VISIT TO BELO HORIZONTE

I have just spent several days in Brazil and had the good fortune to meet all the present members of the community there. I would remind anyone who is thinking of going to Brazil, that January and February are the high summer in the southern hemisphere, so this is the time of the school holidays and also the period when many members of the community are on holiday. So the dates that I chose for my visit did not necessarily correspond very well to the availability of the brothers and sisters, who nevertheless made the effort to welcome me, for which I am most grateful.

And so it was that Janek came to the airport very early in the morning to pick up his visitor and take him on the one hour drive back to the Parish of Santa Margarida Maria Alacoque, and that Philippe Berger and Beatrice had to disrupt their timetables to make themselves available for me.

In spite of the reduction in the church's activities during the holidays, the life of the parish was still very active, with a continuous stream of visitors, and well attended services, both for the Eucharist and for other services organised by different organisations (thus the Apostolic Prayer Mission organised a worship time with a band, singing and teaching).

During my stay, there was a 90th birthday celebration in the parish hall next to the Presbytery, with a birthday cake, chilled drinks, singing and dancing; even the person whose birthday it was had a dance, and I had to eat an enormous piece of cake; it would have been unkind to refuse.

Apart from the joy of seeing how naturally everyone was living to the community rules , I was able to get to know the situation and the current issues at Belo Horizonte: the regular intrusions into the Community grounds (hence the necessity to build a wall around our property), the urgency to get the project for the Sacred Heart Church under way and the necessity to build a community house soon (Project Global). The attached preliminary draft shows how the projects to add various new elements will change the Community's current situation; the addition of a sports complex, the building of the community house and student hostel, the addition of a car park. The visit round the grounds with Beatrice and Joaquim was very interesting; visiting a site is always much more meaningful that looking at drawings...

How wonderful it is to find the same fraternal welcome, the same generosity of spirit, the same sharing, just like in all the other places in the world where we find the Chemin Neuf Community.

Daniel Rengade
(original in French)
February 2010


Link to some photographs of the visit to Belo Horizonte.

Our story in Brazil (continued)

18 October 2010

INTERVIEW WITH BEATRICE BOURRAT, 

14 OCTOBER 2010

Father Michel Forges d'Arc, who now lives near Paris, belongs to an old established family from Versailles, which claims to be related to Joan of Arc.

At one time he was living in the presbytery of Epinay sous Sénard with Emmanuel Daublain, and through him, got to know the Chemin Neuf Community.

From there he moved to Brazil and was responsible for a parish on the edge of Joao Pessoa, the capital of the state of Caraiba in the Noreste region.

At the prayer group there, Michel Forges d'Arc became friends with a number of people including Fernando, Edilene and Synara.

He mentioned the possibility of getting to know the Chemin Neuf Community in France to them, and they spent two months in Hautecombe coming to understand how to deepen their faith through living in community. They returned to Brazil, then came back to France for the Cycle A and Cycle C discipleship training programmes. Fernando and Edilene returned to Joao Pessoa for a month to get married, and a number of the brothers and sisters of the Community in France also came to the wedding, including Bruno Vuillaume.

During all these adventures of our Brazilian friends, Michel Forges d'Arc remained discretely in the background, providing words of encouragement when they were needed.

The de Souza's (Fernando and Edilene) then returned to Hautecombe as helpers in the house until the birth of their daughter Nathalie, and then they returned again to Joao Pessoa.

During this period Synara in turn also came to France for training.

During a meeting in Rome, Laurent Fabre met the Cardinal of Mariana, Dom Luciano Mendes de Almeida who suggested that he should go to see Dom Serafim, the Archbishop of Belo Horizonte. This prelate proposed to Laurent, who had gone to see him, that he was willing to put the Chemin Neuf Community in charge of a parish in the city of Belo Horizonte. Laurent, when he visited the parish of Santa Margarida Maria Alacoque, was greeted by a painting representing Our Lady of Guadalupe; the same day he also visited a Carmelite Convent which is one of the places in the parish where services are held, and he saw that it was dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. These two signs seemed significant to him and so he accepted the archbishop's proposal.

