Love More! The 2015CFC International Leaders’ Conference

CFC Defines Mission to the Poor at the BCOP Summit

Catch More By Loving More

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THE Mall of asia arena be-came a sea of red last January 10 as thousands of members of Couples for Christ, clad in the red Love More shirts, filled the venue to attend the commu-nity’s first major global activity for 2015.

Held annually during the second week of January, the Leaders Conference, the biggest gathering of CFC missionaries from all over the world, had the theme LOVE MORE, inspired by John 21:15-17.

To formally start the event, the PNPA Marching Band played the CFC Theme to accompany the Parade of Flags of 128 coun-tries and 7 territories where CFC is active. 

Davis Abuel, SOLD Provincial Co-ordinator of Leyte, led the crowd in a powerful opening worship. To help the CFC community remember God's faith-fulness, El Gamma Penumbra performed an exceptionally moving shadow dance depicting the victories and trials of the

previous years. Session 1, titled "Love", was delivered

by CFC Executive Director George Cam-pos with sharers Cynthia Campos and Rachel Arguelles who both inspired the audience with their personal love stories with the Lord. 

ANCOP Scholar Eugene Rubio thanked the community for giving him the chance to have a better future through the gift of education. As a token of gratitude for the community's generosity, he promised to do well in school and make CFC proud of having him as a scholar. 

CFC Chairman Joe Tale gave the com-munity's marching orders in the second session titled "Feed My Sheep." Picking up from Campos’ bold statements that to love more means we are to pray more, study more, serve more, fellowship more, and hunger more for the sacraments, Tale shared that the true measure of loving our God is when we fully commit to obey His command and feed His sheep. 

Glenn Santayana, CFC USA serving in South America, inspired the crowd to be bold enough to say yes to the Lord despite

uncertainties, knowing fully that when God calls, He equips. Aileen Serrano, wife of the late Bob Serrano, leader of the 29 AD Band and core member of the national music ministry, moved the audience with a powerful insight called "finishing grace" - dying in faith, dying with joy, and becom-ing everything that God wants you to be. 

The sessions ended with the members of the International Council leading the community in a Prayer of Empower-ment, recognizing that CFC cannot move forward as one and cannot accomplish anything without the grace of God. This was followed by a spirit-filled praisefest led by young couple and KFC FTPWs Chino and Gretchen Santos. 

The event concluded with the highest form of worship, the Holy Mass, officiated by Most Rev. Guillermo Afable, Bishop of Digos, Davao del Sur, with CFC Spiritual Director Msgr. Allen Aganon, Fr. Socrates Mesiona of the Pontifical Missions Soci-eties, and other brother priests who have become partners with CFC in renewing families and building generations of Christian leaders. 

Four hundred and nine leaders of Couples for Christ from 40 countries gathered as one last January 9, 2015 (Friday) at SMX Convention Center in Pasay City, Philip-pines.

To know more how to “Love More” was the main focus of the 3rd CFC Global Leaders Empowerment Convention, as it is also the community’s theme for 2015.

The event officially started with the celebration of the Holy Mass, with Fr.

Mario Sobrejuanite as main presider, together with Fr. Mrutyunjay Digal of India as concelebrant. During his final blessing, Fr. Mario encouraged everyone to “Go and truly shine brightly with the light of Christ.”

After the Holy Mass, the CFC leaders raised their hands in worship to thank the Lord for a fruitful year that was and to ask for God’s mercy to do more for this year. The worship was led by Alex Gosianto, National Director of CFC Indonesia.

George Campos, the CFC Executive Director and Metro Manila Missions Director, shared the CFC Global Report for 2014 and challenged everyone to

By Aiza Garnica

By Aiza Garnica

In THE spirit of its two-fold mission of Building the Church of the Home and Building the Church of the Poor, Couples for Christ held the BCoP Summit on January 10, 2015 at the SMX Convention Center. BCoP, or Building the Church of

the Poor, is CFC’s umbrella organization for its work with the poor program.

Present in the event were BCOP leaders, led by BCOP head and Interna-tional Council member Jose Yamamoto, and representatives from areas where CFC actively serves. 

Jaycee Dela Cruz, BCOP fulltime worker, opened the program with the

not be afraid to go on mission and spread the Good News to the ends of the earth. He exhorted everyone to be mindful that “What we have done, though impressive, is still too little. We need to love more.”

