Birthday Celebration
Thanksgiving
Presentation
Christmas Celebration!

Here are some pictures shown in three slideshows.

Slideshow Part 1 of 3

Slideshow Part 2 of 3

Slideshow Part 3 of 3

Then at around noon the other Lay Canossians joined them for lunch.

After lunch we gathered and formed teams and had lots of fun searching for items in our possession beginning with the alphabet A all the way to Z.

That was followed with some announcements, discussions and agreements on the next steps to take, moving forward.

One agreement was that there would be a centralised meeting/formation every alternate month and all members were encouraged to attend, if they can make it.

The coordinators will inform all their respective team members accordingly.

Now enjoy the slideshow below:

Poverty is lack of basic human needs

Poverty is …

*Humiliation

*Unacceptable Privation

*Danger and Vulnerability, Powerlessness

*Negation of opportunities

*Life can be shortened

Attitudes that demean/devalue the poor

• 1st attitude – Recipients’ Image / Donors’ image
• 2nd attitude – Donors’ “messiah complex”

Poverty Trap
↓

• Material poverty
• Physical weakness
• Isolation
• Vulnerability
• Powerlessness
• Spiritual poverty

Non-material forms of poverty
↓

Marginalization

Affective poverty

Moral poverty

Spiritual poverty

S1.1 Mission of Jesus (Lk 4:18-19)

• Holistic mission to the poor
• Love God with all your heart and with all your soul (Mt 23:36) – a commandment about relationships (right and just relationships)
• Poverty is about relationships that do not work, that isolate, that abandon or devalue – Restore relationships with God, self, community.

Who are we?

- we are human beings made in the image of God

- each one is unique and finds full expression in self-

giving love

Who are the Poor?

People who…

*live in poverty

*have names and are not statistics or nameless!

*are living people and who are gifted too by God

*the poor are always among others who are not poor

Magdalene of Canossa Quotations:

o “I have always wished to place myself and all that I own at the service of God and for the benefit of the poor”

o “I wish we were able to do everything, everywhere but, being so limited, let us work at least where the need is greatest.”

S1.2 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church – Chapter 1

God’s Plan of Love for Humanity

- God’s liberating action in the history of Israel

- Jesus Christ the Fulfilment of the Father’s Plan of Love

- The Human Person in God’s Plan of Love

- God’s Plan and the Mission of the Church

S1.3 “Give food to the Hungry”

Jesus identifies Himself with the Hungry…

- “I was hungry and you gave me food… (Mt 25:34-36)

o Mercy aims above all at the heart: to have a heart open to the poor an the orphan, ….

o Christian Tradition has developed 7 works of corporal mercy and 7 works of spiritual mercy. They are a sacrament in action.

- Jesus’ request to feed the hungry is a thorn in the side that does not leave in peace those who are blind to the needs of the poor.

- Do not humiliate those who by and when you give alms – treat the poor well with dignity!

- The Hunger that Jesus speaks of is more than physical hunger – it is hunger for justice!

Hunger for …

* love

* affection

* affirmation

* God

Suggestions to practise poverty….

Charismatic Reflection

The Love of Jesus Crucified

Source of the charism of Magdalene

5 “Yearnings of Magdalene (from her Memoirs)
↓

1. The search to please God (God Alone)

2. The need to help the poor

3. The commitment to counteract evil

4. The missionary thrust (universality of Gospel)

5. The search for the glory of God

The fullness of the love of Jesus Crucified
↓

The contemplation of love of Jesus Crucified leads Magdalene to understand 3 inter-related aspects:

1. The full and definitive revelation of the merciful love and the Father for everyone.

2. The revelation of the way in which God is moved by love to come to us.

3. The revelation of the same purpose that God had when He came to meet us along the way of love.

Questions

What are the elements of this ‘New Humanism’ that you could implement in your daily personal life, or in the life of the group of LC, for a better world?

Is this communion lied in our families, in our place of work, in our parish, in our LC group and any other place?

Does the love of the Crucified Lord, source of the charism our Foundress, commit all of us, LC, to implement in our environment “the 5 yearnings” that compelled Magdalene to search for a solution?

Should the communities of believers be, in the various environments, places where people go beyond themselves and live the experience of giving themselves totally in the formation of a human and authentic community, walking towards its ultimate destiny that is God?

“I Recommend You My Beloved Poor…” (Magdalene of Canossa)

What is Poverty?

