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We approach God's Word as a Word of Love and l ife, spoken to each of us personally. How the scriptures will be incorporated will vary with each group. Some groups begin by proclaiming a selected passage to one another. then after going off in silence. return to share the fruit of that Word in prayerful reflection. This sharing is not intended to be an ex egesis of the passage nor a sharing of ideas for a homily, but how the Word interprets our lives, speaks intimately to us as disciples of the Lord. Some will let one scripture passage be the centerpiece of their review of life. In whichever way we might have the Word speak to us, we can hear Brother Charles exhorting us, "Let us return to the Gospel; if we are not living the Gospel. Jesus is not living in us.''
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Praying the Scripture
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Scripture plays a very important role in Fraternity. Again. the goal is to know Jesus alive in our midst and to appropriate His mincl and heart. Brother Charles approached the Word of God with simplicity and expec tation. Before praying over the Word. Charles would ask. ''What do you want to say to me. O God?" In the silence he would listen. often writing the message that would come to him He would then respond. For mv part. this is what I want to tell you. ' This was followed by silent adoration. "saying nothing else. gazing on the Beloved.'' That word would guide his day. The individual members vf Fraternity ~3row toward the time when they spend about fifteen minutes a day in meditative reading of the scriptures. either the readings of the day or the Sunday. This contact with Jesus in the Gospel naturally leads to contemplation and adoration and in fact is often included in the ' hour'' by many brothers. There is a natural preference for the Gospels in Jesus-Caritas. but the rest of the scriptures are not to be neglected because of that. While this praying with scriptures becomes a part of each person's per sonal prayer life. a sharing of the Gospel is always a part of each day of review. We hear the Word of Go(i concrelely addressed to us. especially when discussed together. This Word challenges us if we allow it to speak to us. if we do not just pick those passages to whicrh we always relate well and skip over the less desired or familiar. This meditative reading is not an exercise in intellectual understanding alone, nor a matter of exegesis primarily ~though at times this may be necessary). but it is standing under the Word of God addressed to us and being ourselves analyzed and inter preted by it. In discussinq the Gospel together the effort is not to arrive at a definitive exegesis of the text nor to discover good ideas for next week's homily. but to ask what Christ is saying to us personally. not just in tellectually. The danger is that otherwise we will fail into the clerical habit of treating the scriptures as our possession instead of being possessed by them . All this stems from a desire to take the Gospel seriously. especially its message of love. simplicity and poverty. The Fraternity is a great help in this effort to live the Gospel day to day. It is a great encouragement to be together with brothers who are striving in faith to understand and live the Gospel more perfectly. Even when we faii (and for the most of us. that is often) the Fraternity helps us to see that failure too is part of the Gospel message provided we have faith in the God who saves us. Again. only gradually does a fraternity grow in appreciation of the place of scriptures in its life and in the lives of its individual members.
Jesus Caritas Fraternity of Priests -- An Overview of Spirituality and Method, (Fifth Edition, April 1987), sometimes called the 'American Experience'
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| In Real Life |
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Dave Mayovsky of Federal Way, WA explains that in his fraternity the group begins the meeting with Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours, but substitutes the "forgotten reading", i.e. the epistle from the following Sunday, for the reading . They read it in collatio form, the first time for meaning in which the members explain what they understand it to mean (but strenuously avoiding any homily preparation approach,) then a second reading for the personal impact that it provokes, and the final reading it is turned into shared prayer. Do you have an observation, comment, or bon m6t to share with the brothers?
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