Manny Garcia, Nonoy Dalman, Jimmy Ilagan, Mannix Ocampo and James Solano, continent overseers of Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Ocea-nia, respectively, presented reports on evangelization efforts in their continents, highlighting breakthroughs, new areas and territories and specific challenges encoun-tered. All of them echoed one appeal -- for

By Aiza Garnica

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C1CBCP Monitor February 2 - 15, 2015 Vol. 19 No. 3

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morning worship. CFC ANCOP President and member of the CFC International Council Jimmy Ilagan welcomed the delegates. 

Session 1, titled "New Evangelization: Mission to the Poor", was delivered by Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu who called Couples for Christ the joy and the hope of the Church. His talk highlighted the commu-nity’s special call to serve the least, the last, and the lost. 

Jerry Pompong Jr. and Bernie Cueto shared their stories of loving the poor and being loved as well. 

Session 2 followed with CFC ANCOP Chairman Joe Yamamoto sharing the irreplaceable role of BCOP in the realization of the mission and its directions for

2015, which also happens to be the Year of the Poor. Inspired by “Mercy and Compassion”, the theme of Pope Francis's visit to the Philippines, CFC, through BCOP, is affirmed and challenged to help make the country truly a nation of mercy and compassion. 

The audience was given the opportunity to voice out their opinions in a panel discussion with Jimmy Ilagan as the moderator and Arnel Santos, Joe Yamamoto, and the Social Development Program Heads as the panelists. Synthesis and final announcements were given by Santos afterwards. 

Elmer Cadiz, who heads the CFC ANCOP operations, closed the summit with a powerful worship.

The Pope’s Challenge to Love More

THE regular teaching night of CFC, held on Tuesday, January 20, coming just a day after Pope Francis ended his five-day pastoral visit to the Philippines, had an apt topic—the lessons the Pope imparted to his Philippine flock.

Fr. Benedict Lagarde, Missionary of Jesus, was the night’s speaker and he began by emphasizing that the Pope’s visit was all about the Lord shepherding His people through His vicar on earth. The theme of the papal visit, after all, was “The Shepherd in Sri Lanka and the Philippines—the Challenge of Shepherding Those in Leadership.”

Fr. Benedict called the Pope a true shepherd because in spite of his being 78 years old, having only one functioning lung and facing challenges from within and outside the Church, he decided to go on this trip even though he could have opted not to. He made the grueling trip in order to shepherd his flock. “In Sri Lanka, it was to reassure the flock, coming out of the ravages of civil war, that he is mindful of their situation as a minority. In the Philippines, it was to reassure his flock that he is mindful of them as they are coming out of the ravages of typhoon Yolanda.”

Fr. Benedict compared this kind of shepherding to the kind of service we as CFC leaders give our members. He said, “This is what shepherding is all about – your flock need to be reassured of your intimate presence during their mo-ment of greatest need. There is no excuse for not being there when your flock needs you.”

He continued: “You are excused if you are not around during their moments of celebration and tri-umph. But you are not excused when something bad happens to the group you are leading and you are not there. Do not make the excuse that you are weak. The Pope has only one lung. Do not say ‘I am old.” The Pope is older. And please do not use the excuse that your member lives so far away. The Pope traveled thousands of miles just to be with us.”

Referring to the Manila Cathe-dral Mass that the Pope celebrat-ed, Fr. Benedict said that “When you in CFC heard the Pope use John 21:15-17 as the Gospel message, I am sure it sent shivers down your spine, especially the International Council. I am sure they exclaimed in their hearts “Oh my God! The Pope is using the same Bible text that gave life to the theme Love More!”

Fr. Benedict reiterated that Love More is the Pope’s greatest challenge to all of us. Placing Love More within the context of Scripture, Fr. Benedict said that despite Peter be-traying and denying him, Jesus was awesomely good in that he resur-rected from the dead. Resurrection had to happen so that his disciples may be reconciled with him. If he did not return from the grave, reconciliation could never have taken place. And mission, which is a natural progression from reconcili-ation, could never have happened.

The Bible text describes that Je-sus prepared a meal for his disciples on the seashore. And he did this right after he experienced betrayal, abandonment, and death. “This is what makes Jesus awesome – this was a meal of reconciliation and mission,” Fr. Benedict said.

