Explanation of the symbol of the Luxembourg community for Fatima 2008

Together
deepening our vocation
to grow in Christ
and bear fruit

Our symbol represents the dynamics of CLC in Luxembourg: It sums up:

  • The graces we have received;
  • The challenges and consolations we are meeting;
  • The hope/vocation we are called to.

We have currently 54 members and each member is represented by a coloured strand. The yellow, pervading strand is Christ’s call and/or our desire to follow Him.

We enter CLC as disconnected individuals, full of good-will and generosity, but in need of the saving and ordering presence of Christ in our lives. In a first stage, we become members of local groups; they are represented by knots. As we advance, through the process of DSSE (Discerning, Sending, Supporting and Evaluating), we become more attuned to the call of God in our lives and as a community. We try to grow into an ever more (magis) intimate knowledge of Christ and especially by loving him more intensely and following him more closely in His Passion and Resurrection (the cross). This seminal experience sends us “into a world marked by division and suffering” (Hong-Kong) and empowers us to bear fruit. Some of these fruits can be seen on the right hand side:

Next to our individual commitments (white labels), we have some community projects (white squares):

  • We have a very lively and imaginative formation team, which was founded in 2004 in the wake of Nairobi. It promotes Ignatian spirituality, not only among CLC members, but also in parishes. It also co-operates in non-CLC offers of formation for adults and various pastoral offers. In this domain, we are networking with the Church quite intensively.
  • Project [’magis] in 2005: Together with other members of the Ignatian family in Luxembourg (Jesuits, sisters of Christian Doctrine) we hosted several Ignatian Experiments that prepared young adults from all over the world to World Youth Day in Cologne in summer 2005.
  • Youth and the transmission of faith have been a long-standing concern of CLC Luxembourg. The founding of the university of Luxembourg incited us, together with the Jesuits, our diocese, the Caritas and a student organisation to create LISEL, a permanent place of service and welcome for students of the university of Luxembourg. It should allow students to realise themselves through social, cultural and religious activities and it offers concrete, practical help for students to integrate in our society.
  • In co-operation with the Jesuits, we founded the Ignatian Group for Migration (GIM). This working group is actually attentive to all types of marginalised people. Most of its members are rather over-worked professional social workers. So, its activities are limited to the following:
    • sensitising CLC and the general public to current issues and specific problems of marginalised people, often via successful public discussions or letters to the editor of national newspapers. Thus, CLC has made a public stand on some current issues of national interest: the European constitution, euthanasia and a new law concerning asylum seekers.
    • our working group also offers social workers an opportunity to reread their experience in the light of the Gospel.

This symbol also features some notorious/eternal building sites (“=chantiers”):
CLC in Luxembourg is not a homogeneous community: not all our members, not all our groups are at the same stage of their vocation as CLC. DSSE is not practised systematically in all our groups or by all members. Some members have not even done a short version of exercises. Our awareness of CLC as an apostolic body is developing gradually.
Therefore, we are very concerned to promote the basics of CLC lifestyle:
a regular practice of the examen (=relecture);
a yearly participation in spiritual exercises;
a self-evident implementation of DSSE for personal and communal decisions:
...

At the moment, CLC in Luxembourg is engaged in a process of discovering and deepening our call to lead a “simple lifestyle” in accordance with General Principle 4, “Our Charism”.

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