Medellín, Colombia. With the celebration of the Eucharist, presided over by the new Provincial Government, and organized and animated by the lay participants, the Assembly of the recently created Province of Colombia-Venezuela concluded.
The atmosphere of the Assembly was very cordial. A communal spirit which was experienced between the Claretians and the laity, coming from regions which will encompass the new Province, contributed to propping-up its foundations and casting aside fears and prejudices.
In this way the Assembly was able to dedicate its major efforts to the study of the ‘Provincial Plan of Missionary Life’, which had been prepared by a commission, through an intensive work of interchange and synthesis coordinated by the previous Governments.
The Assembly also benefited from the presence of Father Guillermo Ramirez CMF, representing the Province of Colombia East-Ecuador, as well as with epistolary communication from the Provincial of the same. Those present expressed their best wishes that one day in the not too distant future that Province would integrate into the same regional missionary project.
Fr. General, at the close of the Assembly, expressed the following: This Province is born with a project capable of awakening a vocational conscience in each one of its members and in the laity. There are a great number of challenges but also the will and capacity to overcome them. They will never lack problems, some very explicit, others in the area of personal and community life. The true feeling of fraternity will help to overcome them (…) and after enumerating some of the priorities given at the Assembly, he ended saying: The General Government will be following, accompanying these processes. You can count on all of our help.
To place the Plan into practice is now the work of all which the new Government will lead facing the 1st Chapter scheduled for December 2011.
In the photo with Fr. General, the members of the Provincial Government: Alvaro G. Arias, Raúl Céspedes, Marino Pérez, the Econome Albeiro Ospina and the Provincial, Javier Pulgarín