The Real Meaning Of Love More

Joe Tale

WHEn the IC emerged from our September 2014 annual retreat with a new theme – Love More - taken from John 21:15-17, we did not fully anticipate what the theme would require from all of us in community.

We knew that Love More emerged from Jesus’ question to Peter: “Do you love me more than these?” We knew that Jesus asked this same ques-tion three times and Peter’s reply of “Yes, Lord” each time elicited Jesus’s response of “Feed my sheep”. We knew that Jesus was giving Peter three chances to negate the three instances of his betrayal. What we didn’t know then was how far our own understanding of “Feed my sheep” would take us or how much would be expected of us.

As we began to internalize the theme “Love More,” we realized all of us in community are being asked by the Lord to do so much more than we ever did in our entire 33 year history. It was humbling to realize that even as we took pride in our many accomplishments – 128 countries and 7 territories, new programs and ministries, our Vatican recogni-tion, testimonials from clergy all over the world – we have actually not done enough. There are 195 countries in the world and we have presence in only 128! There are hundreds of millions of people who don’t know Christ in the world and we brag about our million members. There are millions of children everywhere who do not have the benefit of education and we take pride in the thousands we are sponsoring. There are ten million OFWs and we have not even touched the tip of the iceberg in terms of the families they have left behind.

We also realized that Jesus’ question to Peter: “Do you love me more than these?” takes on special significance when applied to our personal and com-munity life. As we began to look at the implications of this question in relation to loving more, we saw that indeed, we needed to take a second and third look at the obstacles to our service to the Lord. These include our careers, our desires and dreams, our friendships, our hobbies and interests, even the sins and resentments we continue to harbor in our hearts.

It was overwhelming to think about the ramifi-cations of Love More. We thought that since all of us in community are already geared to loving a wider spectrum than simply our families, it would be quite easy to expand our horizons and love more people. We thought it simply meant expressing our love more to those we already love. But God is actually asking us to show that we love Him more by sacrificing more, serving more, doing more,

loving even the unlovable.More and more we realized that it wasn’t that

simple. It became clear that indeed, we have done too little and we will continue to do little things in little arenas if we do not ascribe to Loving More in the very real sense that God intends for us.

We are awed and grateful that Pope Francis, at the Mass he celebrated at the Manila Cathedral, used the very same Bible verse that our theme is anchored on – John 21:15-17 – as the Gospel reading. We are humbled that our theme is attuned to the spirit that moves in our Church leaders. Indeed, Pope Francis’ entire papal visit had Love More as recurring theme – when he stopped to kiss the children, when he met with the poor, when he embraced the old nuns and priests, when he refused to back away from his commitment to go to Ta-cloban even in the face of the typhoon, donning a yellow raincoat over his vestments in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands who stood in the rain.

I salute all the CFC volunteers who, through their very humble contributions, helped in the preparations and conduct of this papal visit. There were more than 22,000 CFC volunteers, some who acted as human shield along the papal route, some who labored for weeks prior to the event as part of the CBCP organizing committees, some who served in the media center, seeing nothing but their computers all day long, knowing that they would never even see the Pope in person. We are proud of you and of the way you showed the true spirit of volunteerism and servanthood.

On a somber note, I also salute the 44 Special Action Force members of the Philippine National Police who lost their lives in an encounter with the MILF. They showed what love of country is all about, what gallantry and nobility truly mean. It is very sad to know that three of the Fallen 44 were members of the Singles for Christ: Police Senior In-spector Ryan B. Pabalinas (who had gotten married and whose wife spoke on behalf of all the widows and families), Police Senior Inspector Gebnat G. Tabdi, and Police Inspector Rennie Tayrus. One of the 44, Russel B. Bilog, Police Officer 1, was the brother of our CFC leader in Cuomo, Italy.

This incident has caused us to resolve to do more for the men and women in uniform. CFC will extend assistance to the families of our fallen breth-ren. But we will also intensify our efforts to bring God’s message to the military schools and camps.

As we begin the second month of 2015, let our resolve to love more grow stronger, even if we know that loving more could lead to great sacrifices, a lot of work and many difficult challenges ahead. With our great God showing the way, we also know that we can look forward to the great joy that loving more will bring.