Poverty is lack of basic Human Needs

What ? – lack clean water/Nutrition/Healthcare/ Education/Clothing

Why? – inability to afford them

This alone is – Absolute Poverty/Destitution! — 1.7 billion people

*Relative poverty – condition of fewer resources or less income than

others within a society or country as compared to

worldwide averages

Needs/Provision (because of some assumptions)

*To challenge Assumptions is to cause a paradigm shift / a mentality of change.

Poverty is: beyond the lack of material things to include

- Humiliation – the feeling of being dependent on others, (includes forced to
accept offences, contempt and indifferences when one looks for help)

- Unacceptable Privation – of well-being which any human being has the right.

(includes not only low wages etc but also the difficulty of having access to an
adequate level of – education, health services and nutrition).

- Danger and vulnerability powerlessness – in respect to the daily/uncertainty and the inability of making one’s voice heard.

- Not just the lack of material well being but even the negation of the
opportunity of living a tolerable life.

- Life can be shortened – poverty deprived life of dignity and trust and limits
life! What is Poverty?

Human Beings created in the Image of God is weakened

1st attitude …

*Recipients’ Image
| is absorbed by the Recipient and quick to be identified with
| the Recipients’ image of self.
|
*Donors’ Image

Donors act as if God’s gifts were given to us and not to the poor.
Donors assumed an attitude to play god in the lives of the poor.

2nd attitude — Donors have “messiah complex” – “we are the deliverers of the poor, that we can make their lives complete!”

Attitudes that demean/devalue the poor:
↓

- “Santa Claus” attitude

- provide only

- poor as passive recipient and incomplete human being
↓

“through our generosity”

this view of the donor to the recipient

/ \

/ \

/ \

The generous Haves defective and inadequate “Have-nots”

Poverty Trap

- the family is poor – physically weak, isolated, vulnerable and powerless!

1. Material poverty – housing and sanitation are poor and inadequate

2. Physical weakness – poor nutrition etc cycle effect

3. Isolation – family lacks access to services and information

- lacks access to markets, capital, credit and information

4. Vulnerability – no help in emergencies and disasters, no reserves

- lack choices and options

- no protection for family and vulnerable children

- at the mercy of money-lenders (they are forced to be

indebted and permanently trapped in poverty).

5. Powerlessness – family lacks ability and the knowledge to influence life

around it and social systems they live in

- Powerlessness is an invitation to exploitation by the powerful

- the local ‘non-poor’ siphoned off the aids coming to the poor

6. Spiritual poverty – no freedom of child of God

- lack of access to the Gospel Good News

- suffer from spiritual oppression – fear of

spirits/demons and ancestors…

What is Poverty?

Fighting to build PEACE

It is increasingly evident that peace can be built only if everyone is assured the possibility of reasonable growth

Non-Material forms of Poverty

Especially in wealthy countries:

- Marginalization } Seen in people whose interior lives are disoriented

- Affective poverty } and who experience various forms of malaise

- Spiritual poverty } despite their economic prosperity

1. “Moral underdevelopment” and the negative consequence of “super

development” so called

2. “poor” societies – where economic growth often hampered by ‘cultural

impediments’ (which lead to inefficient use of available resources).

*Every form of externally imposed poverty has at its root a lack of respect for the transcendent dignity of the human person.

John Paul II – Encyclical Letter “Cantesimus Annus”

- he warned of the need to “abandon a mentality in which the poor – are

considered a burden as irksome intruders trying to consume which others

have produced”

- JP II “The poor, ask for the right to share in enjoying material goods and to

make good use of their capacity for work, thus creating a world that is more

just and prosperous for all”

Documents of the Church Social Teaching

- The church’s social teaching has always been concerned with the poor…new

forms of poverty were gradually explored as the scope of the social question

widened to reach global proportions.

Scheda 1

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Introduction – “An Integral & Solidarity Humanism”

Pg 9 – No:19 ‘In the Sign of Solidarity, Respect and Love’

“The Church, the sign in history of God’s love for mankind and of the vocation of the whole human race to unity as children of the one Father, intends with this document on her social doctrine to propose to all men and women a humanism that is up to the standards of God’s plan of love in history, an integral and solidarity humanism capable of creating a new social, economic and political order, founded on the dignity and freedom of every human person, to be brought about in peace, justice and solidarity.

God’s Plan Of Love For Humanity

I) God’s liberating action in the history of Israel

a) God’s gratuitous presence

- God is seen as …

* the origin of what exists } Challenges us at

* measure of what should be } the use of those very goods in relation to other people.

