Category Archives: Letters

Letter from Cuernavaca, February 2016

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1st PAN AMERICAN ASSEMBLY OF IESUS CARITAS FRATERNITY OF PRIESTS

Cuernavaca, Mexico, 15 to 19 February 2016

Dear Brothers:

cuernavaca2016-01We write this letter to you with much joy and hope at the end of our First Pan American Assembly. Three brothers from the International Team and delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, United States, México, Quebec (Canada) y Dominican Republic have met at the Retreat House “Madeleine Chollet” in Cuernavaca to pray, reflect and give new impulse and mission to the fraternities of our countries.

cuernavaca2016-02Providentially, our Assembly coincided in part with the visit of Pope Francis to Mexico and this permitted us to situate it within the great spiritual and ecclesial renewal movement that the Holy Spirit is breathing in our Church through the gestures, words and teachings of the Holy Father. There is a great resonance between the intuitions of Brother Charles and Pope Francis’ approach. It is a theme that we have studied deeply through a text by Javier Pinto. This reflection has confirmed the validity and reality of our spirituality in a pluralistic world which is wounded by violence, injustice, drug trafficking, corruption, exclusion and impunity; we heard of this on the first day of our Assembly.

We feel, on that matter, the historic responsibility to be the first co-workers with this Pastor come from the end of the world, in the construction of a poor Church for the poor. Like Brother Charles we want to multiply and intensify our presence in our countries in the “peripheries,” both geographic and existential, to be believable witnesses of the mercy of our Father God. Nearness, austerity, simplicity, humility and the joy of Jesus of Nazareth should mark our style of life and our manner of being pastoral.

cuernavaca2016-03Despite the diversity of languages and cultures we were able to understand one another, pray and work together, in a realization of Pentecost, although there were amusing things such as Mark Mertes’ inability to say the word “periferia”.

Certainly the Holy Spirit accompanied us and inspired us every day, from Eucharistic Adoration in the morning through dinner in the evening. The spirit of fraternity, collaboration, patience to understand the language of the other, joy and apostolic enthusiasm that have filled our hearts during these days are unequivocal signs of his vivifying presence. We have lived universal fraternity as our own spirituality.

cuernavaca2016-04Our Mexican brothers were completely devoted to taking care of us down to the slightest details, as did Sra. Edith Montes de Oca and Sra. María Elena Cruz, who each day delighted us with delicious meals. We now all feel a little Mexican having shared its history of persecution and martyrdom, a history always sheltered by the Virgin of Guadalupe and sustained by a firm faith. We feel part of this People that pilgrimages in America and each day we want to share more its destiny, its hopes and its struggles, locating ourselves, like Jesus, with the poor and excluded of our societies.

cuernavaca2016-05We feel a call to be more consistent with our spirituality and to help one another to live the means of spiritual growth that it offers us, particularly the MONTH OF NAZARETH. We want to revalue it and inspire to participate in it all the brothers that have not made the Month. A deep spirituality will help us to be, like Brother Charles, universal brothers, while respecting the truths of other ways of following Jesus, particularly in our presbyterates. Only permanent and prolonged contact with our beloved Brother and Lord Jesus and the fraternal life will permit us to have an evangelizing presence that is constant, fertile, joyful and hopeful in the human peripheries toward which we develop our pastoral work.

cuernavaca2016-06We know that the charism of Brother Charles is shared by other groups of this Spiritual Family: Little Brothers and Little Sisters, consecrated lay persons, marriages, young etc. We want to strengthen the bonds with them and make known our spirituality, especially to the young.

cuernavaca2016-07We are sure that the charism of Brother Charles, enriched with the testimony of so many saints and martyrs of America is a great contribution to live the faithfulness of Jesus and his gospel on our continent. Because of this we want to share it with our brothers in the presbyterate inviting them to know and to participate in our activities; this includes those in the seminary.