Directly addressing the younger CFC present, Fr. Benedict cau-tioned them “not to forget the generation that came before you. I hope you recognize the sacrifices of those who served before you, the contributions they gave that makes CFC what it is now. Many of the CFC who are now seniors provided a steadying hand when CFC went through severe storms caused by the splits. Let us not forget what they suffered – con-fusion, sorrow, lost sleep, tears, broken relationships – but in spite of all these, they still provided the steadying hand. “

Moving on to the Pope’s hom-ily during the Mass in the airport in Tacloban, Leyte, Fr. Benedict mentioned that Pope Francis’ message was “I have nothing to tell you.” It is because it is God’s Word that we should seek and speak. Fr. Benedict stressed that if there is one sin we all commit, it is that we always think we have an explanation for what is happen-ing, that our followers, our flock are always waiting for our word. But they are not, because they are waiting for the life giving word of the Lord, not ours.

Concluding, Fr. Benedict ex-horted CFC to “Just help the poor. Don’t spend too much time defin-ing who the poor are. Widows, orphans, the sick, the landless and sinners are the least, the last and the lost. And it is exactly to the last, lost and least that the Shepherd was sent.”

Fr. Benedict invited everyone to: First, go back to all the homilies of the Pope; second, have a silent moment and ponder on them, and third, celebrate the coming of God who shepherded us through the coming of the Vicar of Christ.

more missionaries in their areas.The call is now out for mis-

sion volunteers. Indeed, to love more is to connect as one, to move as one and to support one another in our community’s awesome task of bringing the world to Christ.

During the afternoon wor-ship, Michael Bay, Country Head of CFC Malaysia ex-horted, “Mission is not easy, it is always full of crisis but we will be empowered as long as we have the courage to ask the Lord.”

Jun Uriarte, Chairman of the CFC Institute, the new subsidiary of CFC, introduced CFCI, and how it aims to educate, train, foster research and innovation, manage and share knowledge, so that lead-ers and missionaries may realize the mission of CFC and the Church in proclaiming Christ to the world. Soon, the Institute will develop and offer degree and non-degree courses that will serve and promote the mis-sion and vision of CFC.

Afterwards, the participants were grouped into different

workshops to further deepen their understanding of the different pro-grams of the community.

Mannix Ocampo, Ablaze Chair-man, and Rommel Ancheta, Ablaze President, encouraged everyone to “Catch More Fish” using the products and offerings of Ablaze.

George Campos and Jess Ferrer, the Migrants Program Head, shared during the Migrants Program workshop the highlights of the 7th World Congress on the Pastoral Care for Migrants and Itinerant people and emphasized that the pro-gram is also an evangelization tool.

Rouquel Ponte, Church In-tegration Office (CIO) Head and Pastoral Formation Office (PFO) Consultant, reminded those who attended the CIO workshop that “We are called to holiness; for it is the very measure of Christian living.” During this workshop, Arnel Santos, PFO Director, explained the CFC culture and the different roles of the PFO coordinators in the sectors, provinces and countries. Kirby Llaban, overall PFO Co-ordinator, expounded on the leaders’ formation track.

Joe Tale, CFC Chairman and International Missions Director, gave the last session for the day titled Daybreak. He reminded everyone that “We start the year with “Love More”, but because of the new opportunities that the Lord is giving us, He is also calling us to continuously “Behold and Ponder.” So let us always ask the Lord in prayer to teach us to still do more, give more, sacrifice more and love more.”

The Chairman also conveyed the Pope’s call for “spirit-filled evangelizers” and concluded his session by calling all those who are fearlessly open to the workings of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the joy of the Gospel. He exhorted everyone to be bold in proclaiming the Gospel in every time and place even in the face of opposition.

During the prayer for em-powerment, CFC declared, “Almighty Father, take away the words “No” and “fear” and replace them with “Yes”, faith, courage and love.”

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CFC ANCOP Open Golf Year 4: Faith, Fellowship, Fundraising

CFC Honors 3 PNP SAF Troopers in MM MC Assembly

GPSI Finalists Experience ANCOP for a Day

CouPlES for Christ members, sponsor representatives, and anCoP sup-porters all over Metro Manila and the provinces hit the greens last January 13, 2015 at the Villamor Golf Club for the annual CFC anCoP open Golf Tournament.

This is the fourth installment of the tournament which aims to raise funds for CFC ANCOP scholars under its Child Sponsorship Program. The golf tournament supports 10 scholars to date. Funds raised this year will be used for the current roster and to add new scholars.

