In the digital age, is it possible to invite Christ into our homes? CANA’s experience is shared before 2500 delegates of family ministry from all over the world, in Rome at the 10th World Meeting of Families.
Announcing the Gospel through digital medi
For today’s families, it is becoming increasingly difficult to raise their children with Christ at the center of family life.
On Friday, June 24, Sandrine and Guillaume Haudebourg, married for 21 years, 3 children, members of the Chemin-Neuf Community, were called during the World Meeting of Families in Rome, to share their experience of evangelization through the digital with couples and families. In fact, since 2017, their CANA mission in France is to announce the Gospel to couples and families who wish to deepen their relationship, for a stronger love based on the love of Christ.
“Let’s not be afraid of this digital continent! Let us open the doors to the Holy Spirit to proclaim Christ in the codes of today’s world, in the languages of our children”, this was the heart of their presentation at the Theological and Pastoral Congress in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall. Their talk took place in front of 2500 people and was followed live by the major international television channels in different languages (French, English, Italian, Portuguese). They are available in replay on :
Their impressions of this event
For them, this World Meeting of Families has become a unique opening to internationality: “Couples from all countries were present; the Gospel is propagated through the richness of our diversity. We have much to receive from each other! Guillaume and Sandrine feel strengthened in their mission: “the Holy Spirit is present in such a gathering; as Jesus says, ‘He will teach us all things’ John 14, 26 – ‘all things’ is for the mission He has entrusted to us!”
The essence of their talk
For the past two years, in this context of confinement and growing use of digital technology due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they have been developing live ‘digital series’ on the Internet: “we thus reach the couple, the family, directly in their homes, in their daily lives, on their couch… As in the encounter with Zacchaeus, we hear Jesus say to each family: ‘Today I must stay with you’ (Luke 19:5). These proposals are dynamic, spiritual, playful based on quality videos/teachings, with a view to an experience of dialogue, listening, prayer as a couple or as a family with children: “the paradox is that we reach them through the screen but it is with a view to “moving away from the screen” so that each one turns his or her gaze towards the other, to meet in truth, to value each other and thus strengthen the relationship”.
In two years, these digital programmes have reached nearly 3,000 families in France, and have subsequently been deployed in French-speaking countries such as Lebanon, in Spanish-speaking countries such as Spain and Colombia, and in English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, and even in Hong Kong and Poland: “Our proposals have gone far beyond what we imagined. It is indeed easy to share the Gospel with your neighbor, your colleague, even your mother-in-law… A click is enough to spread the Gospel in the heart of our couple and our families”.
1. For more information on the CANA mission in France: www.cana-couple.fr
2. These digital series can be viewed live or replayed on YouTube