Report from the International Council to all members of the Chevalier Family
It is with pleasure that the International Council offers this Report of our work for the first three months of 2022. We have been very busy as you can see by the inclusions in this mailout.
Meetings of the International Council
We welcome Peter Cheong to our meetings this year and also, Hannie Jansen returning as our Minutes Secretary.
The international Council has held several meetings this year:
On the 5th February we held a Combined Meeting of the Philippines Organising Committee, the Trigeneralate members and the International Council. We were able to finalise the theme and the cost of attending the Assembly at that meeting and you can see our decisions in the Invitation that is included in this mailout.
On the 13th March we held our first Business Meeting. We had a very full Agenda that included: the Philippines Assembly, the launch of the Website, progress on the Survey and the Formators Book and the finalisation of the Document on Role of and Process for Replacing the Spiritual Companion of the International Council. In addition, we discussed the importance of the role of Spiritual Companion at the national level and you will hear from us soon on our work towards developing this role as a key ministry of Provinces. We also discussed possible ways of collecting together all of Fr Hans writing for the On-Line Course into a digital book translated into as many languages as possible. Our next Business meeting will be held on the 22nd October.
We met the Indian Laity by Zoom on the 19th March. It was a wonderful time together hearing about their group and its activities.
Commitment to Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation
Declaration
We remind the international family of our commitment to the integrity of creation and to supporting the initiatives of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation committee of the Trigeneralate. If you have not yet completed your Declaration form and given it to your National Council Chair we encourage you to do so. National Council Chairs please forward the completed Declarations to an International Council member.
First Friday Prayer Intentions
Please continue to distribute the First Friday intentions and top use them as formation opportunities for your people.
Launch of Website
It is with great pleasure that we launch our official Laity of the Chevalier Family website at chevalierfamilylaity.org. This project has taken some time to complete, and we thank Doris and Ranulfo Santos for beginning the project. The International Council has worked very hard to finalise the project and we could not have completed the task without the extraordinary skill and commitment of Brett Adamson and the creation of the Template by Matt Price. This website has been contributed to by many people collaborating together. The website is available in 12 languages which can be selected at the bottom of the page, and we encourage you to read it carefully and use it for formation. We make special note of the two articles; Spirituality of the Heart and the Interpretation of the logo which have been written by writing teams from many countries within the Family. Thank you to those who responded and assisted with that writing. We hope that these articles, which reflect the distinctiveness of the lay charism and will be useful for formation in your groups. The Resource List is also a very important part of the Website listing available resources in English, Spanish and Dutch with publishing details for purchase. There are also English resources which are out of copyright and have been scanned so they can be downloaded. We commend this resource list to you for use in your groups.
International Assembly in the Philippines.
The invitation to the Philippines Assembly is included in this mailout.
National Councils are invited to send an expression of interest to attend to Debbie Mellijor with an estimation of approximate numbers. This information is preliminary and simply to help with ongoing planning, but we hope to hear from all 36 member countries soon and anticipate that every country will be able to send at least one representative. A reminder also to countries of financial means to encourage you to begin to plan how you will assist in subsidising participation from countries with more limited financial means.
Survey details
Thank you to those countries who have completed the Survey which was sent to you with the December mailout. If you have not completed the Survey you will find it in the last mailout in English, French and Spanish and we would greatly appreciate your doing so as soon as you can. We will send you an analysis of the data in our June mailout.
News from the Family
Welcome to a new group in Vietnam associated with the FDNSC sisters.
Welcome to new National Councils in Papua New Guinea and Democratic Republic Congo and in Congo Brazzaville.
Our Easter prayer
Loving God,
Help us each day to stand for love, for compassion, for the good of all.
May we, the Chevalier Family, each in our own way and our own places
participate in bringing to life the Heart of God.
So that, this Easter season we can pray: not my will but Yours be done.
May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be loved everywhere.
With love and blessings to you and those you love from:
International Council of the Laity of the Chevalier Family.