Golfers enjoyed 18 holes of golf, a superb lunch and raffle prizes. ANCOP scholars Crisanto Clarino and Pauline Enecillo shared their stories and expressed their gratitude to ANCOP during lunch.

The following took home the championship trophies:

Class C Champion: Eric ZunigaClass B Champion: Robert QuiogieClass A Champion: Vital ZabalaIndividual Low Gross Champion: Rodney CatayongCFC ANCOP Open Champion: Bong CatabayCFC ANCOP Open Team Champion: CFC Pangasinan

The CFC ANCOP Golf Open was made possible through Event Sponsors GT Radial and KiG Glassware, and hole sponsors Meralco Power, Birmingham Homeowners Dev't. Corp., Livestock Shelter Concepts, Sison Tagayuna Construction and Development Corporation, CFC ANCOP KSA, CFC ANCOP QATAR and CFC ANCOP UAE.

The Child Sponsorship Program provides educational assistance for elementary, high school and college/technical/vocational students.

CSP is a one-on-one-sponsorship by a donor partner to a poor child or youth, pre-qualified from the funded communities of the ANCOP donor network and CFC ANCOP covered areas/ target groups. 

For more information about how the CFC ANCOP-Tekton Foundation is supporting poor students, visit www.cfcancop.org. (Romeo M. Medina)

THE METro Manila Mission Core honored the Fallen 44, members of the PNP Special Action Force who were killed in Mamasapano, Magu-indanao last January 25, 2015. Three of the troopers were active mem-bers of CFC Singles for Christ while they were cadets in the Philippine national Police academy--PSr. Insp. ryan B. Pabalina (SFC 2006), PSr. Insp. rennie l. Tayrus and PInsp. Gednat Tabdi (SFC 2010).

According to Dong Tacocong of CFC Cavite, several couples, including himself, stood as foster parents to some of these cadets while they were in the Academy. He recalled, "We would pick them up during weekends and holidays when they were allowed to leave the Academy. We would bring them to our homes, and take them along to SFC activities."

CFC salutes these brothers in Christ, and the community praises God for making CFC Singles for Christ an instrument in planting the seed of renewed faith in these young men.

CFC will extend assistance to the families the troopers left behind. Please continue to pray for all the Fallen 44 who gave their lives in pursuit of their sworn duty, truly examples of gallantry and nobility.

THE DZMM World Caravan Global Pinoy Singing Idol finalists expe-rienced anCoP at the CFC anCoP aVanaI Community in Visayas Avenue, Quezon City last January 23, 2015. The immersion was part of their duties as GPSI winners of their respective countries.

The five finalists, plus a guest performer from Indonesia, were given an orientation and actually helped in the construction work ongoing in the community.

GPSI is a partnership between DZMM Teleradyo and CFC ANCOP for the benefit of the Child Sponsorship Program and ANCOP Shelter. The World Caravan annually searches for Filipino singing champions who are living abroad through a talent search competition in different countries. The win-ners are then brought to Manila to compete in the championship round.

This year's champion is Jing Wenghofer, a music teacher living in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Alessandra Joy Morales, also from the USA, and Kristine Karremans of The Netherlands were runners-up. (Alma Alvarez)

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ANCOP Bets Win Big In GPSI

Mercy and Compassion:Real and Personal

By Karen Joy C. Alcober“When I saw from rome the catastrophe, I felt that I had to be here. on those very days, I decided to come here. I’m here to be with you. a little bit late, sad to say, but I am here...” With these words, Pope Francis touched the hearts of the estimated 200,000 pilgrims from the Diocese of Palo and other dioceses, schools, civic groups and institutions who attended the Mass he cele-brated at the Tacloban airport on January 17, 2015. Many of them braved the elements and walked for hours just to be able to catch a glimpse of the beloved Pontiff.

It has been 14 long months since super typhoon Yolanda wreaked havoc in Taclo-ban, Leyte and other nearby provinces, resulting in thousands of deaths, hundreds still missing and displacing hundreds of thousands. Pope Francis, with his words of comfort, assuaged the pain of the typhoon victims and brought hope that indeed, the Lord is present in our daily lives.

The airport was a sea of yellow as the pilgrims took advantage of the govern-ment’s distribution of yellow raincoats. Even the Pope was in a raincoat, showing his solidarity with everyone.

