for the renewal of individuals, groups and structures”.
In his message, Archbishop Rylko also mentioned the call made by Pope
Benedict XVI to Church groups and communities to be “schools of
freedom”.
In his message he stresses that “This is an invitation that “truly
applies to your Association, dedicated to education, to the evangelization
of the youth, and to culture; and it challenges you to build up schools
of freedom in this 21st century.”
On the evening of July 15th, almost a century after Pedro Poveda initiated
his Work convoking lay people to be salt and light in the midst of society,
Monsignor Barrio talked about the role of the laity in the world and in
the Church, indicating certain attitudes and characteristics for today’s
lay apostolate.
In this changing society, we “are called to exercise our citizenship
with a clear awareness of our Christian identity”, he said. The
archbishop’s invitation was, “to be ourselves, to re-discover
our origins and embrace our true roots”. He also recalled the words
from the Apostolic Exhortation “Christi fideles Laici”, where
it says that “the new ecclesial, social, economic, political, and
cultural situations need, with special force, the action of the laity”.
Drawing from the doctrine of recent Church documents about the lay vocation,
Barrio mentioned some attitudes for the lay Christian:
- “No to allow mediocrity”, which often entails courage
to go against the main grain.
- “To be leaven and salt”, which requires to keep a visible
and effective presence in society
- “To feel with the Church and for the Church”, because
our faith is an ecclesial act, and “we cannot take the risk of
adopting a conditional Christianity”.
Archbishop Barrio went on saying that faith cannot be reduced to the
private forum, and pointed out a “ souble key to interpret the lay
commitment : incarnation and the exodus. “We need to go out, to
live outside, to build up Church.”, explained.
”In order to do that, we need a formation for the mission: to evangelize
on the market place showing true coherence, in dialogue with others, through
our interactions in the wokplace, service to others, witnessing truth
and our experience of God”, he said.
Archbishop Barrio urged the participants live out the spirit of the Gospel
Beatitudes, loving the enemies and praying for the persecutors. He mentioned
Pedro Poveda’s call to tolerance, dialogue, and respect for others,
observing that already a century ago this saint had encouraged the involvement
of the Christian laity in society, “imitating the first Christians
in their life style, in their way of being in the world, with evangelizing
energy and without forgetting that ‘prayer is the strength of humans
and the weakness of God’”.
Text and photos, ARACELI CANTERO
Translation, Carmen Zabalegui
|
