The Biblical Animators of the parishes, schools, communities and mission centers of the province met in the retreat house “Padre Claret” in Chaclacayo from 14th to 20th of November. The encounter gave an opportunity to take a break from the missionary journeys and to share the events that happened and are happening within the framework of the Biblical Animation.
During the encounter Victor Matute CMF presented the experience of Claret as a Spiritual Itinerary. He stressed on the point that the symbolic way of presenting it is through “The Forge”, from where we have a path of progressive humanization and divinization to evangelize by all possible means for the greater glory of God; burning in charity, burning wherever we go and kindling in the fire of divine love.
Elizabeth Gareca, in her presentation pointed that the First Letter of Peter encourages us to go back to the first Christian communities and to note significant and founding characteristics from exegesis and hermeneutics such as the “Co-responsibility” in fraternity of all the baptized, called to exercise our priesthood and transform the world from Nonviolence. Likewise, we are faced with a primitive church prioritizing “Building the spiritual house for God” and “Organizing the community” by practicing brotherly love, hospitality and mutual service, as “living stones” (1 Pt 2,4).
The sharing continued with Jaime Michea who presented the biblical journey of America and the process of transformation and discovery from the Biblical Apostolate, Biblical Movements, Biblical Pastoral Ministry and now in the Biblical Animation of Pastoral Ministry. He presented the guidelines for the Biblical Animation of Pastoral Ministry for Latin America and the Caribbean based on the text of the pilgrims to Emmaus (Lk 24,13-35) and the recognition of God’s presence in the meeting places indicated in the text: “the Way”, “The Scriptures”, “The House” and “The Community”.
He also underlined the point that We live and reflect on all of this in the key of Synodality. Pope Francis tells us: “Synodality is not a chapter in a treatise on ecclesiology, and even less a fashion, a slogan or a new term to be used or manipulated in our meetings. No! Synodality expresses the nature of the Church, its form, its style, its mission (Paul VI Hall, Rome 18/09/2021). We as a Claretian community live our synodality from our “shared mission”.
Our daily living together was presided over by Eucharistic celebrations and community prayers. The missionary experiences of our teams and biblical communities of our missionary positions of the last three years were shared, where the Claretian spirit was manifested, bringing hope, peace and love by all possible means from the Word.
We ended our sharing by dreaming together with the Congregation and the Province being always “rooted in Christ and daring in the mission” always from our shared mission. The synodal path towards the Biblical Animation of the Pastoral Ministries starting from prayer and community study of the Word, forming and strengthening Biblical Teams going out, with Biblical Animators transformed and transformers towards the ways of the Kingdom, with the spirit of Claret itinerant and allowing themselves to be challenged by reality.
