On May 20th and 21st, the annual reflective Provincial Day of the Redemptorist Family of the Province of St. Clemens took place in Aachen.
This year, it was led by Pastor Dr. Christoph Gärtner from the Archdiocese of Paderborn.
He encouraged the forty participants to critically and creatively reflect on themselves and their missionary work.
He drew on the metaphor of the Bauhaus movement under the motto “Form Follows Function.”
Are our practices and our forms of life and apostolate still functional for our mission?
Do they serve the proclamation of the Gospel?
Dr. Gärtner invited the order to look at our sometimes worrying ecclesiastical and pastoral reality without fear and to see crises as challenges to explore and take new paths.
If we do not cling to the old and existing, it can be a liberation – primarily for the Holy Spirit, who has called us.
The Provincial Day concluded with a festive Eucharist, in which Provincial Father Jan Hafmans, as the main celebrant, commemorated the deceased confreres but also highlighted the jubilarians of the year (of whom he is one).