EDITORIAL
A Joyful Energy...
Par Marie-Paule Sanfaçon, m.i.c.
Heavy snowfalls will often cause power outages. Only then do we realize how dependent we are on this electrical energy.No light, no heat, we feel helpless, disoriented. It’s as if life is on hold. When I was in Haiti, we quite often experienced power failures; life would stop, a silence would set in, but when the lights came back on... I can still hear the cries of joy from the population. Life resumed... Might we say that electricity is a joyful energy?
I think of the people who live in war zones, forced to hide in dark and unsanitary shelters; what is their experience like? I can’t help but feel for these victims. However, mutual help and attention to each other’s needs can provide much consolation. Imagine the people of Kherson in Ukraine, how happy they must have been to finally find freedom! The light!
Hence the importance of a true, sincere encounter. To listen to others: to share in their joy, their suffering, to be all to all. To discover in others what makes them thrive, the joy or the sorrow that inhabits them, and to share it. A sincere friendship is an invaluable gift in the life of every person. It is the gift that the Lord offers us by coming to live among us. He offers us his love, his joy, his light.
As we begin this year of 2023, in the name of the whole team of the M.I.C. Missionary Press, I wish you a year of light, of joyful inner energy. May it illuminate the events that this new year has in store for us, so that we may have the strength and joy to live them in serenity and trust in our loving Fathe...
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Created for the Encounter
By Agathe Durand, m.i.c.
In recent days, I was fascinated by a forum being held for interreligious dialogue organized at the initiative of the King of Bahrain. From the beginning, the presence of Pope Francis left its mark: The East and the West are more and more like two opposing seas. We want, he said, to sail on the same sea, choosing the path of encounter, the path of dialogue.
The recent COP27 meeting in Egypt on global warming, the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) summit in Cambodia, the G20 in Bali, demonstrate the action of leaders in the face of the need for agreements beyond all borders, for the betterment of humanity.
During these events, the media make us witnesses and push us to actualize or reread constructive human encounters, on our own level. Doesn’t Pope Francis invite believers to live a spirituality of encoun- ter, bearer of fraternity, in diversity?
The composite societies that we live in offer frequent spontaneous multi-ethnic and multi-religious encounters, of which we are unconscious or indifferent. And yet, with the rising generations, there is a growing opportunity to weave bonds of neighborliness, of free time and service, in a new coexistence...
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