- Exodus 3:7-8 (God sets Israel free) – acquisition of freedom

- and the land that God

promises them

- Decalogue (The Ten Commandments) – teaches true humanity of man

- describe universal human morality

- the right of the poor ( in justice in solidarity)

- Sabbatical / Jubilee Year – founding principles of Israel’s social,

| political and economic life

(a kind of social doctrine – principle for dealing with

in miniature!) / \

| economic social

| poverty injustices

also a prophecy of the future, the norm or normative points of reference of the people of the Covenant!

b) The principle of creation and God’s gratuitous action

- All things created by God – God freely confers being & life on everything that exits

- God gives freedom – mankind abuses the freedom – hence it is the

original cut-off point have that is the deepest roots of all the evils that

afflict social relations between people..

II) Jesus Christ, the Fulfilment of the Father’s Plan of Love

a) In Jesus Christ the decisive event of the history of God with mankind

is fulfilled

- Jesus is the example of how God acts/deals with human being with

(great love)!

b) The revelation of Trinitarian love

- the fullness of this revelation of the Trinitarian love is in the Face of

Jesus Crucified and Risen!

- The commandment of mutual love – an example for all human

relationships in society and in politics…

~ the bonds that unite the human family in the light of Revelation – must be a new model of the unity of the human race – to inspire our solidarity.

III) The Human Person in God’s Plan of Love

a) Trinitarian love, the origin and goal of the human person

- Every person is created by God, loved and saved in Jesus Christ….

- Man and woman only in relationship with God can he/she discover and

fulfil the authentic and complete meaning of their personal and social lives…

- The Book of Genesis (provides foundations of Christian Anthropology:

1) the inalienable dignity of the human person..

2) the constitutive social nature of human beings…

3) the meaning of human activity in the world…

b) Christian salvation: for all people and the whole person

- involves all aspects of a person

- this salvation offered by God to His children requires our free wil (responses) and acceptance

c) The disciple of Christ as a new creation

- a disciple of Christ – a conversion of heart to Christ

- a new way of behaving towards others – in Christian justice…

d) The transcendence of salvation and the autonomy of earthly realities

- man as the one who, in Christ, receives everything from God as gift,

humbly and freely…

- as a person, man can give himself to another person or to other persons, and ultimately to God, who is the author of his being and who alone can fully accept his gift.

- difficult to share will result in less solidarity between people…

- human person cannot and must not be manipulated by social

economic or political structures…

IV) God’s Plan and the Mission of the Church

a) The Church, sign and defender of the transcendence of the Human

Person

- The church has received “the mission of proclaiming and establishing

among all peoples of the Kingdom of God….”

- The church is not to be confused with the political community and is

not bound to any political system.

- The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be discovered in the

perspective of a determined and definitive _*social } organisation

*economic }

* political }

b) The church, the Kingdom of God and the Renewal of Social Relations

- God in Christ, redeems not only the individual person but also the

social relations existing between men…

- Spirit of the Lord leading to new and appropriate ways of creative

responsibility…(however, this renewal if by the Spirit of the Lord will not run contrary to the unchangeable principle of the natural law).

- the new commandment of love of Jesus the Church !

c) New Heaven and a New Earth

- New heaven and a new earth – to be lived in the now – have Christian

strive to give food, drink, clothing, shelter, care, welcome and company to the Lord who comes, who knocks at the door.

d) Mary and her fiat in God’s plan of love

- Mary, the first and perfect disciple of Jesus – fiat of Mary to God…

- Magnificat – ‘the oppressed and down-troddened will be set free and

lifted high…

- God’s preference for the poor and humble!

-Mary is totally dependent upon God and completely directed towards

Him by the impetus of her faith – she is ‘the most perfect image of freedom and of the liberation of humanity and of the universe”

We had our AGM on Sunday, 16 November 2008 and also election for the National Coordinating Team (NCT).

I do hope that most of you who attended were spiritually re-charged to make Jesus known and loved.

The newly elected NCT members are as follows:

National Coordinator: Cecilia Villenguez

Asst National Coordinator: Catherine Siew

Secretary: Christina TC Lee

Asst Secretary: Eileen Seow

Treasurer: Josephine Goh

On behalf of the National Coordinating Team (NCT), we are humbled by the task that lie ahead and seek your prayers and support as we work together in furthering the Kingdom of God’s love and peace.

We ask Sisters Magdalene and Bakhita to pray for us.

In His Service

Cecilia Villenguez
National Coordinator, Lay Canossians, Singapore

A slideshow on a Chinese New Year gathering cum sharing on St. Josephine Bakita’s life
held on 8th February 2009 at Catherine and Vincent’s house.