WOMEN LIKE RINGING BELLS.

Dear friends,

how nice it is to hear the sound of the bells when you arrive in a city! How nice it is to perceive the echo of a woman when she has been fully a woman in her life!

“Pencils for All” is a very small charitable organisation working on educational projects all around the world.

At the time of the Dakar General Assembly we were already preparing for more work in South Sudan, country torn by civil and ethnic war and violence. The country welcomed the much-needed peace just at the beginning of this year on the 22 February 2020, unfortunately the wonderful news was overshadowed by the COVID -19 spread around the world.

South Sudan is one of the youngest countries in the world, gain its independence from Sudan in June 2011 and ending the longest civil war in Africa. Sadly, the peace did not last. In 2013 yet another civil war started and the first three years were extremely violent and brutal.

The World Union of Catholic Women, as a gesture of solidarity at this anxious time, decided to hold three webinars on the subject of Solidarity and Synodality, one in English, one in Spanish and one in French. They invited every group of Catholic Women, who are affiliated with them, to join the webinar, so on 28^th April I had the privilege of joining 34 other ladies from around the world through the marvels of the internet.

In Line with our Resolution 4 “ Let us Educate to Respond to the call to Holiness” Catholic women in Malawi throughout its 8 dioceses, put in place deliberate efforts to organize retreats and workshops so that Priests and other facilitators can guide, accompany and teach us on our journey to holiness.

For June 8, 2020 it’s up to us, even in this time of the Pandemic!

Once again, we share with FIAC the One Minute for Peace campaign.

It’s about:

• Motivating and suggesting to all those who care about peace, believers and non-believers alike, a minute of prayer or silence.
•  An invitation to pray by oneself or with other people, in safety, in our homes or in our places of work or study.
•  To plan a celebration at home, in a place of prayer or a meeting in an open space

In the difficult situation we are living because of the pandemic, what does it mean to pray, to stop for a minute for peace? What does it mean to nurture hope?

• Peace is a great and precious value, the object of our hope and the aspiration of the entire human family. As a human attitude, our hope for peace is marked by an existential tension that makes it possible for the present, with all its difficulties, to be “lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey”.  Hope is thus the virtue that inspires us and keeps us moving forward, even when obstacles seem insurmountable.

(from the message on the 1^st January 2020 World Day of Peace)

Laudato Si' is our road map as women of faith.

Dear friends,

five years ago, Pope Francis gave us a new “treasure” of the Social Doctrine of the Church: Laudato Si'. Today we can tell that it is a prophetic encyclical. The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated the deep connection and interdependence of all of us who live in the Common Home.

This week we present you a Life Story of a WUCWO woman from Lebanon.

This week we present you a Life Story of a WUCWO woman from Argentina.

"Laudato Si' Week", WUCWO's campaign for the fifth anniversary of the encyclical letter Laudato Si' of the Holy Father Francis on the care for our common home.

Mary is a model for WUCWO

especially during this crisis.

Dear friends,

Mary is the model of a resilient woman. Who else had the capacity to face the crisis of the Passion and Death of her Son? Who else could overcome the change that meant taking Christians as "sons" from the Resurrection? “The Church is a woman,” Pope Francis repeatedly tells us. In the context of the globalisation of the Coronavirus, Mary, the resilient woman par excellence, is the model who teaches us what steps to take on the path to holiness, particularly to those of us who have a responsibility for leadership in the Church, as is the case with each of the women in WUCWO.

On Tuesday 28th April 2020 WUCWO organised a webinar on Solidarity and Synodality: Thinking about the Church in the time of the Coronavirus

This week we present you a Life Story of a WUCWO woman, and her organisation, from the United States.