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What do we need to walk in to, in order to realise our giftedness and our potential? p. Pinto

Each table group meets for  Lectio Divina everyday before beginning the session 

Br Philip Pinto continued his sessions on different topics and after each presentation questions were given to participants for reflections and sharing in small groups and then in the plenary assembly. He begins his talk inviting us on a spiritual journey of life.The first presentation was entitled "Blessed with hunger" making a connection with the story of the salmon.

"BLESSED WITH HUNGER" - Paper 4
P. Pinto cfc

What strikes is that the salmon lived most of their lives in the sea, and then at some point, they follow an inner guide toward their original birthplace. They are each headed toward their inevitable death. If they are one of the lucky in each two thousand, they will actually reach their destination and reproduce. 

 “It is only when we sit down to contemplate all the ways in which we are lost, all the ways in which we have put ourselves in exile, all the ways we feel disconnected from our world – only then can we reconnect with it. Only then can we be carried out on the current of the true journey of our lives, the journey that would also bring us home. And so, during this session, I want to share some thoughts on going on the journey we have to go, in order to become the sort of people we were meant to become. This often involves living on the edge.”

If you want to have a life that is worth living, a life that expresses your deepest feelings and emotions, and cares and dreams, you have to fight for it. You have to go wherever you need to go, and you have to be wherever you need to be, and place yourself there against the forces that would distort you and destroy you.

 
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"THE PLACE OF DANGEROUS CLARITY” - Paper 5
Philip. PInto cfc

​I believe the Exodus story--with Moses and the Jewish people--is the root of all liberation theology, which Jesus clearly exemplifies in the synoptic Gospels (see Luke 4:18-19). Liberation theology focuses on freeing people from religious, political, social, and economic oppression (i.e., what Pope John Paul II called "structural sin" and "institutional evil"). It goes beyond just trying to free individuals from their own particular "naughty behaviors," which is what sin has seemed to mean to most Christian people in our individualistic culture.Liberation theology, instead of legitimating the status quo, tries to read reality, history, and the Bible, not from the side of the powerful, but from the side of the pain. Its beginning point is not sin management, but ‘Where is the suffering?’ This makes all the difference in how we read the Bible.”

 
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“AN IDIOT BEFORE GOD” - Paper 6
Philip Pinto, cfc

I want to share with you how we might once more be good news for our world, how we might listen to the Spirit of God speaking to us – actually screaming at us – from the midst of the search for meaning going on all around us today. As the American philosopher Sam Keen tells us, “To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.” It is critical now that we ask questions which pierce the surface of these unexamined assumptions, seeking what is being concealed or what might be revelatory. More than ever we are called to listen to the voices of our world.

 Questions for Reflections 
Paper 4

  1. What old ways of thinking have you had to leave behind?
  2. What is it that keeps you from acting fearlessly?  What is it that keeps the congregation from acting fearlessly?
  3. In what ways do you NOT take God and Jesus seriously?  In what ways DO you take God and Jesus seriously?

 Paper 5

  1. What is the cry of the world demanding that you and the congregation leave behind or shake off?  Where are you and the congregation being invited to grow?
  2. Challenge yourself with the big question:  What do you in your own uniqueness want to share with your sisters and brothers?  
  3. We are all called to be spiritual leaders.  What is the relationship between your encounter with God in solitude and your call to leadership in the public arena? 

 Paper 6

  1. Where do you see the congregation being “pot-bound”, that is, stuck in the past?  Where do you see new life trying to burst forth?
  2. Imagine that you are the founder of the congregation in 2015.  What ideals and values of Jean Eudes and Mary Euphrasia will you adopt to respond to the cares and pains of your people?  
  3. Think of a time when you had to let go of your image of God.  In what ways did this deepen your relationship with God? 

 The liturgy for the mass was prepared by the Province of Central America