You will find a more detailed and flavorful account of our Assembly in the document “Chronicle of Cuernavaca” as well as a collection of proposals for growth in the specific areas of our Fraternities, to wit, Spirituality, Fraternity, Pastoral Mission, Connections within the Spiritual Family of Charles de Foucauld, and Growth. You can find this in the document “Proposals for Growth”. Both will be published in the website, www.iesuscaritas.org.

cuernavaca2016-08Finally, we announce to you that we have elected Fernando Tapia Miranda, a priest of the Archdiocese of Santiago in Chile, as Continental Responsible for a period of six years, to maintain and increase the connections and shared services within the Americas, and to prepare the next Continental Assembly that will take place in two years (2018).

May the Lord Jesus bless our Works and make them very fertile for the growth of our Priestly Fraternities in all of the continent. To Him be honor and glory forever and ever.

The Participants of the First Pan American Assembly

cuernavaca2016-09Cuernavaca, 19 February 2016.

(Thanks, Mark, for the traslation to English)

PDF: Letter from Cuernavaca, February 2016

Letter of Advent 2015, brother responsible

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Dear brothers,

adviento2015-01with Advent we have an important space for our personal and community renewal of the values of the Gospel that we ought to integrate into our lives: to await the Messiah preparing our interior home; waiting with the brothers and sisters of our communities preparing an open place of welcome, without locking ourselves in because of fear, prejudices or the feeling of being the only ones who really care about things; to await with joy because the Child once more comes as a child and not an adult; to await in this Year of Mercy, this year which is also the Centenary of the passing of Brother Charles, that men adviento2015-02may be merciful and may cease to do harm to themselves, with death and suffering, either out of religious fundamentalism or disregard for the lives and rights of others. Peace, dialogue, forgiveness, tolerance, and mercy are not the most cherished values in our world. We only think of them when danger is at hand or when our privileges are cut back. Sometimes we feel nothing can change, or that all is getting worse. Pope Francis invites us to step out of our pessimisms, defeatism and lack of confidence. May the Messiah bring us that peace, an end to the suffering of war refugees, an end to trafficking of arms, humans, drugs, and of resources that impoverish even the very poorest. May God’s Messiah be born once more in Mary of the least and most humble of people, and restore joy, human rights, bread and laughter. How sad it is today to see families, even children, portrayed carrying arms, in greeting friends or relations for Christmas. Sad and pathetic, but fact.

adviento2015-03Advent is a favourable time to take advantage of a Day in the Desert, to allow ourselves be led by the Lord; a time of hope and of interior renewal. The desert puts each of us in our place, conscious of our limitations and poverty. In Advent the Desert has the flavour of awaiting a friend or relative at a train or bus station, or at an airport; we see Jesus come down an escalator, or appearing among many people with his light luggage, raising his hand to say, “Here I am, thanks for waiting for me, and for coming to pick me up”. “Nowhere better than in the desert can one hear the call of God to change the world. The desert is the realm of truth, the place where one lives on essentials. There is no room for the superfluous. You cannot keep accumulating things that are not needed. Luxury and ostentation are inconceivable. What is crucial here is to find the right way to live”. (Commentary of José A. PAGOLA on Luke 3,1-6) Jesus is close at hand.

All the news coming in about the start of the Centenary of the definitive encounter of Brother Charles with the Father, in many places throughout the world, among the ordinary people and in the fraternities of the whole Family of Charles de FOUCAULD, fill me with joy and hope; we are all called to live deeply what Abandonment is; to be able to say with one’s hand on one’s heart, “do with me what you want”. Let us leave aside all fear of the unexpected. Let us open the door to whoever comes. To live the Centenary according to the charism that unites us as a Family is to cultivate friendship with people, it is to be with whoever needs us, it is to live according to the Gospel. As we the international team said in the Letter from Perín, it is to live deeply this message of universal brotherhood of Charles de FOUCAULD, so necessary for our world and our Church, appreciating what we receive from the most ordinary of people and from those who suffer wherever they may be.

