Emmanuel Community

The Emmanuel Community is a Catholic association of the faithful, of Pontifical right, founded in 1976 by Pierre Goursat and Martine Lafitte-Catta, starting from a prayer group, belonging to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Aims

The Community consists of members with different states of life(families, singles,priests and celibate brothers and sisters having the most different professions and trying to live a fraternal life in the world. It sees its aim as to respond to God's call to holiness addressed to each person, mainly through intense personal prayer, Eucharistic adoration, compassion for the spiritually and materially poor and evangelization.Members are helped to grow spiritually in various ways: "household meetings" (small groups of members, meeting regularly for prayer and reflection on God's action in their lives, " spiritual companionship" (personal meeting with a more experienced member), monthly meetings of all the members in a country or region.

Activities

The Emmanuel Community organizes (generally weekly) prayer groups in various cities around the world. It organizes international or national "sessions" (meetings of evangelization and Christian formation, tailor-made for various social and professional groups) as well as youth forums, in various locations. It has been entrusted with the task of animating various pilgrimage sites such as Paray-le-Monial and L'Ile Bouchard in France Altoetting in Germany and so on.Once bishops entrust a parish to a priest belonging to the Emmanuel Community, the members in the vicinity are themselves entrusted with animating and helping parish activities.The Community operates international, 9-month formation programs called Mission Schools in Paray-le-Monial, France, Rome, Italy, Altoetting, Germany, Vienna, Austria and Fatima, Portugal, as well as evangelization evening schools in various locations around the world.It also operates Fidesco,an NGO whose purpose is to send young professionals from the developed world on solidarity missions in underdevelopped countries.

Organization

In 2005, the Emmanuel Community had 7200 members in 52 countries on 5 continents. Among those, there were 200 priests, about 100 seminarians and 100 persons, male and female, living in consecrated celibacy.Internationally, the Community is led by a General Moderator (always a lay person), helped by an International Council, both elected for a 5-year mandate. The national sections ("provinces") of the Community are led by a national person-in-charge, nominated by the International Council.

External links

* [http://www.emmanuel.info/?set_language=en Official site of the Emmanuel Community]
* [http://www.fidesco-international.org Fidesco official site]

Bibliography

Fire and hope : Pierre Goursat, founder of the Emmanuel Community (translated by Michelle K. Borras). Paris : éditions de l'Emmanuel, 2005. 216 pp.-16 pp. de pl., 24 cm. ISBN 2-915313-40-7.