Our joy to open our doors!

Dear friends,

The time has come for me to write to you again as like many other countries in the world, our country is gradually emerging from a long lockdown. This unprecedented period has had a definite impact on our lives. Like many, we feel that "going back to the previous normal life" is an illusion and possibly also a denial. To date, nearly 400,000 people have died as a result of the Covid-19, including almost 30,000 in our country. Many of you have been affected, some severely. That is why you were and remain present in our community’s heart. We had the grace, or should I say the privilege, to be able to celebrate the Holy Week followed by Easter time, and I can tell you that every day, your absence was felt painfully. In the depths of our cave, just as in Nazareth, God confirmed his presence at the heart of human daily life "at very basic level". And it was there that, invisibly, we held you close to our hearts and prepared ourselves to meet you again "in the flesh" ...

We set up the blog quickly where we were able to share with you some food from the bag of our community’s heritage. Many of you have expressed much gratitude, and we remain happy with this new, digital but very real experience of sharing the Word. Being able to read the various texts posted online allowed everyone to enjoy them at any time of the day, whenever they felt like it, according to their daily schedule, their need, their questions…the inner work was happening…  It was like a kind of retreat from home, to support your day to day life, sometimes lived in real solitude.

Some have expressed the hope that we can offer retreats on internet, but as I  wrote  to one of you, the experience of the retreats including the preaching and living through the liturgy are at the heart of an essential community life together. I myself could no longer preach without the community and without sharing the Word which is at the heart of our way of life, and without the relationship that is established with the retreat goers, without looking at people’s eyes and bodies, without seeing the evolution on people’s faces (sometimes quite spectacular... and always very informative!).  It is all the alchemy of a retreat that takes place in this life together and which allows the Word to bear a fruit that it would not bear otherwise if it were to be listened to without any physical proximity and without this experience of community life which is so special in a retreat.

Our joy today is to know that we can reopen our doors! The latest announcements from the government, coupled with the detailed instructions received from the local authorities and our bishops, allow us to prepare for the resumption of preaching with the summer retreats. We have reassessed our hosting capacity according to the social distancing rule and it allows us to accommodate 50 people at the Roche d'Or, and 40 at the Fontanilles. Danièle will explain the implementation in more detail covering how we can host you and how you can participate in the retreats. Moreover, although we have thought very long and hard how we could try to accommodate, we will not be able to welcome children with us this summer, which saddens us greatly... We will just have to wait a little longer before hearing their laugh and voices again fill the orchard of the Roche d’Or.

We have had to rethink the way we host people, as well as the programme itself. Due to health reasons, François Rouyer is having to stop preaching for several months. So we made a new  retreat programme for the second half of 2020, in both our houses, according to my availability and that of the other preachers, from a realistic view point. You will find it in detail on our website. I suggest you read it carefully.

As I mentioned at the beginning, we are not “going back to the previous normal life " before Covid-19. And not just because of the health, economic and social effects of this pandemic. Even though events shake up the course of our lives, they are not the ones who lead us: it is the Holy Spirit. I was struck during Easter Time while reading daily the Acts of the Apostles, how, according to situations, the Holy Spirit solicits, leads, insinuates, provokes... and the Apostles opened new paths by listening to His inspirations. Thus Paul and his companions, warned by the Holy Spirit against going to  Ephesus  and then in  Bithynia, stayed put in Troas and, having the vision of a Macedonian calling out for help, sought immediately to leave for Macedonia, for they saw it inferred that God was calling them to bring the Good News there. This is how the Gospel came...to Europe (cf. Acts 16, 6-10)!  

In the same vein, through events and constraints, the Holy Spirit invites us to follow him and invent a new way of life. We felt strongly while living in confinement, that the way of life of Nazareth, which was already at the heart of our life, was all the more important since we are now forced to reduce our hosting capacity significantly. Our sharing of the gospel, at the heart of our community gatherings, allowed us to taste more intensely the Nazarene simplicity of a life with Jesus in the most concrete daily aspects of a house life. This is what we are called to share with you: preaching is born from living-together, and a smaller number actually allows us more closeness. Perhaps this is an indication of a renewed form of future retreats...

Finally, I would like to thank all those who are helping us financially through this crisis... I am very grateful indeed for the friendship shown through this practical support. Thank you...

To each of you I say, on behalf of the community, that we look forward to seeing you soon again...!

May Mary keep you in the trust and enthusiasm of the Holy Spirit!

Fr. Olivier Sournia

French to English translation by Debbie Garrick and Cécile Simon