The Fr. President, in his message during the RELAY Conference, told the Lay Administrators to pass on God’s message of love to everyone. The Fr. President opened his message with a request for prayers for the next quadrennium from the Religious and Lay Administrators. He reminded everyone to discharge their duties with love. He said, “The task of everyone is to serve in love and not to lord over others. This is a task for each and everyone.“ He quoted St. Augustine in a saying that “proud people are like Balloons” and added a note from Pope Francis saying that humility and gentleness are not weaknesses but are characters that would lead us to the heart of Christ.
Fr. President shared why he called the conference as RELAY. He gave three definitions of the term “relay”. First, “it is a group of people engaged in an activity in a fixed period of time and replaced by another group .” He reminded everyone that positions are temporary, you come and go. Secondly, “it means an electrical current from one device to the next.” And thirdly, relay as a verb means “to receive and pass on an information or a message.” He reminded everyone that we are here to promote the good news of Jesus to everyone.
He also talked about the Augustinian Philosophy of “Caritas et Scientia” and noted that love is always over knowledge and that knowledge is temporary and is not the ‘end’ but love is the ultimate value. So we must produce communities of love.
He ended message with another quote from St. Augustine, “In non-essential things, there should be diversity; in essential things, there should be unity; and in everything, there is charity.” –“in ominibus caritas”