The storm warning was upgraded to signal number two on the very day of the Pope’s visit but this did not deter the pilgrims from converging at the airport or from lining the streets of Tacloban and

Palo. Despite the pouring rain, no one moved from places that had been staked out hours before, all of them eager to hear the Pope’s message of hope. Rain mixed with tears on the faces of many, awed at the very thought that before them was truly Christ’s Vicar on earth.

The Pope’s eagerness to be with us inspite of the typhoon moved me and humbled me. His presence, for me, was an affirmation of the very words he shared during his homily: “Jesus is Lord. And the Lord from the cross is there for you…That is why we have a Lord who cries with us and walks with us in the most difficult moments of life.”

Even if I cannot claim to be a genuine Leyteño yet, considering that I just moved here from Manila a month before Yolanda hit, I am proud to be one with the Leytenos. The common pain that we shared united us, and our united faith showed our resilience as a people. The help, sup-port and prayers extended to us by families, friends and even strangers when we were at our most vulnerable and when we had nothing to give in return proved that love thrives even in devastation—that mercy and com-passion is real and personal.

Although Pope Francis’ apostolic visit in Leyte was cut short because of the worsening weather conditions, his presence warmed the hearts of many amidst the cold weather. Now, a few weeks after, the streets of Tacloban and Palo are back to their busy state, everyone’s life is back to normal, and I find myself doing my daily routines again, but his messages continue to bring warmth to my heart.

TWo representatives of an-COP USA garnered top spots in the recently held Global Pinoy Singing Idol contest. The singing contest is an annual global competition. Since 2012, anCoP uSa has partnered with aBS-CBn DZMM in the conduct of Global Pinoy Singing Idol (GPSI) contests in the united States.

The 2014 GPSI championship was held in Market Market Mall in Taguig City on January 24, 2015 and was aired live on ABS-CBN’s DZMM.

Jing Quitain Wenghofer of ANCOP Illinois (Chicago) was declared 2014 GPSI Champion, winning $2,500 and a cham-pionship trophy while Alessja Morales of ANCOP California (San Diego) won $1,500 plus a runner-up trophy.

Celebrating her win, Wenghofer said, “Last weekend was a very memorable one for me. I thank the Lord for blessing me with this great opportunity. Thanks to my family and my relatives and neighbors in Dalipit who came to support me. Thanks to Isabelle and Kevin Wenghofer for the unending love, support and encourage-

ment. And special thanks to CFC ANCOP and ABS-CBN DZMM and to Ahwel Paz, Ms. Weng, Ms. May, Ms. Mara, Kenneth Joy Carino, voice coach Ms. Annie Quintos, Yu Von Ryan, and Ramona Buizon.”

Alessja, on the other hand, said “This contest was one of the best experiences of my life. Being able to serve God's people, physically as well as musically, was truly a blessing. Thank you CFC ANCOP and DZMM for such a won-derful experience.”

Other ANCOP singers who partici-pated in the championship event were: Kristine Sagad Karremans (Amsterdam); Isabelle Llanzare (The Netherlands) and Michael Sherwin Vaflor (Indonesia). 

GPSI USA is a fund-raising event for the benefit of ANCOP USA”s Child Sponsorship Program (scholarship for poor Filipino children).

At present, there are a total of 7,000 ANCOP scholars throughout the Phil-ippines, of which 800 are sponsored by ANCOP USA.

The Child Sponsorship Program (CSP) is one of the programs of AN-COP. Other projects are: Community Development Program (free housing for poorest families); Medical/Surgical Mission; Cornerstone (child develop-ment education) and Disaster Relief.

By ANCOP USA Communications

The call to preach the gospel in community

Fr. Gerard Timoner, oP, Provincial of the Dominican order in the Philippines, gave a recollection to the members of the Elders as-sembly of CFC last January 11, 2015 at the SM aura. Top leaders from Metro Manila, the provinces and overseas came to listen to Fr. Gerard talk about “The call to preach the gospel in community”.

The entire recollection was centered on the Gospel according to Matthew Chapter 10, which talks about the mission and commissioning of the 12 apostles.

on MissionFr. Gerard highlighted the words "sum-

moned" and "sent" – two different move-ments of Christ’s followers. According to him, discipleship (the character of one summoned) and apostleship (the character of one sent) are interrelated but not the same. Discipleship is the never-ending process of being a student of Jesus. But after learning, a disciple is sent by the Lord to proclaim the Good News (apostleship).

