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Where do we stand with respect to the promise that we made upon entering IVI?

When you get back home, I would like you to look at problems differently : the group is not drudgery, nor an obligation. It is an act of love. For a start, it is a richness for you because you can express yourself with others, in front of others – as a family – about what has bothered you that week or about what has happened in your respective countries.

Today, after this Seminar, I would like to tell you how much you are implicated in your promise. For a long time, one would serve, one went to one's group or triad, without really understanding the meaning of this mission. Sure, one would help people, one tried to harmonize, to console... The time given to the group or triad was an offering which cost us dearly, in many ways. To offer one's time is huge: it is to offer money and energy; yet today I would like us to realize that it isn't that! Do you imagine God is unaware of what you have to end the month with or to start the next? Is He unaware of whether you have as much food or drink as you would like? And in such agreeable comfort! We must tell ourselves, that if we have all that, it is partly thanks to Him, no?

So when you get back home, I would like you to look at problems differently: the group is not drudgery, it is not an obligation, it is an act of love. For a start, it is a richness for you because you can express yourself with others, in front of others – as a family – about what has bothered you that week or about what has happened in your respective countries. When we go to our triad, we must have another outlook. You support countries, practically continents by their size... You have ideas, you have imagination, I have seen so and I notice it every day, but I regret that you are not affirmative enough in your prayer intentions for the countries you support.

When missions are leaving for various, sometimes far-away, countries, the triad members can contribute financially and choose one or two persons to send in their places; you will be witnesses and the person(s) will carry all of the love that is given to them and to the country. I think it is through this strength of solidarity that we will manage to get the better of our sleepiness. Because we are sleeping!

And Christ tells us : wake up! Wake up! Wake up because the time is near! What does this mean? We are accelerating the time, take global warming for example... We have seen the film, Home, which showed planetary disasters. We can remedy it because we have contributed to this disaster. One way or another, each one of us is responsible. So we need not pride ourselves about being above others; we are like others, and as such, together we must repair the soiling of the earth.

And ever more, I bring your attention to the power of prayer said together and with the heart, so that you may truly become living witnesses. What does it mean to be living witnesses? On this earth, you are the body of Christ; you represent Him on earth. And when we give testimony, when we become a witness, the body of Christ is within life, within humanity, surrounded by torments, grievances, and human suffering. To become a witness, is to look, to understand, to notice the damage done, but not to enter into sadness, nor to try to carry the weight of other people's suffering. That does no good and God does not ask this of us. He simply asks you one thing: remain as you are but transform your state of mind. Be vigilant to not fall into the hands of the Devil. You very well know that we are never vigilant enough. Looking at our families, what do we fight over? Not much! There is jealousy, pride, envy, everything imaginable... Why do we fight? How can you expect our children, our youths, to have a compassionate look towards the adult world? Do we really show them an image that they would want to see? If you would like your children to be what you dream for them, give them the means to become so, by being living examples!