Father Serge Clemente, who had for a long time felt a calling to help in a shanty-town and who could speak Portuguese, arrived in the parish on 8 December 1998 with Jacqueline Coutellier who stayed for a month, and with Synara who later left for Joao Pessoa to finish her law studies. Henri and Marie-Thérèse Delporte then arrived, then Marina de Vanssay and Virginie. Right from the first year, Serge started the Menor pastoral mission to help young people in the favela known as Vila Sao José, which is not far from the parish, though not in its territory.

Fernando and Edilene arrived next to join the team and did pastoral work in the parish alongside Henri and Marie-Thérèse. Henri then took on a project to build a house in the garden of the parish house so as to provide two additional units of accommodation for the Community.

Lastly, Laurent called on Father Philippe Berger, who had done his novitiate with the Congregation of the Holy Sacrament Fathers in Minas Gerais, and who was dreaming of going back to Brazil.

The Delportes returned to France a year later.

Sister Beatrice Bourrat arrived on 13 February 2003 after a mission of two years at St Gildas, the Community's foundation in England and a three months' stay in Les Pothières. Some months later, Sister Brigitte Faure arrived for a three year stay.

When he reached the end of his assignment as parish priest, Serge wished to go to Sao Paolo to work with street children for a time, then he returned to the Chemin Neuf Community (CCN) in France, then in Africa.

The basis of the presence of the Chemin Neuf Community is its parish life.

The members of the CCN in Belo Horizonte are there above all else to be of service in the parish and they have basically three missions, firstly the pastoral work in the lovely parish of Santa Margarida Maria Alacoque, then there is social work related to the parish and finally the work of the Chemin Neuf Community Foundation in Latin America.

After the arrival of Philippe, the Alpha Course took off quickly and the parishioners appreciate it greatly.

Dominique and Dany Hevin came to reinforce the team in 2004 and 2005, and took on the responsibility for the Cana mission and also the Community's fraternal life and its links with the Brazilian brothers and sisters such as Joaquim and Marcia from Divinopolis who were interested in approaching the Community.

Regarding our Youth Mission, we have been running confirmation classes in the parish since 2004 and we organised preparations for the World Youth Days (WYD) in Germany in 2005 which were attended by five of our young people.

Fernando and Edilene are now living in neighbourhood fraternity, in accommodation near to the parish house.

Cana continues, but in the parish we prefer to run the Marriage Course.

Six months after the WYD in 2005, our young people and parishioners welcomed our first Chemin Neuf style Youth Festival, with a good Mary and Martha team, led by Dominique and Dany Hevin. A group of our young people from the parish, encouraged by Sister Beatrice, Flavio and Leandro and Agnes who came over from France, assembled some 100 participants for the festival.

The diocese of Belo Horizonte has today come to rely more and more on the Chemin Neuf Community, and Father Philippe Berger will shortly be asked to become a teacher at the local Seminary and named an Ecclesiastic Counsellor for the New Communities; Sister Beatrice has also been nominated a Counsellor.

The Alpha Course, thanks to the work of Father Philippe Berger, has been expanding rapidly in Brazil.

Brazil is a very rich country and the Church here is flourishing. Some of the new communities are expanding rapidly. Little by little we are finding our place and the reason for which the Lord called us to this city and this continent. Our parish and our parishioners are courageous and dynamic, they give without counting,; sometimes they question us concerning our presence with them and we try together to work out how best to combine our talents and to build up a fertile alliance. Mutual confidence is growing step by step, and it is they who are leading us to take the indispensable steps to absorb the culture of the continent and of Brazil. They are becoming more and more open to the Chemin Neuf Community and they now insist that we should just be ourselves and give all our talents.

