‘Growth’ – Newsletter of the Institute of St Anselm

It is important that priests and religious learn how to use their relationships and emotions constructively and help parishioners to do the same. This is a large area in our formation which we can improve enormously. Most of our behaviour is influenced by the use of our emotions. For healthy community living in our families and religious communities, we need to learn to improve our communication and our constructive use of our emotions. Obviously, frequent Eucharist and Confession are an indispensable support for healthy family life and religious communities.

Just as integrating our emotions and improving our relationships are important when we want to follow Christ, so value clarification is essential at all levels, in the family, schools, in our formation centres, in ongoing formation, particularly in our time – a time of value contamination affecting all areas of society and the church. In Christ we have a common denominator-as Christians, we see him as the Son of God, for other religions he is a great mystic who can teach us all many lessons and enrich our lives with his values.

We have celebrated the Feast of Christ the King. It tells us that at the end of times everything will be subjected to him. He will be King for the whole universe and every person. Christ’s kingdom is within us. With God’s grace we can build up his kingdom day by day, deepening it as we work on our emotions, forgiveness, reconciliation, our love, our compassion, our communication, our values and our relationships in general. May Christmas and the New Year bring each one of us closer to Christ and as such to a more fulfilling life, by moving from knowing the Good News to living it.

Len Kofler MHM.