The ship of Faith and Light wants to set sail, but the crisis created by COVID-19 has tempered our enthusiasm. Everything becomes more complicated, more uncertain. The international coordinators, Raul and Maria Silvia, remind us to be careful. At the same time, they remind us that Jesus calls even now—calling each of us to care for one another in new ways, ways we must invent together.
The Carnet de Route, which has long guided our communities' journey, is ready. This year it was created by the entire international coordinating team. Each vice-coordinator prepared one of the twelve months for 2020/21. Drawing from diverse experiences and traditions, our logbook now reflects the rich cultures that strengthen Faith and Light's worldwide family.
We are reminded that the carnet is a tool—to be used with creativity and freedom, while respecting each community's history, faith, and circumstances. There is an invisible but vital thread running through all of us, keeping our bond alive and guaranteeing unity among Faith and Light communities scattered across the globe.
The carnet offers concrete ways to gather, topics for reflection and sharing, games, celebrations. It proposes a way of life rooted in openness, welcome, friendship, sharing, and joy. These are qualities we already know well—we find them in friends, parents, and young people from every country. We feel their power whenever we gather for provincial meetings or international assemblies. Wherever we are, we feel at home.
We were about to begin celebrations marking Faith and Light's birth in Lourdes in 1971—to make known the movement's charism and the reality of our international family. Many initiatives were nearly ready. For now, they risk fading away. Yet we wonder whether we might celebrate our fiftieth anniversary in a different way, adapting to our health crisis. Here too we could give space to our creativity and ask the Holy Spirit for light, as Raul and Maria Silvia suggest.
— You might also like: the Carnet journey with Father Marco's videos
This year the community will be our focus. We will examine aspects and themes that deserve our regular attention. We will revisit the meaning of Faith and Light's calling, rediscover the community as a place of encounter, celebration, and joy, as a time of prayer, as an opportunity for friendship and faithfulness. We will understand more deeply the gift of our international family and the sharing of goods. We will ask ourselves how to live responsibility, how to learn to love one another and become instruments of peace and unity, how to discover God's presence in our brothers and sisters.
There is another change: the international secretariat will no longer print the carnet. Instead, it will be sent by email and published on the website and Faith and Light's Facebook page. We do this for two reasons: to align the carnet with our commitment to sustainability and environmental respect, and to reduce costs so the international secretariat can support other urgent initiatives.
The only exception will be certain African countries, where access to new technology remains limited. Finally, because liturgical calendars differ worldwide, meditations on Easter and Pentecost will be available as attachments. These have been prepared by our international chaplain, Father Marco Bove, and each community can use them as needed. Good journey ahead!
