Saturday, 29 June 2019 13:44

The Congress of Canadian Secular Institutes

May 25, 2019, at Cap-de-la-Madeleine, ten secular institutes from the province of Quebec met to reflect on the theme:

Choose God unceasingly! Love the world with passion!

Cardinal Gérald C. Lacroix, Archbishop of Quebec, spoke to us on the theme, with passion.

Here are highlights from his presentation:
Choose God unceasingly! A daring and demanding theme, calling for commitment to fidelity, in freedom. God loves us as free beings.
Love the world as Jesus did.
Love has made the first step; he prepared the wedding feast, he reaches out to us.
Christian living is an encounter we are invited to live every day.
Called to live an alliance with God unceasingly, to live in communion, to enter into his benevolent loving gaze.
Allow Christ’s gaze upon you; fear not, he loves you (song).
« God does not wait for a flower to bloom to warm it; it blooms because he warms it.”
He will always be there to renew your strength and hope. He values you. He chose you.

Love the world with passion!
Love who? Love what? Each day of the Creation of the world, God saw that it was good, even if creation was not yet finished. God always finds something good in me.
God loves the world – he sent his Son, he sent his disciples, he sends us. He continues to love the world passionately.
Jesus’ love for us is unlimited and everlasting.
To view the world with the eyes of the heart and love it with passion is to be leaven and salt for the earth.
Love the world by being in its midst, not by remaining on the balcony.
Our vocation is to go out and inflame the world, inflame the hearts of men and women, to do as Jesus did, that the world may be set aflame and consumed.
Have a greater zeal for the world and each individual person. We are outfitted for the front line, to be agents of change.
Our itinerary is to live life on our human highways.
« Criticism comes easy when we are faced with the negative,” the Cardinal says.

Questions
How do I love the world where I live? Do I see it as God sees it?
Am I attracted by suffering, etc.?

We have experienced a warm fraternal encounter between members of various Institutes. We recognize and appreciate the work of the Council of the Canadian Conference of Secular Institutes (CCSI)

By Paulette Chénard

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