SAFCAM Communique #64 - English

SAFCAM Communique #64            14/08/2021

Dear Subscribers

Happy feast of the great Maximillian Kolbe, and of course, of the feast of the Assumption tomorrow.

Mary’s Assumption: One giant leap for mankind!

When man set foot on the moon, he said a phrase that became famous: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” In essence, humanity had reached a historical goal. But today, in Mary’s Assumption into Heaven, we celebrate an infinitely greater conquest. The Madonna has set foot in paradise: she went there not only in spirit, but with her body as well, with all of herself.

This step of the lowly Virgin of Nazareth was the huge leap forward for humanity. Going to the moon serves little purpose if we do not live as brothers and sisters on Earth. But that one of us dwells in the flesh in Heaven gives us hope: we understand that we are precious, destined to rise again. God does not allow our bodies to vanish into nothing. With God, nothing is lost!

In Mary, the goal has been reached and we have before our eyes the reasons why we journey: not to gain the things here below, which vanish, but to achieve the homeland above, which is forever. And Our Lady is the star that guides us. She went there first. She, as the Council teaches, shines “as a sign of sure hope and solace to the People of God during its sojourn on earth” (Lumen gentium, 68).

-             Pope Francis, Angelus, August 15, 2020

More than rumours of war ?

Amidst the tragedies given attention for the past week has been the escalation of armed conflict in both Ethiopia and Afghanistan, with the terrorizing of the ordinary citizens. It was hoped that in this new millennium, settling political matters would no longer be through the barrel of the guns but through negotiations and democratic processes. But we see that all the wonderful lessons of history regarding the need for win-win solutions rather than lose-lose conclusions, have still not been learnt. The only thing we learn from history is that people never learn from history. We need to pray that these battles do not degenerate into all out civil wars and even spread into international chaos.

Online Resources

I am fortunate to have more time than most confreres presently to explore some of the useful resources available on the internet, especially in the fields of education, catechetical and youth and family ministry.

From the 12^th-15^th August, there are two virtual and free catholic conferences online, and I am catching some of the superb talks being presented by professionals: One is the 2021 Southeast Catechist Conference (USA) with 130 talks ranging from 15-50 minutes, and the other is the EPIC Marriage Conference coordinated by Damon Owens who has 12 couples and a priest share their one hour long testimonies on Emotional intimacy, Physical intimacy, Intellectual intimacy and Communicative intimacy, and all of them presenting very deeply spiritual insights into the vocation of marriage and the family. It serves for ongoing formation and as spiritual exercises, and it is a great pity that because of our over-active schedules, we generally are not able to take time to make use of the many opportunities we have for such enrichment. Unfortunately these talks are only gratis during the days of such conferences and then need payment to access at other times or to download them. But there is also plenty of permanent free resources. If you have a moment – try the following two websites which have been publicised during this catechetical conference:

www.CredibleCatholic.com which provides super powerpoint presentations for use in catechetical lessons

www.bulldogCatholic.org which has great pastoral answers to contemporary issues and homiletic ideas

www.exoduscry.com which provides education against human-trafficking and exploitation…

As for what we recommended you to look at on www.safcam.org  this week, click on –

- An article from ACI  about our confrere Fr Arasu and his plea to invest more in the promotion of marriage

- An article titled - A Bigger Investing Opportunity Than TikTok which may seem of no relevance to us but…

- An explanation of the METAVERSE – which is going to move us to the next level of internet communication

Finally, we noticed that the last third of last week’s communique did not reach you for some reason, so unless you open the pdf format of it, you would have missed the last part – so we paste it here:

Test your awareness:

-             Who is the present general councillor for the salesian missions?

-             What is the URL for DBTech-Africa’s website?

-             Who is the provincial of MOZ?

-             What is the latest motu proprio of Pope Francis (‘Traditionis Custodes’) about?

-             What is the ‘Kalam argument’?

-             Which are the three countries that were at the top of the medal table at the Tokyo Olympics?

-             Who was the first transgender ‘woman’ to compete in weightlifting at the Olympics?

-             What does SOGI stand for? And CSE?

-             Define the concept ‘WOKE’ (it’s not the past tense of ‘wake’ BTW!).

-             Who are the Uyghurs?

We will award “bragging rights” to anyone who sends in the correct replies to safcam@safcam.org

Click here https://youtu.be/Kn9twPF6r7E  - to watch the 1-minute Calgiero video for August on the topic – What is the church about?

Visit www.safcam.org and try the quiz on our constitutions among the more than 30 other new postings of the past weeks. Some articles are posted in both French and English, but most are only in one language. So if you know both languages, have a look at both sections of the website!

God bless - Camiel and François