Fr. Gerard also focused on the word “and”, signifying the gesture of sending missionaries in pairs, two by two, just as CFC is sending couples on mission. Why two by two? Because at the heart of the Gospel is the Gospel of Love and thus the pair are called to preach the Gospel and to exemplify and witness to its truth through the love they bear for each other.

“How can we preach love if we do not live it?” Fr. Gerard asked.

He illustrated marriage as a sacrament, a sign that points to the love of Christ for the Church. In the Philippines, the mar-riage rite includes the ceremony of putting the couple under one veil. This is uniquely

By the CFC Global Comm Filipino and highly symbolic. The veil is a symbol of worship. Hence, a couple’s conscious decision to live together in love is an act of worship.

God’s call is personal, but all are also called to community. To live together in community, in love and fidelity, is an apos-tolate. The ideal community bonds together not just for the mission. Being together is already part of the mission—living together in unanimity of mind and heart.

Fr. Gerard added, “Part of this is obedience to God’s will. Disobedience leads to disintegration.”

He further said that obedience is about listening, and listening emanates from the principle of unity. Listening also means to hear what is not being said.

“When we listen attentively to one another, we maintain unity. Otherwise, division would ensue.” Fr. Gerard added, “But more importantly, we need to develop that capacity to listen even in silence. The bottom line is, we ask ourselves: ‘Is it the good of the entire community that I am after, or is it my own personal goal that I am seeking?’”

Fr. Gerard quoted an excerpt from The Pearl of Great Price, CFC’s com-memorative book on the occasion of its 30th anniversary:

“When human wisdom would have dictated a more aggressive, iron-fisted ap-proach, the International Council asked the global community to be still and to pray. When corporate leaders would have resorted immediately to sacking errant leaders, the IC repeatedly sought dialogue and reconciliation.

Against all human expectations, the quiet prayerful approach proved to be more effec-tive. The community, affirmed and guided by the succeeding annual themes, chose to love and then to move forward in Christ.”

As Fr. Gerard explained, this gesture not only showed the capacity to listen to one another, but more importantly, to listen to Christ. It meant not following like a slave, but having the capacity to listen to

one another. It is not listening to the majority, but practicing unanimity.

“Truth and community are insepa-rable,” Fr. Gerard said. “We need to possess that spirit—to listen to ideas other than our own. The unity of the community is the presence of Jesus. If that unity is fractured, then we compro-mise the presence of Jesus in our midst.”

CommissioningFr. Gerard explained that the term

“Shake the dust off your feet…” from the second part of the Gospel on the commissioning of the 12, does not mean, as is generally understood, to walk away and have nothing further to do with the ones we seek to evangelize. Rather, it refers to the state of our own hearts. As he said, when we evangelize, we first have to get rid of our own pain-ful and toxic memories, we first have to learn to forgive because “if we are carrying the Good News, bad news has no place in the heart of the one who carries the Good News.”

Fr. Gerard stressed, “That is why Pope Francis reminds us to pay atten-tion to the joy of the gospel. No to sour-faced Christians; the gospel should be alive and light up the room.”

Finally, Fr. Gerard reminded the CFC Elders Assembly that a happy community is a communion of good forgivers.

“Your theme is love more. And when we love, imperfections become perfect.”

Before the prayer for empowerment, Fr. Gerard reminded everyone, “Do not allow disagreements to distract you from the good you do. Shake the dust off your feet.” He added, “Is it easy to do? No. That is why Jesus did it for the 12. He took a basin and washed the feet of the disciples. If we find it difficult to shake off the dust, we go to Jesus: ‘Please wash my feet. Again, we can only forgive if we engage God’s forgiveness within our own.’”

Personal TestimonyStarting 2015 the CFC WayFor Couples for Christ, each year does not officially begin unless the members are rallied towards the work of evangelization and the first fruits of of our toil are offered. Here are some of the provinces and countries that have started 2015 the CFC way.

New Zealand

Rizal

SarGen

SoCal USA

Switzerland

Lanao Del Norte

Samal

Agusan Del Norte

C4 CBCP MonitorFebruary 2 - 15, 2015 Vol. 19 No. 3