Lenten meditations 2019 – week 1

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The German branch of AEFJN – Netzwerk Afrika Deutschland – has prepared a series of meditations in preparation for the “Extraordinary Month on Mission” that Pope Francis has announced for next October. Here is the introductory text. Every Monday of Lent, the following meditation will be posted.

“With the Lenten impulses we want to invite you to enter into a personal and communal reflection on the different dimensions of the mission of the Church:

  1. A personal encounter with Jesus Christ living in his Church: in the Eucharist, in the Word of God, and in personal and communal prayer.
  2. Testimony: the witness of missionary saints, martyrs, and confessors of the faith as an expression of the Church throughout the world.
  3. Missionary formation: biblical, catechetical, spiritual, and theological.
  4. Missionary charity: The witness of selfless love and of lived solidarity with the poor and the suffering to make God’s love for all people visible.“

Week 1: The Extraordinary Missionary Month 2019 – An overview

UISG Campaign for the climate

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A project in which every Sister whose congregation
is a member of UISG, and their connections are
provided with an opportunity to make a
difference in our care of the planet.

This project is a collaborative effort of the JPIC Commission in the name of UISG and the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM).

Pope Francis has underlined the fundamental connection that exists between the environmental crisis and the social crisis that we are experiencing and is asking for. He often reminds us “Everything is interconnected.”

Even if the project is addressed to all female congregations, male congregations may, should in fact, take an active interest in it.

Link to the website Sowing Hope for the Planet

Sr. Denise Gousy  (Sr. Ida-Marie), R.I.P.

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The Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa
invite you to share their hope and pray for

Sr. Denise Gousy  (Sr. Ida-Marie)

entered into the fullness of Life on February 28, 2019 in Cartierville.

She was 88 years old
and in the 65th year of her missionary religious life
spent in Malawi, Zambia and Canada.

Louis Vernhet, R.I.P.

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Father Patrick Bataille, Provincial Delegate of the sector of France,
informs you of the return to the Lord of Father

Louis Vernhet

on Sunday the 3rd March 2019 at Vic en Bigorre (France)
at the age of 78 years, of which 51 years of missionary life
in DR Congo and in France.

Let us pray for him and for his loved ones.

Download here the announcement of Father Louis Vernhet’s death Continue reading “Louis Vernhet, R.I.P.”

Emilien Caron, R.I.P.

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Father Réal Doucet, Provincial of the Americas,
informs you of the return to the Lord of Father

Emilien Caron

on Saturday the 2nd March 2019 at Quebec (Canada)
at the age of 82 years, of which 56 years of missionary life
in DR Congo and in Canada.

Let us pray for him and for his loved ones.

Download here the announcement of Fr. Emilien Caron’s death Continue reading “Emilien Caron, R.I.P.”

Slavery today

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On the occasion of the feast of Saint Josephine Bakhita on February 8, 2019, the Lavigerie community in Karlsruhe, Germany, organized an evening of awareness raising against human trafficking. This evening was held in collaboration with the local NGO “justice project”.

A few weeks earlier, we had already advertised this meeting by distributing posters in parishes, universities and other NGOs’ public places, in magazines and on the Internet. We decorated the room with roll-ups of our Sisters and Fathers, presenting their work on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of our two institutes.

Scandal of human trafficking today

Our meeting began with a video on Saint Bakhita and an overview of the anti-slavery campaign of our founder, Cardinal Lavigerie. The “Justice project” then presented its actions in the city of Karlsruhe against forced prostitution, prevention and information work in schools, universities and various local church groups and parishes: they try to identify female victims. Flora Ridder works in the Griesbach house where migrants and refugees with health problems are found. In collaboration with the “justice project”, she informs them of people involved in the prostitution network.  Kordula Weber collaborates with “justice project” in a state reception centre for all migrants and asylum seekers. Every Wednesday evening there is a women’s café. In just five months, 13 women were helped. Thereafter, they can benefit of protected housing, support in administrative procedures and receive medical and psychological assistance.

The care of victims of organ trafficking, sexual exploitation of children, forced labour, prostitution, forced migration, commodification and exploitation of farm workers, young people caught up in online harassment is done in collaboration with others involved in the reception and support of migrants and refugees.

An aperitif at the end of the evening provided an opportunity to discuss further with the speakers.

A Eucharist specially prepared by the community on this feast of Saint Bakhita was celebrated with parishioners to pray and raise awareness among Christians about the human trafficking that still exists today.

Very few people have responded to our invitation, but this does not prevent us from continuing to move and go beyond what is known to be sowers of hope.

The Karlsruhe Lavigerie Community

Rolf Rosin, R.I.P.

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Father Rudi Pint, Provincial Delegate of the sector of Germany,
informs you of the return to the Lord of Father

Rolf Rosin

on Friday the 2nd March 2019 at the University clinic of Tübingen (Germany)
at the age of 78 years, of which 50 years of missionary life
in Zambia, Austria and Germany.

Let us pray for him and for his loved ones.

Download here the announcement of Father Rolf Rosin’s death Continue reading “Rolf Rosin, R.I.P.”

Renewing the way we look at things

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This text by Bernard Ugeux appeared in the last Info-PAC.

This jubilee time is for us an opportunity to take a renewed Christian look at our brothers and sisters, at the Church, Africa, the World…

Jesus has a unique way of looking at the people he meets, especially the most vulnerable, of recognizing the signs of the times in the expectations of crowds without a shepherd and the oppositions of religious authorities. He has renewed the hope of his people.

