Dear friends,

this month we will add special intentions in our daily prayers for the good results of our General Assembly in Senegal.

May our gathering be an event of prayer, communion, friendship, mutual acceptance and support.

I humbly ask all those who cannot participate to make the participants feel their closeness and support. Each organisation, single member can find its own way to offer prayers for WUCWO General Assembly.

Jesus said that “where two or three meet in my name, I am there among them” (Mt 18,20), with this encouragement we want to make our assembly a communitarian experience. WUCWO as a worldwide community united by the faith in Christ our Saviour. Pope Francis in Gaudete et Exsultate states, “When we live apart from others, it is very difficult to fight against concupiscence, the snares and temptations of the devil and the selfishness of the world. Bombarded as we are by so many enticements, we can grow too isolated, lose our sense of reality and inner clarity, and easily succumb. Growth in holiness is a journey in community, side by side with others. …Each community is called to create a “God-enlightened space in which to experience the hidden presence of the risen Lord.” Sharing the word and celebrating the Eucharist together fosters fraternity and makes us a holy and missionary community. It also gives rise to authentic and shared mystical experiences. (140-142)

“The Holy Spirit bestows holiness in abundance among God’s holy and faithful people, for “it has pleased God to make men and women holy and to save them, not as individuals without any bond between them, but rather as a people who might acknowledge him in truth and serve him in holiness”.[3] In salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in a human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people.” (6)

May WUCWO live such interpersonal relationship in order to be ”a community that cherishes the little details of love, whose members care for one another and create an open and evangelizing environment, is a place where the risen Lord is present, sanctifying it in accordance with the Father’s plan.” (145)

Further readings

Gaudete et Exsultate 112-157

Witness - Sister May Luke Tobin, SL           

A member of the Sisters of Loretto, Sister Mary Luke is a catalyst for renewal in religious communities, a worker for peace and justice worldwide, a promoter of equality for women, a mentor of women and men of all faiths, and an advocate for their empowerment. She was one of only 15 women worldwide to be invited to the Second Vatican Council in Rome. She has traveled and stood with others in Northern Ireland, El Salvador, California, Colorado, and Washington, DC, on behalf of various issues and struggles. Tobin visited Saigon in 1970 to promote peace in Vietnam. She also participated in international hearings on disarmament in Amsterdam. In 1993 she joined a delegation that studied the rise of neo-Nazism in Germany. Tobin has recorded her experiences in the book “Hope is an Open Door” and in numerous periodical articles.

Prayer in preparation of WUCWO General Assembly (from Anne Trichet)

Woman of Samaria, whose story transcended the times,

you knew what it meant to go up to the well

and down again to the town, without spilling the fresh, pure water of the biblical mountain,

you guarded this water, precious gift from heaven.

Then, one day, at the edge of the Sychar’s well, the Lord spoke to you ...

Today, the Lord keeps waiting for us in the well of our encounters ...

We can draw from it the water of friendship, the water of truth, the water of hope, the water of peace.

In the desert of routine and solitude,

you are thirsty for giving us to drink …

In the desert of suffering and indifference,

you are thirsty for giving us to drink …

In the desert of failure and division,

you are thirsty for giving us to drink …

In our Wells, Lord,

do we still keep the freshness of living water?

In my heart, Lord,

is there still thirst for living water?

In the noon sunshine of hot days

you come and sit down at the well’s edge to speak to us

and become a spring for all and each of us ...

You, the gift of God ...

Blessed be you, Lord, for the living water of your love which makes us live.

Thank you Lord for this spring of water that illuminates the life of our sisters and brothers that we discover in the well of the encounters of life.

Thank you for making us walk together towards the oasis of peace.

Thank you for watering us with the spring of your living water.

Amen.