An online meeting of the Conference of Europe and Africa (CEA) took place on Tuesday, 28 April at 15:30 GMT. An earlier date had already been set for this meeting, but because of the travel restrictions we are experiencing thanks to Coronavirus it could not be held in person. The coordinator of CEA, Martin Könisgtein, facilitated the virtual meeting using the Jitsi platform for video conferencing. Taking part were Camille Sapu (provincial of Africa), Michael Ruddy (Ireland/England), Aurelio Cayon (Iberian province), Christian Flottes (France), Wojciech Kotowski (Poland), Gilbert de Decker (superior of the delegation of Flanders), Derek Laverty (in Rome) and Alberto Toutin (in Chile). Jan Wouters, who has replaced Jan Munsters (recently deceased), and who is now responsible for the service of animation of the Delegation of the Netherlands was, sadly, unable to connect to the meeting. Instead he sent a letter in which he describes the situation that the brothers of the Delegation have gone through.
The primary objective of this meeting was to hear from the brothers of the communities that make up CEA how each group is coping. In general, all the communities have been affected by this situation, and some more so on account of the death of some brothers. We also heard of the pain of many families who were unable to accompany their deceased in the last goodbyes and who, in the best of cases, could only do so through a very simple liturgy, performed by lay people or priests and with very few people present. In this context, we have had to make do with and intensify other ways of coming together whether through prayer in the chapel or by participating online in the farewell liturgy. Some brothers shared on how the pandemic is impacting on the life of families everywhere, especially through the loss of work and, in some cases, the lack of food. Charitable works have multiplied, as have the ways of maintaining links with the Christian communities, and especially with people who are alone.
The meeting lasted almost three hours. It was a good initiative and good use of these new forms of communication that we are using to keep us close and more than ever united in prayer, as we seek to care for our brothers and sisters and help those who need it most.
04/29/2020