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QUO VADIS (Where are you going?)
Hervé et Geneviève de CORN
This question ‘Quo vadis?' is taken from an apocryphal text about the martyrdom of St. Peter. As Peter was getting ready to leave Rome to avoid persecution, Christ, heading towards the town, appeared to him on the Via Appia. In response to Peter's question, ‘Where are you going, Lord?' Christ replied that he was going to be crucified a second time. Then Peter understood that he ought not to flee this time and he returned to Rome where he asked explicitly to be crucified, according to tradition, upside-down, so that he would not imitate with his master. (Taken from Wikipedia)
Jesus is searching for you and calls you:
The Lord God called man and said to him, ‘Where are you?' (Gn 3, 9)
‘Come and follow me!' (Mt, 19,21) (Mc 10, 21), (Lk 18, 22)
‘Will you give me a drink?' (Jn 4, 7)
He said to Peter, ‘Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?' (Mt 26, 40)
‘I am thirsty' (Jn 19, 28)
There are many examples in the Bible where God begs for our love. Since creation, God is in search of man's love. We do not seek God; rather it is He who seeks us! God wants to respect our freedom and we are at liberty to follow him or to refuse to follow him.
If you knew the gift of God
Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.' (Jn 4, 10)
Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink by the well, that is a sign of the depth of our being, because he cannot draw water himself. He needs the Samaritan woman's help, just as he needs our help. But if he asks, it is in order to give a hundredfold. He promised her and he promises us a hundredfold if we accept and decide to follow him.
When we joined the Teams of Our Lady movement, we did so of our own accord. Did we realise that we were answering the Lord's call? He promised us ‘living water'. Are we going to refuse that ‘living water', the source of which is never-ending?
The Endeavours and Sharing on the Endeavours: Constraint or Wealth?
It is not easy to deal with a subject as important as the Endeavours in such a short article. It would really need a whole session!
We bear in mind Father Jean-Marie Riou's phrase uttered at a session in Col du Rousset (France), ‘What is asked for by the Teams of Our Lady is the bare minimum for a Christian!'
‘The bare minimum' means that we cannot live without it! And this reminds us of one of Gandhi's phrases ‘You can live without eating, but you cannot live without praying.'
Father Riou added ‘for a Christian', but this does not mean it is limited to the Teams of Our Lady! All Christians are called to holiness and therefore that ought to be the goal of all Christians. Thus Teams of Our Lady members are not called to be ‘super Christians' but just Christians in all simplicity. A Christian is someone who puts Christ at the centre of his or her life and who allows Christ to live and work through him/her.
The Endeavours are a means suggested by the Movement to progress in the wake of Jesus Christ. They are not goals in themselves. These means were already put into use by the very first Teams and Father Caffarel who used to say to them, ‘let us search together.' ‘Together' they distinguished the means that were accessible to all couples, no matter what their commitments, and especially if they had commitments!
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