“Choosing your priorities as a couple”! This theme, always relevant throughout the life of a couple, attracts many couples to CANA in Hungary. During an intense weekend on the shores of Europe’s largest lake, Lake Balaton, its members also wished to deepen their desire for Christian fellowship.

CANA in Hungary

With 47 couples engaged in the CANA Fraternity, currently the CANA is the biggest mission of the Chemin Neuf Community in Hungary. With my husband, Fabrice, this year we are serving in the CANA mission; taking part in the organisation and running of programs. Personally for us, as a ’baby couple’ J, as we got married only 2 years ago, it is a very important experience to share these times with other couples. We are always touched while listening to their amazing testimonies about their everyday life, full of struggles and miracles in the same time.

In May, the CANA Fraternity is going to start working on the praparation of the CANA Week. It takes place from 2nd to 8th July, in the community place called Bodrogolaszi, with around 60 couples and 120 children participating. We are looking forward very much to this week.

Our last weekend was in February, near the largest lake of Hungary, called the Lake Balaton, with 40 couples participating. On this weekend we learnt about how to make decisions as a christian couple, by listening the guidance of the Holy Spirit. With teachings, sharing times, worship night we had a rich 2 days together.

Fabrice & Petra

Supporting the CANA mission

Arrived Friday 25 February in Budapest, we join the community house of Zugliet where we are welcomed by our two celibate sisters Rita and Maria. On Saturday morning before leaving for the weekend, we meet Blandine & Gergei, FEJERDY the couple responsible for the Chemin Neuf Community in Hungary. They share with us how happy they are that we are here and how much they appreciate CANA International coming to Hungary.

Luce & Gergei VARGA, the couple responsible for CANA, take us to the meeting place in the beautiful Lutheran center Soli-Deo-Gloria (Glory to God the only) on the shore of Lake Balaton in the west of Hungary (the largest lake in Europe).

Denis & Claudine POINAS

Strong mobilization for “Choosing your priorities as a couple”

The couples of the fraternity were mobilized to come and participate in this weekend, with a total of 40 couples present despite the economic situation and the war in the nearby Ukraine. As the energy crisis limits the number of welcome centers open in winter, it was difficult to find the welcome center.

The weekend started punctually with a very joyful “ice-breaker” and we benefited from a great music team throughout the meeting. The first short talk given by a couple from the core was based on their testimony. The exercise as a couple was very much appreciated, which proves how precious these couple times are. The prayer vigil was very charismatic. In our turn, we gave the second teaching of the weekend with the testimony of the great decisions of our life as a couple and family. At the end of the weekend, the couples met to exchange in two groups, the “recent” and the “old” ones.

It was a very good, intense and beautiful weekend, a visible sign of the dynamism of CANA Hungary where Pope Francis will succeed us next April!

We left them this text to meditate on

“Christian fellowship is not an ideal to be achieved but a reality created by God in Christ, in which he has allowed us to participate. It is to the extent that we learn to recognize that Jesus Christ is truly the foundation, the driving force and the promise of our community as a whole, that we can learn to think about it, to pray and to hope for it with serenity… Jesus Christ is the source of the need that Christians have for one another. Jesus Christ alone makes their communion possible.

From D. Bonhoeffer “On Community Life

Denis & Claudine POINAS

Gergely & Luce SOSKUTI-VARGA, couple leader of CANA Hungary