Jan 2014 The Road to Daybreak A Spiritual Journey by Henri J M Nouwen

Continue from ...... The Covenant This is a covenant retreat. A covenant retreat is a retreat in which those who have lived and worked at L'Arche for some years are invited to announce publicly the covenant with Jesus and the poor which has grown in them. Announcing the covenant is not a vow, nor even a promise. It is a public acknowledgement that a special bond with the poor and with Jesus, who lives in the poor, has developed over the years. This covenant is something new in the Church. It does not make you a member of an order or religious association. It does not incorporate you into an institution. It does not give you special status or privilege. It does not bind you to stay at L'Arche and continue working with mentally handicapped people. The covenant is something much more intimate, personal, and hidden. It is a bonding that is not created, but acknowledge as haivng in fact taken place. It is a work of God that is announced to brothers and sisters of the same community. The announcement is a witness to what God is doing through Jesus in people who work with the poor, and is thus a sign of hope and encouragement for all who search to be faithful to the Gospel. It is very clear that I am far from announcing the covenant myself. I have just come to know L'Arche and have not yet lived full-time in a foyer. I know something of the spirituality of L'Arche, but that knowledge has not yet become flesh in me. I am drawn to various handicapped people and assistants, but a deep bonding with them has not yet taken place. I need to "live L'Arche" much longer and more deeply, so that the covenant can grow in me; only then can I announce it to others as a gift freely given to me. This retreat is making me aware of how fragmented my life has been so far. There has been so much individualism, competition, rivalry, privileges, favours, and exceptions in my way of living that few deep and lasting bonds could grow. But Jesus came to create bonds, and living in, with, and through Jesus means discovering these bonds in myself and revealing them to others. There are bonds between handicapped people and their assistants, between handicapped people and their families, between handicapped people and their neighbours, and most of all between handicapped people and their fellow handicapped people. There are bonds between Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians, between Christians and those who believe in God, between those who believe in God and all who share the same humanity. There are bonds between human beings and animals, between human beings and the earth, and between human beings and the whole universe. Satan divides, pulls apart, fragments, and disrupts. Jesus united, reconciles, heals, and restores. Wherever we experience bonding, there is Jesus. He came to invite us to enter with him into that intimate covenant that exists between himself and his Father. This is the bond that is the source and goal of all bonding. All creation is called to unity with God in and through Jesus, whose whole being is being bonded in love to his divine Father.

- To Be Continued - © Copyright Shalom 2013. All rights reserved.