Acordial Easter greeting to all the brothers from our Saint John XXIII Province and may the Risen One make his abode in the heart of each one of us as a member of the same spiritual and Eucharistic family, in the search of configuring his life more and more to the Risen Jesus. Resurrexit Sicut dixit!
Most of our brothers have already known Lima, an enriching community that experiences faith, closeness and great religious and popular devotion of the people; but at the same time, it is a very challenging environment in its peripheral context of pastoral work, with great poverty, social inequality even as regards the internal organization of the local community.
The experience of celebrating and experiencing Holy Week in Lima this year 2022 allows me to approach the new socio-cultural reality of the Peruvian people, especially the people of Lima, noting certain differences from Colombia. I missed several celebratory aspects of the Colombian people’s tradition of faith, such as: celebrations of the Sermon of the Seven Words, the procession of the Sorrowful Virgin and the meditation of the seven sorrows of the Virgin. But, it is worth approaching new contexts to learn about other situations and new ways of living the faith because pastoral and evangelizing work implies adventuring out to announce the Risen Christ.
In this perspective, the universal mission of the Church is beheld: “Go into the whole world and preach the Good News to all peoples…” (Mt 28:19-20). Thus, the neophytes, that is, the newly baptized born of water and the Holy Spirit on the Easter Vigil, which is the most important solemnity in the history of Salvation, became available to go out on mission and to contribute to the spreading of the Kingdom of God in the world.
May the light of the Risen One enlighten us so as not to lose sight of the essence of always being “a paschal community” (RL 7), notwithstanding the socio-cultural context where we find ourselves with the perspective of always living as faithful Eucharistic disciples of Christ, ready to serve our brothers!
NOTIBIP 80 - May 2022
Province Saint John XXIII
Colombia-Peru