adviento2015-04We ought to proclaim in our parishes that the people of God, like Brother Charles, have much to say to us, above and beyond sad messages, superficial or frivolous messages, appeals to personal security or to consumerism and ostentation. Charles de FOUCAULD thus comments on Matt. 5,3 (“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven”): “Hope! Salvation is at hand; Heaven is close at hand… One thing is necessary: to be poor in spirit… Poor in spirit is to be truly poor to the bottom of our being; truly detached from all, not only from material goods, from the desire for them, yet forgetting oneself, to have one’s soul empty of all earthly desires… Empty of all and full of God… Through God we will feel these desires for others…But all for God: only He satisfies us”.

adviento2015-05We followed with deep concern the visit of Pope Francis to Africa, as a messenger of peace and mercy. We shared his meeting with other cultures and with Islam; this brave man who carries Jesus wherever he goes, albeit as head of State on occasions surrounded by security, he gives us hope and brings back the joy of working for the Kingdom as diocesan priests. Mercy that he shows with his life, in the steps that he takes to renew the Church so that it really may be the Church of Jesus, the difficulties he meets within the Church itself, there is no doubt that it is the action of the Spirit. Let us unite our prayers for him and for all that we’ll receive from him through his word and witness in this Year of Mercy.

adviento2015-06Let us be united in prayer also that the conclusions of the Synod on the Family may open the Church to advance in the struggle for life, the lives of people, those who were misguided in their marriages, those who are poorly regarded for their sexual condition, those who feel and are Christians but who do not conform to the established model. We all know people who are divorced or separated, people of faith, who till now have felt themselves marginalised by the Church. We might consider: from how many of our brother priests or friends are we divorced? Why do we at times treat as enemies those who share our ministry? What breaks ecclesial communion, ideas or those whom we dislike who hold these ideas or attitudes?

At the Synod on the Family, present not only with his voice but also with his vote was Hervé JANSON, Prior General of the Little Brothers of Jesus: we must thank him for his testimony on the family of Nazareth and his courage to break with patterns “of good behaviour”.

adviento2015-07Thanks, Hervé, for the simplicity with which you expressed this universal brotherhood of being with the least, in fidelity to the charism of Charles de FOUCAULD and as a person who lives the Gospel in the lowest place. Nazareth is not just a reference for us; it is also the model of the domestic and parochial community, of brotherhood.

Remembering our sick brothers, our brothers in war-torn countries, or in situations of extreme poverty, remembering all, I wish you from my heart an Advent of renewal, and a Christmas where we allow Jesus to be present in our lives, our decisions, in our relationships and in our work.

adviento2015-08With an embrace of hope,

Your brother

Aurelio SANZ BAEZA, brother responsible

Perín, Cartagena, Murcia, Spain, December 8, 2015,
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and beginning of the Year of Mercy.

PDF: Letter of Advent 2015, brother responsible, ENGLISH

Letter from Perín, October 2015

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LETTER FROM PERÍN
INTERNATIONAL TEAM
PRIEST FRATERNITY OF JESUS CARITAS

Perín, Spain, October 2015

Dear brothers,

perin2015-01Emmanuel, Jean-François, Félix, Mark, Mauricio and Aurelio have lived our annual meeting in Perín, Cartagena, España, in Aurelio’s house, celebrating his 60th birthday, with our eyes toward you and toward all our brothers of the fraternity while living amidst the people who have welcomed and inspired us. The joy of being together and working together is a gift of the Lord!

WHAT WE HAVE EXPERIENCED

perin2015-02From common prayer in Lauds, adoration and Eucharist, accompanied by the autumn rain, we have felt strengthened by our prayer, by the help of Brother Charles, who intercedes for us, and by the prophetic testimony of Pope Francis in the Synod on the Family, which we have followed very closely.

