Hello to everyone,
I hope you are doing well, at least as well as can be expected….
We are currently living in a completely new situation, with much more rigorous confinement than wartime curfews - which should make it possible to safeguard the health of as many people as possible, and to help our health professionals in their courageous battle against an invisible enemy.
So here we are locked up, more or less surrounded, in situations which are also more or less comfortable. For many people, professional activity is suspended or has greatly diminished, and social activities are prohibited.
It is a major change in our lifestyles, the discovery of a time that seemed to have escaped us, time that we can enjoy with our loved ones, but which also forces us to live in a group together continuously, without leaving our individual spaces.
It is also the rediscovery offered of the Sabbath as a privileged time to pray, reflect, take a break in our lives.
For the Church, these are questions we could never have envisaged: the holding of services has never been totally prohibited. In our country it seemed impossible that the exercise of worship would ever be disallowed... This prohibition is our secular duty, and we would not jeopardise the whole of society by breaking rules intended to protect us.
So…..
How to live community and communion without an assembly?
How to live the fraternity without contacts?
How to share, support, help, without meeting?
We have an essential role to play in this crisis as in any crisis. To carry a message of hope, to defuse the mechanisms of fear by following Jesus, to be present, support, listen to those who need it, to accompany those who can benefit from this time off to advance in their path of faith...
This is why our presbyteral council, in its first video meeting, decided to take advantage of the available IT tools. I must admit, personally, I have tried to avoid them as much as possible in my pastoral ministry, in order to preserve the treasure that is our own social network where we meet, look each other in the eyes, shake hands , contemplate each other without makeup filters ... but as none of this is possible and we refuse that confinement rhymes with isolation, we offer meeting times from Friday 20th March with:
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Lectio Divina every day (except Sunday) from 5 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
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Worship on Sundays at 6 p.m.
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A permanence on skype every day from 10h to noon (invite Temple Chamonix in contact)
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A hotline outside the time of other "activities" at 04 50 55 85 60
Please contact us to have the Zoom meeting link sent to you.
If you cannot join these groups, send us an email at templechamonix@gmail.com with your skype credentials, and we will invite you manually.
Not being experts in these technologies, we expose ourselves to problems at the beginning, but we will try to do everything to be able to maintain our community bond and join in prayer to carry all those who suffer or help, who doubt or who seek, in confidence in the blessing of our Father.
Romain Gavache
