Encouraged by the installation of the Chemin Neuf Community in New York (St. John the Divine) and after three years without a visit from the International Team because of the pandemic, Gilles & Véronique CORMIER went to Chicago and San Francisco to take stock of the CANA mission.
G & V CORMIER, P & N NOWICKI
Welcome to Chicago
During the year 2021-2022, the first CANA Welcome course in the United States took place in French and English in the Catholic parish of St. Teresa of Avila, thanks to the presence there of Henri and Félicie MAIGNON, a young couple who knew CANA well in France. Henri and Félicie have since returned to France and are part of the CANA fraternity. Three American couples are ready to take up the torch for the year 2022-2023 and to better understand what CANA can bring them.
During their visit to Chicago, Gilles & Véronique CORMIER were warmly welcomed by these three American couples, who are very motivated, as well as by the parish priest. Father Franck is enthusiastic and encouraged them to introduce CANA to the couples of the parish.
Gilles & Véronique also met Father BEAUPLAN, a Claretian missionary priest from Haiti who serves the French-speaking community of the Thérèse d’Avila parish. Last year, Father BEAUPLAN had followed closely the organization of the CANA Welcome course and had actively participated in the weekend in the middle of the course. He knows well the situation of the church in Chicago, made up of very different groups which rarely meet and that of the couples who are involved in a thousand activities. The parish is multicultural: St. Teresa of Avila’s parishioners are of Hispanic, Asian, African and European origin.
In Chicago this year, some of last year’s couples will continue their training with CANA and a new CANA Welcome course is launched. It’s a “small beginning”! We all have a lot to discover…
San Francisco
Getting to know the existing CANA team and helping them to run the weekend on the theme of “Work-Life Balance” were the main objectives of this visit.
The theme of the weekend was very relevant to the reality of couples and families in California and the San Francisco Bay Area and was very much appreciated by the participants. The freedom offered by Ignatian spirituality was a discovery for many. One participant said: “In my church, I am told what to believe and do; here it is up to me to listen to the Lord and respond to Him.”
Gilles & Véronique met well-formed, active and very committed couples in their respective parishes. Some are involved in community work or have chosen to live a simplified life in the service of the poorest in the neighbourhood where their church is located. All of them left revitalised and willing to devote themselves for the development of CANA. They are eager to continue the training that we will be able to offer them in the coming months.
Links with the small team of the Chemin Neuf Community that is gradually settling in New York have already begun and will be strengthened.
CANA en Californie
This year, CANA in California has 32 couples in 8 groups around the San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco, San Jose, Dublin, San Carlos) as well as further north in California, in Chico.
