XVIII General Assembly of CLC in France

By Manuel Martinez A.

From 3 to 12 August, the Christian Life Community is holding its XVIII General Assembly. It will be held at the College of La Providence in the city of Amiens, France.

This important event in the life of the Community takes place every five years. It marks the end of the term of the current World Executive Council. The process, to elect new members of the Council, who will govern and serve the World Community, will take place during the Assembly.

The Assembly meeting brings together a diverse community from a great variety of backgrounds. There will be 206 delegates from 76 national communities spread across the five continents. This gives some idea how pluralistic and multicultural the event will be. During our meeting, we will bring together the fruits of the journey traversed in the past five years, reflect on where we are today, and open ourselves to discern which paths the Lord wishes us to continue to follow together.

The theme of the Assembly is Discerning the Paths to Hope. The scripture passage that will accompany us comes from the Acts of the Apostles: “You will be my witnesses ... to the ends of the earth.” And the grace we ask from the Lord is to reveal the way to us, to help us move forward.

One of the “three windows”, which the Buenos Aires Assembly discerned as a call to the CLC, is “to move forward in service to those most in need and to sow seeds of mercy, joy and hope.” This will be our starting point in Amiens.

We ask ourselves: How can we live and stand in the world today as a lay, apostolic, and Ignatian community? How do we remain faithful to our identity? We aim to deepen our spiritual, communal, and apostolic charism in order to share with others the gift of Ignatian spirituality, especially the gift of discernment. The gift of our lay vocation urges us on to mission at whatever level we find ourselves.

We are called to discern paths, means, and structures which correspond to our identity: to discern horizons which offer hope to life within the CLC, and to its mission. During Advent, we recall that our life is full of promise, active and creative. It moves us to mission, and in partnership with God, creates and builds up the Kingdom.

In 2013, when planning our collaboration in mission, we chose four apostolic frontiers for special attention: Family, Ecology, Globalisation and Poverty, and Youth. In the last few years we have added a fifth frontier: Spiritual Ministry, including spiritual formation. Our desire is to link these frontiers with the “three windows” of Buenos Aires (“Deepening, Sharing, and Moving Forward”). We recognize that communal discernment is our way of proceeding. In this way we can, today, continue to be witnesses of the Risen One who is present in the lives of so many people whom we meet along the way.

Fr Arturo Sosa, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus and the World Ecclesiastical Assistant of CLC, will be joining us at the Assembly on 6 and 7 August. On the 6^th he will preside at Mass in the Cathedral of Amiens in the presence of the 206 delegates, and some 800 people who will come for the Open Day. And on the 7^th he will meet with the delegates. We are very grateful that he is available to accompany us in this important moment of the Christian Life Community.

You may follow the Assembly, day by day, on our website and through social media: https://cvx-clc-amiens2023.org/en/

We also invite you to join us in prayer by using the following prayer during the days of the Assembly.