ARCAN Conference an Enriching and Transformative Experience

By:  Peggy Gorman, rscj-A

Anne Walsh, an associate and lay missionary of the Redemptorist congregation, challenged us to live in the truth of who we are in our call to relationship as religious and associates and in the wider context as a people of God. 

Participants at ARCAN Conference, June 6-7, 2014,
Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS.

Anne called us to be inclusive in our actions and attitudes and she reminded us that we come to this relationship with our gifts and talents but also with our weaknesses and limitations. 

Each of us forms a part without which there is no whole!

It would be impossible to recreate the conference in a few words so I will attempt to provide you with a few highlights:

We began with an icebreaker that created a clock of appointments and this clock was the resource for partner discussion each time we were given a series of questions.  These proved to be “teaser” discussions given the short time we had.  However, they can form the basis for continued discussion in our daily lives.

Anne reminded us that:

We are a people gathered around the Good News to witness and to participate in the same mission, the journey itself. We need to remember that wherever we go, God is there first.

God calls us in the deepest core of our beings, through our life experiences. We are partners in mission.

Charism is a gift that:

• gives us a vision to perceive the Gospel from a particular aspect such as love, hospitality, education, response to the poor.
• is incarnational as we discover how God continues to take flesh in this moment within us and     within others and is birthed as we live that aspect of the Gospel that animates us.
• is the mission or the journey itself made by walking the path which honors the past and allows us to live into a new and dynamic expression of religious life and spiritual meaning.
• is fruitful when we build up and nurture the Reign of God through the gifts of the Spirit.

The conference provided an opportunity for us to form new relationships and widen the embrace.  We were truly enriched and transformed by this time together.

On the eve of Pentecost, I found this prayer which for me summed up our time together

Sophia, Wisdom of the ages,
Guide me to the place where I am supposed to be.
To the task that I am supposed to do.
To the person(s) I am supposed to love.

For the gift of Anne’s wisdom, musical talent, sensitivity to others and the sharing of her personal journey, I pray in thanksgiving.