The
Pope’s charity arm, the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, has scheduled a
week-long spiritual retreat at the Marian shrine of Jasna Gora in
Czestochowa, Poland to reinvigorate the hearts and minds of continental
Europe’s Catholic aid workers.
European Bishops and the
Directors/Presidents of the continent’s diocesan Caritas and other
Catholic charitable organizations are attending the spiritual excercises
from 29 November – 3 December.
Monsignor Anthony Figueiredo, an
official at Cor Unum told Tracey McClure that the spiritual exercises
have been called for the last few years in response to Pope Benedict’s
encyclical Deus Caritas Est.
In today’s increasingly secularized world,
notes Msgr Figueiredo, “people have distanced themselves from God and
the faith is being snuffed out.” How do we get people back to know God?
He wonders.
“Pope Benedict very strongly believes that it is through
charity.”
“Christian charitable organizations have changed. In
our time, there’s been a plethora of organizations which have grown in
the last decades. But the very nature of charity is change. In the
past, it was very much religious congregations - the sisters, the
priests – who ran hospitals, nursing homes, aid agencies. And of course
today we have a decline in religious congregations.”
Most people working in charitable fields now are lay people, Msgr Figueiredo points out.
“A
Catholic charity (worker) is one who has the same sentiments as Jesus
Christ… the heart of a Christian charity worker is to become as much as
possible like the one we serve.” “We don’t look down (on those we
serve); we don’t patronize… we become one. We put ourselves absolutely
in their shoes.”
“We also need to be missionaries of Jesus
Christ. And that’s really what we do in these spiritual exercises. For
a week, we put people in front of Christ … we’re so busy, we have so
many projects (to do)…we need to have time to put ourselves in front of
Christ. When we do that, we find we are renewed, we’re reinvigorated,
and we have more time for those we serve.”
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