We shared a meeting with the Bishop of Cartagena, José Manuel LORCA PLANES, and also lunched with the Family of Charles de Foucauld of Murcia, welcomed by the Secular Fraternity, the fraternity of Charles de Foucauld, the Little Sisters of Jesus—with the presence of Anita, councilor of the team of Tre Fontane in Rome– andperin2015-03 the priestly fraternity, feeling ourselves in ecclesial communion and united in the charism of a man of God, our brother Charles, who calls us in his Centenary, coinciding with the Year of Mercy, called by Pope Francis, to a conversion to dialog, not only between ourselves, but also with our brother diocesan priests, of which we form a part; a dialog and meeting with other religions perin2015-04and with non-believers. This makes us think of a “reciprocal conversion” in mutual respect. We want to dialog, not impose. From the July encounter in Viviers has come forth the profound realization of this very important dimension of our charism.

We have met and celebrated with many people of Perín, a friendly people, approachable and cordial, and we have learned from their family experiences and as Christians to be listeners in human and perin2015-05simple things. Each man or woman is our brother or sister. The two Eucharists celebrated in care centers for the elderly in Périn have impressed us. The elderly, who in our western and European society are the great forgotten ones, the aparcados, “parked away”, have told us that God is child, adolescent, young person, adult and elderly. In this Nazareth of the elderly we have not seen an “expiration date.”

We have seen the projects of the Foundation Tienda Asilo de San Pedro of Cartagena, where Aurelio works, feeling like we have shared in the life of those people who work there, perin2015-06the teams, the volunteers, the benefactors. In the beautiful home “Torre Nazaret”, a project of the foundation, we shared the simple and human Nazareth of being with those with AIDS, with those who by drugs, prison, or the street have been marked as outcasts, but who now are able to live in dignity, recovering some of their health and normalizing their life. It is like a big family that accepts the consequences when life itself is the problem. We felt that they loved us even without knowing us.

WHAT WE ARE BEEN CALLED TO

We are called to many things:

perin2015-07One very important call is to live the Centenary of Brother Charles not like a memorial of the past, but as a celebration of the actuality of his message of universal fraternity. Pope Francis has enumerated various ways to imitate the testimony of Br. Charles; in paragraph 125 of Laudato Si as an example of an evangelizer, and in the vigil for the Synod on the Family as an inspiration for the family model of Nazareth. His constant references to Brother Charles fill us with joy and we feel 100% in communion with the pope.

perin2015-08A call to deepen through the mystery of Nazareth: an attitude which unites contemplation, proximity to the poor and an experience of our fragility as the place we welcome the power of the resurrection. We need to live universal Fraternity in a real and concrete way, without being theoretical about life or about people.

A call to give priority to the Day in the Desert: we experience that the monthly desert is difficult for priests, overloaded as we are with work. Absorbed by pastoral activity, and the logic of being liturgical functionaries, we leave to another occasion the Desert, and this can become a bad habit. We always think about doing, doing, doing, but seldom in listening and we lose sight of the Lord’s search for us.

perin2015-09We feel the call to be at or go to the “periferies,” both geographical and existential, those of people with problems, without eluding our priestly vocation as priests who are called to announce the Good News, not as pastoral experiments or as spiritual tourism, but to be with the least. From Nazareth the Lord Jesus invites us to be his neighbor, with his health problem, or his loneliness or his poverty. He lived in a poor, oppressed and forgotten place. If we are not with the poor we do not know what Jesus wants to say to us! We give a new reading of Laudato Si and Misericordiae Vultus (15).

We hear a call to conversion, to renew our concept of Mercy as being witnesses to the love of God. We remember Christ’s words which Br. Charles liked so much: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness,” (2Cor 12.9).

WHAT WE HAVE PREPARED OR STUDIED

perin2015-10We have worked on the upcoming Pan-American Assembly to be held 15-20 February 2016 in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The regions of Québec –Acadie, United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, along with a representative of the fraternity which is being formed in Haiti and a brother from Guatemala, are going to meet for the first time outside of the International Assembly. We value very much the work and coordination of Fernando TAPIA, responsible for Chile, who has already gathered almost all of the questionnaires previously prepared by the regions; we thank our Mexican brothers for the welcome that they will give us. Because of government control we are not able to be in contact with the seven brothers in Cuba who along with the Little Brothers of Jesus form a fraternity.

perin2015-11The next Asian Assembly will be in the Philippines in July of 2016. Arthur, responsible for Asia, is working on it with the brothers there. The Month in Asia this past July in Myanmar has made contact possible between many brothers and strengthened the bonds of fraternity among them. There are fraternities like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia of which we have little news. We have asked Arthur as Responsible that he would contact these brothers.

