This prayer will be during the year a common invitation for all those who share the spirituality and mission of the Teresian Association in different countries, living different commitments.
If you only knew what God is offering...
Letter of the year 2022
In the annual letter addressed to all members, friends, co-workers and family members of the Teresian Association, the TA president, Maite Uribe proposes the motto: “Lord, make us people of living faith, prophetic and engaging, empowered by prayer and study” for 2022.
The title of the Letter comes from Jesus' dialogue with the Samaritan woman in John's Gospel.
Maite Uribe takes this as the focus of her letter to illustrate the process of liberation of the Samaritan, a woman excluded by her origin and her life experience. She starts a journey towards discipleship and community through this encounter with Jesus who asks her: “Give me a drink”.
“Her experience at the well challenges us. Where is it that we look for living water? What well do we go to in order to find answers to our deepest quests: for happiness, love, hope, joy?”
Reflecting on the current situation, the President of the Association says:
“It is time to foster communities that care for each other and that do not confuse happiness with success. These are communities that focus on tenderness and generosity and that have a spirit of mercy and forgiveness, an embrace that gives security. These communities are practising a fresh style of sharing which is an expression of gratuitousness. It recognises everyone’s abilities and is close and attentive to those who are different. Outsiders are made welcome.”
Further on, Maite Uribe also comments on the text of the healing of the deaf-mute in Mark's Gospel:
“Ephphatha (open up) sums up the mission of Jesus, one which is ours too. It is to liberate those many marginalised people that our society leaves by the wayside. Pope Francis tells us to make a stand against today’s throwaway culture and social exclusion. Let us do it with the tools Pedro Poveda offered in his time and that are still valid today: instruction, education and culture”.
“For Poveda, paving the way meant appointing people to active situations, confronting the challenges of the time. It involved his colleagues becoming educators and trainers in a way that elicited responsibility and enabled them to take on the task they were committed to and to do so competently, in an appropriate, active and co-responsible way.
To achieve this, the advice is clear: in his programme, knowledge is placed along with faith. He proposed to develop in each person a taste for learning, for discovering new ways of reading reality and for accepting the new learning tools being offered by society. This is to be done with a deep sense of discernment in order to be able to give an account of why we do it, for what purpose, whom we want to serve, and where and for whom we want to pave the way and offer new possibilities.”
Here you can see a video of Maite Uribe recorded in Spanish.