Our sister Martina Barrios sscc, from Paraguay, who currently lives in the International Community of Puerto Maldonado, in the Peruvian jungle, participated in the III Meeting of the Itinerant Network CLAR-REPAM (Latin American Confederation of Religious - Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network) held from September 18 to 21, in the city of Iquitos (Loreto-Peru). The theme of the meeting was: “They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22.4). It reflected on the theme of Itinerancy, Vulnerability and the Care of the Amazon. There were 51 participants from 8 missionary teams, representing 14 countries of origin and 15 places of mission.
The objective of this meeting was to give continuity to the discernment in the groups and communities in favor of the Amazon territory, as a theological place, and to give strength to the mission that emerged from the Amazon Synod: “To form an itinerant network that brings together the various efforts of the teams that accompany and dynamize the communities” (cf. DF 40). The sharing of experiences made it possible to know how the processes for the vindication of the rights of the Amazonian communities are advancing, the struggles and cries of the same and the actions for the development applied within the territory.
The final message of this meeting states that the teams from different parts of the Amazon territory “have shared problems within a common reality: fires and droughts caused and aggravated by climate change and the extractivist dynamics of the prevailing economic and social system, highlighting the need for ecological conversion to achieve complete harmony and true care of the Amazon and the common home”.
“We affirm that the mission in the Amazon asks us to listen, to accompany, to weave life, to care and to let ourselves be cared for, to forgive and to love. The restless spirit comes out to meet us through provocations so that we aspire to greater charisms, feeling that it is time to risk and act. “Take risks with wisdom, there is something more” (Final message of the III meeting).
10/04/2024