GROUP SHARING M.Afr. AT ATIMAN HOUSE
FOLLOWING THE CBF PLENARY ASSEMBLY IN DAR ES SALAAM
PRESENT: Laurent Balas, Raphael Lubala, Richard Baawobr 1st Assistant, Quinbert Kinunda and Aloysius Ssekamatte.
Secretary: Aloysius SsekamattePresentation will be according to the guiding questions.
1. What did we benefit from the assembly?
* Meeting with other people working in the biblical apostolate especially lay people involved in the Church. Openness of individuals to share during personal encounters outside the plenary meetings in spite of the language barriers was an enriching experience.
* New experiences and exposition to situations we did not know before like the Church in Egypt, China, Korea etc.
* The biblical input on Is 55 and Mat 5 was greatly appreciated.
* Diversity of the participants including a Rabbi enriched the assembly.
* Creativity and richness of the approaches shown by the displays and regional presentations of their work in the biblical apostolate. This opened our mind to many possibilities and practical experiences.
* imbalance in the involvement in the biblical apostolate remains a challenge- clearly Asia is well involved while AMECEA has poor performance.
* Sharing in groups was rich and raised our awareness especially of the colleagues involved in the apostolate on the African continent.
* material hand-outs exchanged will be helpful.
* emphasis on the Bible being the centre of Church life and mission important.
* challenge that we could be more creative and also use a lot of materials that are already available.
* We made a good experience of CBF which remains unknown to many including our confreres
* Helpful to start the day with the 'encounter with the word' which also helped to emphasize that we are not just technical scholars but also people who above all live on the word of God.
* Criticism of the priests regarding the homilies that are devoid of the word of God is a challenge to be taken seriously.
* The universality of the problems faced by humanity and the difficulties in finding answers to such problems was an important acknowledgement from the sharing on justice, peace and reconciliation.2. How do I intend to use the experience for the coming Synod on Africa/ for mission?
* encourage the Small Christian Communities to use the Bible when we have the occasion.
* make effort to enter into the CBF network (work with others at the local level).
* use the teaching opportunities to include the African Synod (lineamenta).
* give biblical courses to parish groups in the deanery.
* idea of basing JPIC work on biblical inspiration (cf. experience of Benin) is an interesting strategy that can be put into practice.
* Very little has been done so far regarding the diffusion and reflection on the lineamenta. The sharing from our confreres in Zambia which is rich will be published in the Petit Echo and may serve as a ground for further reflection.
* put more effort in the use of the word of God in the homilies.
* to put to use the experiences gathered from the various participants in the parish ministry for example to use the word of God in the various areas of parish life: biblical leaflets for special occasions, Bible in Catechetics, animation of groups like youth camps and other movements.
* Put more effort in the biblical formation of pastoral agents especially catechists and religious.
* Take advantage of the Synod in Rome to invite some bishops (Bishop Esua) into our Generalate and invite other students in Rome who might want to share the experience of what will be going on in the Synod. (Possibility of starting already with the Synod on the word of God).3. Dreams for the future (at the level of the Society)
* Make CBF more known especially to confreres within the Society. Possibility of an article in Petit Echo aimed at confreres working in the biblical apostolate.
* Creation of a space on the website dedicated to the biblical apostolate that we can use to share our experiences.
* Use of Lectio Divina could be proposed and encouraged at the level of the society as a way of stimulating our sharing on the word of God.
* Propose something concrete to be included in the meetings of on-going formation for the confreres as a way of promoting the biblical apostolate.
* Net-working with people working in the Biblical apostolate wherever we find ourselves.
* Getting more involved in our respective Episcopal conferences, BICAM, CBF as associate members etc.Some concrete levels of our participation
+ Bridging the gap by helping people (Small Christian Communities) to use and live the word of God.
+ Profit from the Pauline year to work with the already existent groups to intensify their understanding and use of Pauline literature.
+ Prepare simple reading materials that can help people who want to read scripture to deepen their knowledge and to live according to the word of God.NB: Thanks to the General Council for offering us this opportunity to make this rich experience in our apostolate. We appreciate all that we lived during the plenary assembly and we go with the desire to do more for the biblical apostolate.
Dar es Salaam, 5th July 2008