We dedicated a lot of time to the next International Assembly, from the 15th to 30th of January 2019 in Bangalore, India. We have three years to define objectives, methodology and contents.

perin2015-12A big preoccupation of these days is the health of some of our beloved brothers including Michel PINCHON, Giuseppe COLAVERO, Tony PHILPOT and Howard CALKINS… We are concerned for them and we feel in communion with them in these difficult times. May they not lack our prayer and our love.

Mark has made a summary of the finances of the International Fraternity that he will send to all the Regional Responsibles. We think that it is necessary that all regions contribute 10% of their dues income; this includes those countries with little income. Also some regions in the West could review their criteria for sharing because the needs are so great. “One poor person gives a little, another poor person gives a little… at the end it is much more than the rich person gives.”

The recognition of the statutes of our Priest Fraternity with pontifical approval by the Congregation for the Clergy is good news for the Priestly Fraternity.

We want to remind everyone to use quick and easy means of communication; our website www.iesuscaritas.org is at the service of all the fraternities.

perin2015-13As an international team, as a fraternity of 6 brothers from 4 continents, THANKS to all; thanks for the prayer, for the financial sharing that comes from various countries and brothers, thanks for making a place in your heart and in your house for this work of extending the Kingdom, the Good News, the joy of being Christians and looking upon one another and upon us with the eyes of Jesus.

In Perín, Spain, we have spent each day thinking of you and the realities of your countries, realities that are sometimes hard and difficult; as you are valuing persons, not their capacities, looking into their eyes and not at their sunglasses, valuing their hearts, not their intelligence.

Thank you!

May God, Mary and Brother Charles bless you.

A great hug from your brothers,

perin2015-14Emmanuel, Jean-François, Félix, Mauricio, Mark and Aurelio

Perín, Cartagena, Murcia, Spain, 28 October 2015. Feast of Sts. Simon and Jude

PDF: Letter from Perín inter.team fraternity 28October2015 ENGLISH

Letter of Aurelio to the Fraternities of Québec-Acadia, October 2015

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October 2015

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

quebec-oct-2015-01Many thanks for the reception you gave me in each moment and place, in Montreal and in Quebec. I found myself among a living fraternity of brothers who love and support each other, at their age, but with a real and committed spirit of Nazareth. Many thanks. Donald CLICHE took on the role of my older brother and cared for me “as he would a nuncio”. His house in Cap Rouge, Québec, surrounded by squirrels, afforded me the chance to contemplate and enjoy the natural surroundings, and to take a walk on my last day through the maple woods in full Autumn.

quebec-oct-2015-02It was a gift from God to meet Guy BOUILLÉ, on the morning of the 3rd of October, in hospital palliative care in Montreal, and to bless and be blessed silently by him, in company with Laurent RAVENDA and Jean-Pierre LANGLOIS. A few hours later he was already with the Lord in fraternity in the House of the Father with so many brothers who have departed us; I believe that he will have received the strongest embrace from Jacques LECLERC, his great brother and friend.

quebec-oct-2015-03I enjoyed the human affairs, hopes, encounters, with each brother, with the lay fraternity composed mainly of pastoral agents – thanks to Ciro, that fraternity’s responsible –, in the Montreal COPAM, (Communauté de Partage et d’AMitié) sharing each one’s present moment, each history, touched by the hand of the Lord, who leads us sometimes to where we do not wish to go, but who takes care of all.

