13-15 August 2016

With the joy of meeting each other and strengthening our spirituality, a national meeting of the Lay Camillian Family of Colombia was held at the Camillian Pastoral Centre for Humanisation and Pastoral care in Health of Bogota. 120 people took part and they came from eleven cities of Colombia.

The meeting took place as though it were a spiritual retreat, with room for personal thought and group discussions. The subjects that were addressed were: ‘Jesus Christ: the Visible Face of the Mercy of the Father’; ‘Let us Renew the Mercy of the Lord’; ‘The Ministers of Mercy’; and ‘Camillus in the Footsteps of the Merciful Christ’. During the discussions, it emerged that as the Lay Camillian Family is now going through the Holy Year of Mercy, our mission is to renew the gift that we have received and to be like Jesus: the visible face of the love of the Father.

We ended our meeting with a celebration of the Eucharist, when eight people made their first pledge, twenty-six made their second pledge, and everyone else renewed their pledges. At the present time two hundred people belong to the Lay Camillian Family of Colombia.

We said goodbye to each other with great love, strengthened spiritually and with various challenges to address, placing our service in the hands of the Lord and praying to the Blessed Virgin and to St. Camillus, asking them to help us to continue in our work.