CMT IN VANCOUVER, BC.CANADA

 BUILDING

COMMUNION WITH MIGRANT'S

In this beautiful city on the west coast of Canada  migrants come from all over the world, trying to build a new life for themselves and for their families. Even Canadians in this city are from other parts of the country. An amazing cultural diversity mix results, with its wealth and its challenges. How can we live truly as the one family of God, how can we truly build communion when people have such diverse life experiences, speak different languages, have different concepts of family, etc? But all is possible when we open our hearts to the love of the Holy Spirit, who draws us into the one Body of  Christ, the one Family of God. In Vancouver a community of Teresian Carmelite Missionary sisters try to help towards building this communion, to show the beauty of the Church in a divided world. We are based in Our Lady of Sorrows Parish where, together with the Scalabrinian Fathers, whose charism is to accompany and help migrants, we work towards building one community from people whose languages of communication are Spanish, Italian and English. All are immigrants or temporary migrants. Hispanics come from all the countries of the world where Spanish is spoken, Italians are immigrants from the post-war period, English speakers are very diverse, from second-generation Italian-Canadians, to recent immigrants from Asia. It is truly a joy to walk with God's holy Church in this time and place, and to glimpse the beauty and the order of the Church amidst the diversity.

On Sunday, January 25, 2009, we celebrated World Day for Migrants, with a joyful expression of our diverse origins and our awareness of belonging to one family, of knowing that the person beside me is truly my brother, my sister.

Sister Angela Moloney, cmt