Family on Mission

This year we celebrate the 190th anniversary of the Eucharistic miracle ofFebruary 3, 1822! A blessing for the entire spiritual Family of the Venerable Pierre Bienvenu Noailles! A special blessing this year, as the Lay Associates, Priests, Consecrated seculars, Apostolic and Contemplative religious of the Holy Family of Bordeaux will soon be gathering at La Solitude to celebrate the second stage of the Congress:

“Family on Mission,
Gift in a Changing World “

The world has changed. The world is changing. We are a part of humanity, a small family within the family of the universe. God trusts us; God has made us his collaborators today to extend his Kingdom of love and Peace! As our world searches for meaning, we are invited to find new ways, new means to give  it a real breath of life – the breath of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The change within the cosmos – the change of humanity – goes through a profound, radical inner conversion. We have to die to ourselves in order to acquire “a gaze that makes us see the world in its gratuitousness, the gaze of  one who is poor that makes the human being a witness and a source of creative Love.” (Eloi Leclerc)

Scientific discoveries have taught us that God does not hide within lightning and thunder. The new cosmology strips God of the omnipotence which is a caricature of his true being. It forces us to look afresh at the entire universe to discover the true identity of the Creator, God’s own way of being present. The universe appears as the cosmic revelation of God (Rom 1.20), the first sacrament or “the poem of God” (St Augustine) that we love to sing and to meditate, to contemplate and celebrate in our personal and communal prayer. It is God’s work.

Brian Swimme writes: “This new knowledge, this new story, leads us to really see who we are, to see where we are and what we must do as a species, individuals, nations and enterprises.  It gives us a fundamental path to the future, to a vibrant, exciting  life.”

Let us take this vital path! As Family on mission, gift in a changing world, let us  enter into this exhilarating life. For we are called  “to creative fidelity, to a response arising  from the diversity of gifts, in complete detachment, for the glory of God … we are the soil, the humus, where God’s seed can germinate, take root and thrive today.”(Sue Woodruff).