Friday, Aug. 2 (Day 4)

   Wow! What a day it was today. I had a good night’s sleep – found a linen room with a fold- up bed that was quiet (no snoring) and I slept 7 hrs. That’s the longest sleep I’ve had since I’ve got here. Grateful  for small favours.

    This was our 2nd day on Stage 2 of the Assembly: deepening the identity of CLC as a lay apostolic body. We started with three presentations from 3 countries on what apostolic work they are doing: one from Congo –  working with preparing couples for marriage and education on many levels. Another from Uruquay: he explained their whole process of discernment to work with homeless children in Montevideo. He had heard of a fellow Jesuit who had studied in Toronto – Luis Perez Aquirre – who was very active in human rights work in his country. Small world. This was an exciting presentation and showed how important and how difficult it is to be faithful to the process of communal discernment.  The third person was from Portugal: she talked about their work in formation of lay guides. Again a very rich process.  We had time to meet in small language groups with other countries. We (Canadian delegates) met with delegates from Indonesia and Nigeria. We were all very impressed with the presentations and learned from it.

   Then we had the list of candidates for the new members of world ExCo put up on screen.. We will elect them later in the week. Some very fine candidates. The present world ExCo have worked very hard and are very competent. Such talents they have brought to the world CLC community.

   At noon, we had one of the best presentations of the week – by Franklin Ibanez, who is, with his wife Sophia, the executive secretary of the world ExCo. He spoke in Spanish and English. And he explained “apostolic mission” is such a clear way, and with good examples. The 4 levels of mission: a) ordinary life (family, school, civil life, etc) and all its activities; b) works beyond one’s home – in parish, city (working with the poor, hospitals, etc. etc.) c) institutional works of justice and d) on international/world level work for peace and justice.  But his insistence that the a) level of finding God and fulfilling one’s baptism and CLC commitment begins with the family. He with his wife and little 2yr old boy and a 2nd one on the way is a quiet but real witness of living the CLC way of life. I couldn’t help think of my own parents who raised 9 children and whose lives were a quiet but real witness to the presence of God in their lives. I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for that first and fundamental witness. At the end, he spoke of the MAGIS – which is simply to do what God calls us to in our lives that will better praise and serve God. And that might well be simply looking after one’s children as lovingly as one can…..

   This was a pivotal presentation to claim what members are being called to TODAY to live our  their commitment in CLC.

    The last presentation was by a Jesuit, Tony da Silva,  at our Rome curia on collaboration between CLC and the Society of Jesus.  It was entitled: No future without collaboration. He also was very good and clear. He was very positive on the mutual collaboration between these two apostolic bodies (CLC and S.J). He gave us a general outline on how to explore this relationship more deeply. But what was very clear is that there is no turning back – the Society of Jesus needs lay collaboration and the CLC wants to work with us, as partners.  Again, very upbeat and giving a positive movement forward to our common mission with Christ.

   After the Eucharist,  the Jesuit Ecclesial Assistants went to one of our Jesuit houses outside of Beirut for dinner with the Provincial of the Middle East and about 15 other Jesuits. We must have been about 65 Jesuits in all. And who was there, but Fr. Nicolas, our Superior General!  He is coming tomorrow to speak to us as Jesuits involved in Christian Life Community and then he will address the whole Assembly. Lovely to see him again.

     It was a beautiful evening with dinner on the terrace, with delicious Lebanese food.  I met 4 Jesuits whom I had met and studied with years ago. Delighted to see them again. Small world. Meeting again in Lebanon – this holy land where Christ walked.

    I’m tired but it was such a rich and stimulating day. And we are half through. There’s still a lot of work ahead of us….but there is a wonderful spirit among the participants.

Day 4, Saturday, Aug. 3 – Visitors’ Day

   End of a wonderful day. We had a later breakfast today. I woke up earlier or rather I was awakened by the cleaning staff at 6:40 am when they came into their linen room and found me lying out on a cot!  They just took out their stuff and let me alone…

   We, the Ecclesial Assistants (mostly Jesuits) had an hour meeting with Fr Nicolas on our work with CLC. He was very encouraging as always to change attitudes. Some Jesuits in some countries seem to be afraid of lay people and what they can offer to Jesuits and to the Church. He reaffirmed   the presentation of last night that there is no other way than collaboration with each other!  We are fortunate in Canada that our Provincial and Jesuits are supportive of the CLC and its partnership with the Society. There `s always more to be done…

   Then we took off for Jamhour – Notre Dame de Jamhour university – where we were greeted by many other CLC members and families from Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. They greeted us with dance and drums and singing in their native costume  as we came down the stairs to the university. Then we had a presentation of dances from Lebanon and Syria. Wonderful….After that we sipped wine (mostly white and rose) while we went around the gymnasium looking at artifacts from Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.  Fr. Nicolas walked around and people asked to have their picture taken with him…..as you`ll see in the pic I had taken of the Canadian delegates.  He is very relaxed and greets people easily…..