As for Cardinal Lavigerie, he too, throughout his life, took a very profound and demanding look at the realities of the world and the Church.

  • A look inhabited by the Spirit who benevolently discerns the new calls addressed to the Church by the societies of his time, in France, in the East, then in Africa.
  • An apostle’s look at all those who ignore the God of tenderness and forgiveness proclaimed by Jesus Christ.
  • A visionary and passionate look, he who is ready to give his life for the salvation of the infidels of Africa as a whole, “as if he saw the invisible”.
  • A look of reconciliation when he meets the prelates of the East invited to return to full communion with Rome.
  • A look that calls, confirms and sends apostles – men and women – for Africa, inviting them to consider martyrdom without fear.
  • A look that courageously and serenely confronts the opposition of those who refuse the Church’s openness to the people of North Africa.
  • A look of deep compassion that invites us to begin the proclamation of the Gospel by caring for the bodies while waiting for the awakening of souls.
  • A tender look at orphans boys and girls, abandoned people and victims of massacres or epidemics, whether in Lebanon or Syria, in Kabylia or the Sahara, or in the depths of the African continent.
  • A wrathful and provocative look in his tour of European capitals to stop the slave trade in Africa, appealing to humanity as much as to the faith of his listeners.
  • A sometimes dominating and overpowering look at his collaborators, which then leads him to humbly ask forgiveness from those he has hurt by the overwhelming nature or demands he has placed on them.
  • A look of contemplation and adoration placed with confidence for hours each day on Christ, the Sacred Heart, the Blessed Sacrament, and which is implored at the feet of Mary, Joseph and the great martyrs of North Africa. …
  • Today, what view does Lavigerie invite us to take of the human spaces that Pope Francis calls the peripheries?
  • What look of renewed indignation and compassion at the countless contemporary slaves and human trafficking that primarily affect children and young people; at migration, the looting of raw materials from poor countries and all forms of human exploitation?
  • What discernment about contemporary developments in globalization and its victims?
  • What invitation to dialogue between the currents within the Church and with other Christian confessions and religions?
  • What openness to differences in language, culture, religion, faith, gender, generation, recognizing that otherness is not a threat but a gift, when it does not impose itself with fanaticism?

In short, today, the Cardinal invites us to know him better (1) in his complexity and richness and to convert our viewpoint so that he may come closer to that of Christ, in his benevolence and his demands, beginning with ourselves.

Bernard Ugeux, M.Afr.

(1) In May 2019, Bernard Ugeux’s book will be published, Prier quinze jours avec le Cardinal Lavigerie, Nouvelles cités

From Rome … Emmanuel Ngona

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This excerpt from the letter of Emmanuel Ngona, provincial of the PAC, written from Rome during the meeting of the provincials, and published in the last Info-PAC, gives us a small idea of the debates that took place during the week of the meeting between the provincials and the General Council.

Hello to each of you from Rome, Eternal City! And may the Peace of Christ dwell in your hearts in this Jubilee Year! I hope that each of you is well where the Lord has planted him to blossom.

I am writing to you today to share some of the elements that struck me during our meeting between the provincials and the General Council from February 10 to 16, 2019.

1) During a private audience on February 8 between Pope Francis and the Mafr and MSOLA on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of our Foundation, the Pope recalled our mission today where we are:

“The mission ad extra is in your DNA… I encourage you to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, so that you never forget that the true Missionary is first and foremost a disciple and that the proclamation of the Gospel can only be lived at the cost of a true missionary communion. May the Spirit make you build bridges between people. Where the Lord has sent you, contribute to the growth of a culture of encounter; continue to be the servants of a dialogue that, while respecting differences, knows how to be enriched by the difference of others. And I thank you in particular for the work you have already done in the service of dialogue with our Muslim brothers and sisters. Through the style and simplicity of your lifestyle, you also demonstrate the need to take care of our common home. Finally, in the wake of Cardinal Lavigerie, be sowers of Hope, fighting against current forms of slavery. Always seek to be close to the small and the poor, to those who wait at the periphery of our societies, to be recognized in their dignity, to be welcomed, protected, promoted and integrated…”.

2) In the context of our Jubilee and the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict 15’s “Maximum” Apostolic Letter (a letter that served to awaken missionary awareness, give new impetus to the mission ad gentes and recall the raison d’être of the Mission), which will be celebrated in October 2019, we want to give a new impetus to our Mission at the personal, community, sectoral or provincial level in line with Cardinal Filoni’s challenge to us: “What does the centenary (150th anniversary, ndlr) of a religious family mean, if not to reflect fundamentally and understand why it was created and what role it still has today?”

3) Great attention must be paid to all our Institutions where we work with children and vulnerable adults so that these places become safe and evangelical spaces for them.

4) Everywhere the opening of our Jubilee went well. But let us not only focus on external manifestations, we want to take advantage of this opportunity and this time of grace for a new missionary impulse to make a difference thanks to our charism and the Holy Spirit who leads us on the roads of the world.

Let us continue to pray in community that this Jubilee Year will be a time of grace for our Society and the local Churches with whom we collaborate fraternally and that the next Plenary Council to be held in Kampala from mid-November 2019 will renew our enthusiasm and missionary strength that no power can take from us.

Emmanuel Ngona
Info-PAC n°79

PAC – Info-Pac nr 79

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The PAC newsletter has just been released. Read it right and fresh from your screen here.

Praise the Lord for His Creation by reading from your screen and preserving the trees of our forests.