The global pandemic linked to Covid 19 has brought the planet to a halt. Containment measures are taken everywhere. Everyone’s daily life must adapt and the functioning of organizations must be reinvented. To get through this difficult and sometimes even painful stage, we become aware of the importance of fraternity and the quality of our relationship to ourselves and to others in order to stay the course on hope. Beyond experimenting with new forms of work and remote relationships, Fondacio has chosen to make this time of withdrawal and confinement a time of retreat and openness, to move from Covid to CoVivre. The challenge is to listen personally and collectively to invitations to reinvent ourselves and deepen our vocation in order to build what some have called the “next world” in a more committed way. Internationally, we want to connect our momentum, let ourselves be challenged by the pressing calls of the world to build a more humane and fairer world. This is the meaning of the Parcours CoVivre “From Easter to Pentecost, let’s connect our impulses to be active ferments of hope for the world” of which, halfway through, we deliver some elements here and which is intended to be lived widely.
The pandemic caused by Covid-19 affects all countries, to varying degrees. Unprecedented containment measures are taken and profound changes are taking place in our lifestyles. It is a painful moment for many: illness, isolation, difficult living conditions,…
Within Fondacio, many activities – sharing fraternities, community meetings, training sessions – and even major events such as the 2020 Fondacio France Festival scheduled for Angers in early May, have had to be suspended, canceled or postponed. Many social projects on all continents are also on hold, with very direct consequences for all their beneficiaries. The scenarios for the resumption of certain activities are still very uncertain. Insecurity is both personal and weakens many projects.
At the heart of this global crisis, we very quickly felt the chance and the importance of being connected, of being able to connect with each other and of remembering the strength of a unique and diverse community, committed to the heart of world issues. Transforming this time of retreat and confinement into a time of spiritual retreat and openness has become obvious, in order to move from Covid to CoVivre.
Thus, in a few days the Parcours CoVivre was set up to live a spiritual, international, personal and community retreat, to listen to the calls to reinvent ourselves and to deepen our vocation to build a more human, more just, more ecological world.
“From Easter to Pentecost”, let’s connect our momentum
to be active leavens of hope for the world”
This journey is spread over Easter time, between the feast of Easter when Christians celebrate the victory of Life over death and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which invites us to commit ourselves boldly and resolutely to serve humanity. It offers three “Spiritual Conversations”, that is to say a time for meditation and personal reflection around a few passages from the Bible that echo our reality and an inner dialogue before sharing the essentials in a small sharing group that welcomes everyone’s words and lets itself be challenged by what emerges from this “pooling”. »
In our tradition, we know that reading the “signs of the times” and discerning the newness to be welcomed in the midst of difficult situations can be opportunities for transformation to move forward and come out of it stronger. To do so with a plurality of perspectives and the participation of people from different countries is therefore an incredible opportunity.
With great agility, in a few days two hundred people from twenty-three different countries signed up for this course. Twenty-five small groups per language – English, Spanish and French – were then formed with at least three different nationalities. From France, Chloe shares with Rose Ann and Jason from the Philippines, Charles from Ivory Coast, Annie from Malaysia, Aleona based in Laos, Thierry from Belgium and Elena from Romania. What diversity, what richness!
We experience joy and communion; bonds of friendship are woven and we experience a large connected human family. Meeting the other in his experience and welcoming him into one’s home, even through a screen, is a way of connecting us to each other, while decentering ourselves from ourselves to enter the novelty of a cross-border reality. .
These first sharings reinforce this awareness: Love is the key to the world. We are in a period of rupture and radicality. By daring to relate to oneself, to others and to the world, Hope is given to us as good news. Cultivating a positive view of the goodness and beauty of the world is an essential basis for tackling its injustices with lucidity and becoming, together, agents of change, with what we are and our talents today, without waiting to be completely ready to act and find new answers to the challenges of our time.
To be ferments of hope for the world today is to build alliances with others to reconnect Man to his thirst for infinity and to the awareness of his own limits in order to serve humanity and safeguard our common home, the environment in which we live and which we want to bequeath to future generations. It is with humility that we move forward, because we know that abandoning the comfort of our habits to build a truly different “world after” will come up against our difficulties in letting go and our selfishness. Our faith comforts us in the fact that we are not alone in this journey; this is our hope, essential to undertake…