   Then we went to a cafeteria and had a box lunch and sat around and relaxed.  We had two hours to go for a swim in a beautiful outdoor pool at the University. So many of us took advantage of it, including yours truly. It was refreshing. Then I lounged out on a chair for a bit before we had to start moving to go the afternoon Eucharist in their beautiful chapel. But before we left for Eucharist, a number of the participants of the Assembly had brought their native costumes. So we had a `fashion show’ as it were of these native costumes with an explanation of them. Was great…

    For the Eucharist each country carried in their flag in opening processing and placed it on the side – 66 different countries! Very impressive with all the colours and designs. Fr. Nicolas presided this Eucharist in his quiet prayerful way. He gave a wonderful homily on the need of `jubilee` (celebration to allow God`s time to enter ours…. and not to be always working.) This was the first reading from Leviticus and he brought the 450 years of Ignatian lay communities in as another example. The chapel (huge, I must say but architecturally very well done) was practically filled…..It was a wonderful celebration….. We then came back to the Retreat centre.

    We met in the chapel for a review-examen of the day and preparation for next stage of the Assembly beginning tomorrow (Sunday). We sang two lovely Taize chants – Bless the Lord and Misericordias Domini in eternum cantabo (I will sing of the Lord`s mercy forever).  Our process guide, Elaine, led us through this review.

   Then we had a wonderful surprise. The Sisters here prepared a festive table and meal for us on the terrace. Wow! It was a delicious meal overlooking Beirut with wine flowing and music. It didn`t take long after the meal before people were up dancing to Latin rhythms and Arabic sounds and even an international set (Western- North American music). It was a spontaneous moment and everyone entered into it. As you can imagine, I had lots of fun dancing. It is still going on and I`m listening to the music across the courtyard.  Just before I came downstairs one of the Lebanese sisters (in her habit) starting dancing with a lady friend some Lebanese dance. She was good and she gathered the attention of a lot of people. Just to show you that under the habit there is an ordinary person who loves to dance and celebrate!

     It has been a rich cultural day for us and the Lebanese are so welcoming and joyful. And even the Syrians and Egyptians with all they are going through are still a courageous group and joyful.

Sunday, Aug.4, 2013 (6th Day)

     again…Well after a late night of celebrating with a lovely mean on the terrace and dancing, we were all up ready to go this morning at 8:45am. Today began the 3rd stage of our Assembly, namely, to get in touch with the frontiers of our society and how we as CLC are being called to respond.  We began the day in prayer led by the Paraguayan delegation, praying for the grace to recognize the poor and marginal in our midst and the grace to respond generously to where God calls us. They then showed us a video as an example of this “reaching to the frontiers”. It was a video about how a musician in Paraguay wanted to reach out to the poor to have them communicate their deep concerns through music (“the smile of the soul” as he put it) in order to transform society by recognizing beauty and desiring to deepen their knowledge of their world. Well, that was wonderful in itself – young musicians (in late teens) playing music. But the surprise in the video was that there weren’t enough instruments for the youth that wanted to learn to play. One father of a family – who had to collect the scraps from the garbage – said we could build musical instruments with the throwaway garbage – cans, pieces of wood, whatever. Well, they did that and lo and behold they built enough instruments from those garbage scraps for the students wanting to learn. And they sounded wonderful! It was very touching for me to see how much beautiful music came from those young people who themselves began to learn how to make their own musical instruments. The man who thought of this was just an ordinary family man who had the generosity and the creativity to do something more with the scraps we throw away.  It reminded me of the work of Jesuits in the Paraguay reductions In the 16th century. This video, for me, was a beautiful sign of new life coming out of the ashes.

    So we began with this sign of hope!  Then Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, Superior General of the Jesuits, who is also the World Ecclesial Assistant for Christian Life Community gave us an address. He is such a man of integrity and simplicity. He speaks in a transparent way with amusing stories of his relationships with bishops and cardinals in Rome, but in a respectful way.  Last time at Fatima he talked about the “prophetic” role of lay communities. This year he stressed the importance of “wisdom” – going to the depths of  human searching for meaning, truth and love.  He connected this with our multicultural and multireligious culture we live in. His experience of being in Japan and the Far East has given him a rich experience of the search for God. And ‘wisdom’  is both a biblical way and a way of the East. He said we – east and west – are walking in this ‘way’ together. We need to cut through the globalisation of superficiality and get to the depths of reality. He said that the Ignatian spirituality is a search for the depths of both knowledge and spirituality, not just with the head but with the heart. Both Jesuits and CLC are called to accompany (and he used this word many times) people in search of the truth of their lives, not to give easy answers and claiming to have all the truth.

   He gave us a phrase (I think) from Benedict XVI: Better to be an agnostic in search of the truth than a Christian who thinks they have all the answers!  He continued in this line of thinking, encouraging us to immerse ourselves in reality and seek both our human truth and God’s truth in the midst of the real lives of people.  He referred to Pope Francis, our Jesuit brother a number of times and the way he is giving a new opening to living the Gospel and being the church today.

    Needless to say, it was an inspiring talk again. And I could say much more of how he developed this theme, but I don’t want to write too long. We had lots of time to respond to his talk and ask questions.

   After this we took the ‘official’ pictures of the whole group and then the various regions – Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe – with Fr. Nicolas. I’ll include one of him with t