Since September 2021, the CANA programmes are already well underway. At the heart of 2022, the World Meeting of Families in Rome in June. Our wish: may 2022 be a year full of grace and joy for all.
Gilles & Véronique CORMIER
CANA International
Our objective: to make CANA better known
For several months now, the CANA Newsletter has been less abundant due to the redesign of our CANA International institutional website. The release of the new cana.org finally took place on December 10th 2021. It will be improved little by little with the objective to make CANA better known.
At the heart of the 2021-2022 CANA season, the World Meeting of Families will be held in Rome from 21 to 26 June 2022. We look forward to participating in this world event and to gathering the main CANA leaders from the different continents for a week of meetings, prayer and fellowship in the Eternal City.
The CANA season 2021-2022 is well underway!
Recently, we had the chance to visit a few countries: what a joy to meet again couples we knew and to discover new ones! Indeed, Gilles and I went to Uganda, Russia and then to Colombia for the first time. Father Christophe BLIN had accompanied CANA in these countries until last year. Gilles then went to meet the team in the United Kingdom, to spend some fraternal time with them and to consider the continuation of the programme. Denis & Claudine POINAS have just returned from a mission with CANA in Egypt. Sister Audrey has left to support the CANA team in Mauritius.
Since September, Anne-Marie & Bruno COUTELLIER have been carrying out the mission with us in the CANA International team; they recently accompanied a weekend in Switzerland where the national team was reinforced!
Switzerland
The arrival of Thorsten & Henrike RADEMACHER in the team is a real plus to support Anny & Silvère LANG! They live in Fribourg and are from the generation of couples who participated in the weekend. The contact was easy and joyful: 9 families and 31 children. Their service to the youngest and the musical entertainment was much appreciated. During this weekend on the theme of “Lasting as a couple”, they were all able to feel how vital it was for them to take time for themselves and also fellowship with others over good beers and Swiss chocolates in a beautiful setting! We hope that a CANA Welcome course will start soon to accompany new couples and encourage them to take care of themselves.
Russia
This was for both of us the first trip to these orthodox lands and therefore the opportunity to better understand the context in which the couples live in Moscow and St Petersburg, the two main cities where CANA is active. We were also able to have beautiful encounters with the local Church. The theme of the weekend (23-24/10) was “Lasting as a couple”, like the one in Switzerland, with 20 couples and 18 children, in a beautiful place on the edge of a forest, 2 hours south-east of Moscow.
The team is full of courage and is launching CANA Welcome in 5 cities, 3 of which are new: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Toms, Lipetsk, Samara (on the Volga) and Tomsk (in Siberia!). We pray that the Lord will bless these beautiful novelties and that a CANA Week will be held next summer in these far-away places.
Colombia
Bogota from 11 to 17 November 2021. This was a week to meet the couples attending Father Ricardo’s parish, who had decided to continue their journey with CANA after a first weekend in 2019. The health context had prevented travel but contact was at last renewed! 12 couples took time out, two hours from Bogotá in Cachipay, to live a long weekend on the theme of “Tenderness and sexuality”: the joy of taking time for each other, of learning to forgive each other, of dialoguing in truth, of rediscovering God’s love for one’s self/couple, of the importance of a balanced sexuality in the couple… one couple even decided to get married!
Mario & Lourdes from the Chemin Neuf Community in Zaragoza (Spain) joined us for the translation and young Colombians from Bogota were there to serve the couples. It was a beautiful experience of fraternal and mutual aid. It was also an opportunity to share about the year’s projects and to consider with them the next steps to be taken to prepare the next CANA week!
The grace to discern
We see with joy that the teams are doing their best to maintain the support and the proposals they offer to the couples in their country. One of the challenges now is to be able to resume face-to-face meetings as much as possible because we have noted the desire of everyone to meet again, to share what is important in life and to enjoy to be in fellowship.
The other challenge will be to be able to develop even more the good tools already at their disposal, notably CANA Welcome which will allow us to renew the mission and to go towards those couples who do not yet dare to approach the Church.
May the Lord, who comes like a little child in our humble daily life, give us his grace to discern what will be the best for each of us and the mission, in this new year 2022!