(Córdoba, Argentina) Approximately 180 lay people and religious met together at St. Alphonsus Monastery in Villa Allende, Cordoba, which lasted from January 27 to February 1, 2020. This nationwide Redemptorist Family meeting was organized by the Province of Buenos Aires as an annual event. This year the participants reflected about a shared mission, taking as a motto the phrase: “We share life with simplicity, in times of aridity”.
We publish below testimonies of two Redemptorist lay missionaries who took part in this meeting.
For six days we shared our responses to the challenges of the present day which we give as a Redemptorist family in various communities where we live. The meeting was compound of three blocks, entitled as Life, Mission and Complicity, offering us a deeper perspective to reflect on the shared mission. Once again, we were able to experience communion in the charism, enriching ourselves with the testimonies and experiences as we live our different vocation.
The Meeting gave us a Bethany experience – we were able to rest and renew ourselves in the call for the shared mission. It allowed us to renew ourselves in our following of Jesus in the particularity of the Redemptorist charism. We felt the fraternal presence of many brothers who, from different geographical and cultural realities, different forms and different vocations, allowed us to recreate our little great Bethany.
(Marcelo Canay, from Our Lady of Victories Parish, Buenos Aires)
With the invitation “Let’s go to Bethany”, we met in Villa Allende at the end of January. In a fraternal atmosphere, sharing our prayer, formation and mission, we were able to express our desire to announce the Good News.
Every evening Jesus invited us to sit with Him around the altar. These were days of personal and group reflection. Music was also present during the day, and at night everything became song and dance. With the song “Rise missionary and go to bring the Good News”, forming a human rosary, we went out to meet the brothers of the “Villa Allende Parque” neighbourhood, to live a missionary afternoon in the manner of Saint Alphonsus.
One day before the end of the meeting, we experienced a day of silence and serenity. We withdrew to the desert to feel even more the presence of God who calls us and sustains us.
We bid farewell with tears, among blessings and sending off. Returning to our homes, we take with us our commitment and desire to put into practice there all that we have lived.
(Norma Juárez, San Alfonso Convent, Villa Allende, Córdoba)
