Iesus Caritas

Dear brothers,

has been a great pleasure to take part in the II Panamerican Assembly of the fraternity in Santo Domingo and to share the life and worries, the hopes and realities of the present brothers and of the absent ones. Together with Mark, as international team, I have felt the spirit of the universality in the life of the fraternity of Charles de FOUCAULD, both in the distances of lives and in the answers to the challenges of our time.

Thank you for everything what one has worked, before and during the assembly. I value the effort of all: the responsibles of every country preparing the answers to the questionnaires, Fernando’s work with the coordination, the Dominican brothers with the preparation of the assembly and to do that we were like in house … Our brother Francisco, archbishop of Santo Domingo, with his hospitality and nearness … Our brother bishop Rafael, with his testimony of loyalty to the fraternity and to the people … Are great the motives for being grateful.

From every person, the brothers, the community of Carmelite sisters and the workers of the house where we were, the work of Raisa, the people that we knew in the parishes and communities, a gift is received. He is the human being who gives us the better thing of yes same. When we go for the life of pilgrims, when we go out of ours “I” to meet “other one”, and our attitude is not to be to the defensive, but of receiving and being received, without judging, without prejudices, one makes possible the fraternity, and one believes this contemplative moment of between the persons, that it is deeper still when some time ago that we have not met. Because of it, the great happiness of finding again brothers and to be fused in the fraternal embrace.

Thanks to Carlos Roberto and Eleuterio for his two so interesting presentations and interpeelers. They have helped us to have a more just opinion, to penetrate into the calls from the Bible and the Laudato si of the pope Francis towards the reality of the world of the migration and of the ecology, into the care of the common house. This has supposed a capture of conscience on the challenges that they present not only in America but in the whole world. Our brother Charkess had this conscience from his trip to Morocco, as scientist, and learned of the simple people how to value what is had, how to value abroad; why his faith, his culture, his color or thought interrogates us, since it is different from us. The message of universal fraternity of Charles de FOUCAULD stays once again in the present, in our pastoral and personal “budgets”.

The times of prayer, in the adoration, in the celebration of the eucharist, I think that they have helped us not to think only, but to be employed at team and to do between all a good work that helps all the brothers of America.

We miss to the brothers of Mexico, but we value his contributions for the questionnaire. We feel near Douglas, in Venezuela, that it is trying to announce the fraternity in his country, contacting priests motivated by Nazareth and the missionary style of the brother Charles .¡Bravo, Douglas! And very much good spirit to the fraternity of Argentina in the preparation of the Month of Nazareth in the next July.

Today I write with the pain and the worry for the terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso. The whole day I am dependent on news. There hurts me much that stuffs itself to any person, and even more to a country that I love so much. I ask for prayers.

And I ask God and his Mother to bless us, that illuminates with his Spirit our lives, our communities, our families. That we can look at Jesus in the adoration with friend’s full confidence, that we listen to the Lord in the desert, with his long silences and waits – them of Him, to the search of us-, that we put our heart in the review of life, as an opened, royal book, not of science fiction or of history, which there are most left those who motivate us in the way of the Gospel.

A great transoceanic hug.

Aurelio SANZ BAEZA, brother responsible

Perín, Cartagena, Spain, 2 March 2018

PDF: Letter of Aurelio to the american brothers, 2 March 2018, eng

II PAN AMERICAN ASSEMBLY – 19 TO 24 FEBRUARY 2018

Dear Brothers,

in a climate of prayer, joy and shared fraternity, national responsibles and delegates from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Haiti, Dominican Republic, United States and Quebec-Acadie have gathered. We thank God and all who have collaborated through their prayers, work and financial contributions so that this meeting would be possible, especially our brothers from the Dominican Republic and also those priests and deacons who covered for us in our parishes.

We reviewed the path of our fraternities the past two years and verified that many of the proposals elaborated in the last assembly were put into practice. We would like to spotlight the celebrations of the centenary of Brother Charles’ second birth realized in all our countries through symposiums, Eucharists, retreats, publications, posters etc. This permitted us to introduce his person and spirituality to many brother priests, deacons, lay persons, religious and seminarians.

During our assembly we focused our attention on two relevant facts in our countries: migration and the mistreatment of our Mother Earth. These are true signs of the times that we want to examine in the light of the Word of God and the social teaching of the Church, especially as given by Pope Francis, and as seen in the spirituality that we have received from Brother Charles de Foucauld. The goal of this communal discernment was to discover the will of God and to more deeply commit ourselves to a true ministry for migrants and a caring for our Common Home.

Listening attentively to the reports from each country we heard that in one way or another we are committed in these two areas, but that we need to do much more because we are dealing with people’s lives, with families, and with vulnerable communities. They are victims of a savage capitalism that destroys without mercy as it worships the god of money.

The two presentations of our brothers Eleuterio Ruiz and Carlos Roberto Dos Santos: “Strangers and Refugees, Reflections on a Challenge of Our time in the Light of the Scripture” and “Biblical and Pope Francis’ Reflections on the Environment” enlightened us.

It has been clear to us that the Lord asks us to “go in search of the most abandoned,” as Brother Charles did in his time, who are in this case migrants who arrive in our countries in situations of great vulnerability. The Word of God is specific: “You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt. I, the Lord, am your God.” (Lev 19.34) And Pope Francis shows us a very concrete way to express this love: Welcome, protect, promote and integrate our migrant brothers and sisters.

We have also felt a strong call to care for our Common Home and to make ours the question Francis offers to humanity in his encyclical “Laudato Si”: “What kind of a world do we want to leave for those who will come after us, to children who are growing up?” (160).

We want to reflect more on this theme in our fraternities and with our presbyterates so as to have a prophetic stance; we also want to network with church and civil organizations to protect the environment and preserve the beauty and integrity of creation, which is God’s gift to all humanity. Charles’ non-consumer lifestyle encourages us to live in simplicity, in austerity and in harmony with nature.

We are happy and hopeful regarding the calling of the Synod for the bishops of the Pan-Amazonian Region. We will collaborate actively in its preparation and afterward put it into practice.

During our assembly we visited the communities of a local parish in Santo Domingo. This visit put us in contact with the holy people of God, who, from their poverty show us the urgency of being authentic with the obligations that God has shown us in this assembly, which were taken up in our Desert Day and in the Review of Life which we did in small groups.

We ask the Holy Spirit to make us more faithful each day to the charism of Brother Charles, so that we can share it with many members of the people of God and continue developing a “Church that is poor and for the poor.”

Your brothers of the II Pan American Assembly,

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 24 February 2018

PDF: Letter from Santo Domingo, february 2018, eng