SO, A SLOW FOUNDATION, YES! BUT SOLID AND DEEP, BUILT FROM STONES WHOSE NAMES ARE: LISTEN... MUTUAL RESPECT... PATIENCE... LOVE... RECIPROCITY... FORGIVENESS... HOPE... HEALING THE PAST... DOING THINGS TOGETHER.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain.” Psalm 127, 1 ... The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Published by CCN Brazil

Visit to DIVINOPOLIS, 18 February 2010

Thursday 18 February 2010

VISIT TO DIVINOPOLIS

On Saturday 6 February 2010 I paid a visit to Divinopolis, with Jacek who drove the parish car, Synara and little David.

Joaquim was waiting for us at Samaria House (La Samaritana), a fine modern building; you can see some photographs in the attached file: Synara in the waiting room (by the entrance hall) Joaquim and Janek in one of the classrooms, the multi-purpose hall and the chapel. On the level of the entrance, there are, in addition, another classroom, offices and meeting rooms. In the basement there is a large room that is used as the dining room and also where, twice a week, there is a distribution of food (11 products: rice, beans, pasta, coffee, sugar, cassava flour, oil, laundry soap, maize, salt and milk); this is provided by the municipality and is given to 35 needy families selected together with the town hall. These families receive a food parcel which they come to collect; they can also obtain clothes and shoes which have been given as gifts, toys for their children, and they can also visit the pharmacy which is located by the reception room. They are received by volunteers who serve them drinks and a meal, and this provides an opportunity for a time of evangelisation, a time of prayer and for making personal contacts. In addition these families are befriended by members of a team of twenty energetic and well trained people who visit them regularly. We were told by Joaquim that Samaria House was founded in 1998, and it was then the only the place that was helping the poorest people of Divinopolis.

Next to the large basement room there is a big kitchen which is also used for the preparation of meals for small groups, some of which, such as one from a neighbouring school, come regularly; this activity helps with the financing of the house. There are also some rooms used for storing food or other items that are given to the house, plus a room where a service offering psycho-motor education is just starting up. There are two small neighbouring buildings that are rented out as living accommodation, and these will become the property of Samaria House at the expiration of a loan agreement that was concluded three years ago with a neighbouring manufacturer. Samaria House is a privately owned organisation whose primary purpose is to be a training centre, that provides civic and religious education and teaches information technology to the students, terminating each year with a diploma award. At present there are 110 students, in eleven groups of ten. The teaching staff consists of three paid teachers plus several volunteers of high quality, that have been recruited by the information technology teacher.

The head of the school is Marcia Amaral, and her husband, Joaquim, acts are the school secretary and treasurer. I was very impressed by the professionalism of the staff and also by the amplitude of their undertaking with such limited means. And this is without counting the new projects: the modelling workshop, the psychomotor education service plus some others... The Amaral family invited us to lunch after out visit in the “casa familia sanctuario de vida” (family house and sanctuary for life), the house in which they live and which they have modified to accommodate two single people. They themselves live on the ground floor; it is a house that Joaquim has made inhabitable and which keeps on growing. The house is situated on a plot of around 19,000 m2, of which 9,000 m2 can be used for building, but this must be in such a way that the municipality will also be able to build a sports ground. There is already an existing building with a large covered hall which has been used for some years for holding training courses for young people and couples.

We are attaching a a folder of photographs which includes a plan of the plot, on which the existing buildings are shown. Joaquim also showed me a plan of the proposed projects: a community and retreat centre, a church, and several small bungalows to accommodate participants attending courses. In this way courses of a week or even of thirty days can be envisaged. In addition there is a project for a building to be used as a student hostel. The whole project now needs to be put in its final form and the cost estimated, so that a building time -table can be established. There will be an account of the visit that Daniel Rengade made to Belo Horizonte on 5 February 2010 in our next publication.

Daniel Rengade

You can read the most recent letter from Tiphaine, a JET (young volunteer) at Divinopolis, for another point of view of the situation there.