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.