quebec-oct-2015-04A good meeting also with the fraternity of young Christians which Ciro animates, with his spirit of accompaniment and of encouragement, a group made up mainly of immigrants, open to the call of Jesus in the building up of their lives, with a future and a joy that evokes a new world. The community supper and prayer, related to the Sunday Gospel, reminded me of Jesus gathering his disciples, instructing them to build up the Kingdom, with a profundity, despite the superficialities proposed by a First World of comfort and wealth.

quebec-oct-2015-05Another unexpected gift, which filled me with joy and emotion, was to meet with Sister Gilberte, of the Montreal Sisters of Notre Dame, who with Gianantonio ALLEGRI, of our Italian Fraternity, and Giampaolo MARTA, both missionaries of the diocese of Vicenza, was abducted last year by Boko Haram in the north of Cameroon. Yvonne, a pastoral agent, took me to the Notre Dame House of Prayer in Longueil, and for me it was moving to embrace this woman of the Gospel, to hear her testimony of the love of God throughout her 57 days of captivity with Gianantonio and Gian Paolo and to discover anew a real and not idealised Brother Charles, in the nothingness, without church candles or religious images to which we give devotion.

Spending some time with Guy and Gilberte were the most memorable moments of my time with the fraternities of Quebec – Acadia, and for this I thank the Lord from my poor heart.

quebec-oct-2015-06Our regional Fraternity meeting of 4th and 5th October in Quebec, with brothers and lay women pastoral agents, united to the Fraternity, was an encounter of brothers and sisters with an admirable spirit of service, with testimonies and a joie de vivre which strengthened me in the hope of a Church such as desired by Pope Francis. The outgoing trio of responsibles made up of Donald CLICHE – regional responsible, Benoît HINS y Richard WALLOT, gave way to Gilles BARIL, the new responsible, who will form a team with Jean-Claude DEMEURS, a great communication specialist, a woman pastoral worker and two other brothers whom he will choose. Thanks to all for your service to the Fraternity. The previous trio gave a good account of their time and of the life of the fraternities, and the air was filled with a spirit of brothers who, as humans and men of God, are a richness for the local churches. The dialogue, adoration, Eucharist, the moments of brotherly sharing were a true faith encounter.

quebec-oct-2015-07Among decisions and immediate proposals I would highlight the preparation for the next Month of Nazareth in January and the participation in the First Pan-american Assembly in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in February. Gilles y Donald will represent the region of Québec – Acadia.

quebec-oct-2015-08I accompanied Donald in Quebec visiting René TESSIER, a brother of the fraternity, and diocesan responsible for communication, Gaetan PROULX, auxiliary bishop, and Marc PELCHAT, vicar general, both of the fraternity, who invited us to lunch. It was a joy also to meet up at the major seminary with the fraternity made up of Pierre GAUDETTE, Jacques GOURDE, Roger LABBÉ and Marc BOUCHARD, brothers who have an important track-record in their service to the Church, to the poorest and to the Fraternity. Thanks for your testimonies.

For all this, for all we lived and shared, for the cries of the charism of Charles de FOUCAULD, with his message of universal brotherhood so valid for our Church today, so appreciated by Pope Francis, thanks, brothers, and thanks to God for allowing me witness of your life of fraternity for these days.

quebec-oct-2015-09I thank also Laurent for his providing a space for adoration, and in which I understood that spirituality goes beyond saying prayers, adoration, contemplation and sharing with others in liturgical celebrations. Spirituality is also a good sense of humour, joyfulness, solidarity, respect, giving attention, when we do anything, working, relating to others, travelling, listening, preparing an activity etc. For this reason it is important to give priority to the monthly Day in the Desert. God seeks us out in the desert to give us good spirit. This good spirit is what Brother Charles put on when he prayed, wrote, dreamt or felt close to the people he lived among: the spirit of Nazareth.

quebec-oct-2015-10With best wishes.

Aurelio SANZ BAEZA, brother responsible

Perín, Cartagena, Murcia, Spain, 12 October 2015

quebec-oct-2015-11PDF: Letter of Aurelio to the Fraternities of Québec-Acadia, October 2015