{"id":1956,"date":"2015-07-10T11:17:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T11:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/equipes.nelsoncardeira.com\/?p=1956"},"modified":"2015-07-10T11:17:44","modified_gmt":"2015-07-10T11:17:44","slug":"lettre-de-juillet-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/lettre-de-juillet-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter of July, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
P\u00e9re Jacinto Farias<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

MY DEAR TEAM MEMBERS,<\/p>\n

In my previous letters to you, the background theme over the years has been concentrated on two Endeavours touching on the spirituality of our movement.\u00a0 Namely, the\u00a0Sit-Down<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Married Prayer<\/em>.\u00a0 I hope that all of you have managed to internalise these two points and that you have put them in to practice, because in truth, they are terribly important for your growth as couples as well as for your growth within a\u00a0Team<\/em>, since the Team is a community whose spiritual and human life develops in direct proportion to each couples\u2019 commitment to be faithful to the methodology of holiness that is characteristic of our Movement.\u00a0 In the current conditions of our society and the Church and in the context of the celebration of the extraordinary synod on the family and new evangelisation, our Movement\u2019s contribution is essential and the Church expects much of us, so that it may be the catalyst and the efficient sign of hope for the world, a hope that is truly concrete and alive.<\/p>\n

Today, I would like to draw your attention to the importance of\u00a0personal\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0individual prayer<\/em>.\u00a0 Personal prayer is truly the\u00a0breathe of the soul<\/em>.\u00a0 Father Caffarel set the example, since he himself devoted a large amount of his day to prayer and he was in the habit of saving three months of the year for meditation and prayer, because he knew that if his life was not well anchored in prayer, his spiritual and apostolic life would be seriously compromised.\u00a0 Jesus told us that we ought to pray ceaselessly and the liturgy also invites us to raise our hearts to God: the opening dialogue to the Preface of the Eucharistic prayer,\u00a0sursum corda! Habemus ad Dominum! Lift up your hearts! We lift them up to the Lord!<\/em><\/p>\n

According to Tertullian (160-220), a Christian ought to recite the\u00a0Lord\u2019s Prayer<\/em>\u00a0at least three times a day: morning, noon and night.\u00a0 St Therese of the Child Jesus was so moved by the prayer that she was not able to go beyond the opening words of the\u00a0Our Father<\/em>!\u00a0 Have we ever managed to fathom the depths of what it means to have the possibility of addressing God as a father, in the same manner as Jesus does, he who introduced us to this Trinitarian intimacy?<\/p>\n

That is why in this letter, I urge each of you to cultivate the spirit of prayer, by setting aside a moment in your daily life when you can speak to God in the intimacy of your soul.\u00a0 Sometimes people regret that they are not eagerly awaited in their prayer.\u00a0 St Augustine had a very interesting explanation for that.\u00a0 We are not expected or awaited either because we are\u00a0bad<\/em>, or because we ask for\u00a0bad<\/em>\u00a0things<\/em>, or because we ask\u00a0badly<\/em>.\u00a0 Following in Jesus\u2019 footsteps, let us restrain ourselves and only ask that we not be led\u00a0into temptation, but deliver us from evil<\/em>. (Mt 6:13) In the end, we ought to ask the Lord to deliver us from\u00a0sin<\/em>, the single bad thing that can happen to us!\u00a0 Ultimately, let us ask the Lord that his will always be done, because we do not know whether health or sickness, life or death is better for us.\u00a0 Let the Lord make the decision and let us ask for the grace to see a\u00a0sign<\/em>\u00a0of his visit to our house in everything!<\/p>\n

I beseech the abundance of God\u2019s blessings upon you during this time of grace, given over to the synod on the family, the catalyst of hope and peace.\u00a0 My very personal greetings to each and every one of you!<\/p>\n

Father Jos\u00e9 Jacinto Ferreira de Farias, scj
\n<\/strong><\/em>Spiritual Counsellor to the International Leading Team<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

TEAMS OF OUR LADY, A PRODUCTIVE PRESENCE IN AMERICA<\/strong><\/b><\/a><\/h3>\n
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Par Gra\u00e7a et Roberto ROCHA : Couple for the America Zone .<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my previous letters to you, the background theme over the years has been concentrated on two Endeavours touching on the spirituality of our movement. Namely, the Sit-Down and Married Prayer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.12.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fr","pt","es","it","en"],"languages":{"fr":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":true},"pt":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":true},"es":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":true},"it":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":true},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":true}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equipes-notre-dame.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}