We are experiencing an unprecedented moment in the Prayer and Life Workshops (PLW). It has been a little over 15 days since our Founder, Ignacio Larrañaga, passed on to the Father’s House. He is already enjoying the eternal banquet.
The best way for all the Guides to remember him is for each one of us, wherever we find ourselves in the world, to renew in our hearts our commitment to foster a creative fidelity to Christ and His Church. This creative fidelity is making itself felt in a new and special way during these days in Aibonito, Puerto Rico. It was there, last Sunday, November 10th, that Week 62 began. This is the last Week of the Re- Founding in the final program that was drawn up by Father Ignacio and the International Coordination. It marks the end of a cycle, thereby fulfilling the desire of our Founder to reach all the Guides scattered in 44 countries around the world.
In Aibonito, Father Ignacio is present to the Guides through recordings that were made during the first Culmination Week. So, it is these same talks and guidelines that were shared with the Guides from country to country since February 2012, that are being transmitted. In this way, Prayer and Life Workshops, notwithstanding the pain of the moment, serenely continue following in the footsteps of the Resurrected One, and redouble their zeal to reach the ends of the Earth, to share the Good News that Jesus brought. To help everyone learn and experience the personal touch of having a friendship with God through prayer, and to show them a proven path that frees them from sadness and anguish. To move into the beauty of having a relationship with God, to recover their love of life, as our beloved Founder often said.
A few days ago, in his homily on All Saint’s Day, Pope Francis highlighted that, faced with the death of a loved one or someone we knew well, we usually ask: “What will become of his life, his work, his service to the Church?” The Pope answered immediately and with conviction: “ They are in the hands of God! All they have done will be guarded and will not be corroded by death. Their days, that were interwoven with joys and sufferings, hopes and fatigue, fidelity to the Gospel… are all in the hands of God!
“Remember the things God has done and does for each one, the path that was taken, as this opens the heart wide to the future.” As an Association, we have come to the end of a cycle of “remembering” how God has walked with us during these last 28 years, in the ins and outs of our existence and how he has transformed us.
Therefore, today is a day for Giving Thanks for this little town that has returned to its source, and prays in its littleness with like-minded sentiments: “May our love for Christ be as fresh and pure as the rain” which was the unceasing desire of Father Ignacio. For the good of the Church and for Humanity.
