13th International Meeting of the Équipes Notre-Dame: “With the grace of Eucharist and Marriage, awaken the desire to be heart to heart with God”

From 15 to 20 July 2024, the 13^th International Meeting of the Équipes Notre-Dame (END) took place in Turin. About 8,000 “equipiers” from 86 countries and nearly 400 “spiritual counsellor” priests experienced an intense week full of moments of spirituality and reflection in the Inalpi Arena, with the aim to set the road map that will guide the movement over the next years. The meeting ended with the handover of the baton to the new people responsible at the international level, Mercedes and Alberto Perez from Valencia (Spain), and the address of the outgoing responsible couple, Edgardo and Clarita Bernal.

The topic chosen for this year’s meeting was “Walking with a Burning Heart”, which recalls the passage of the Gospel of the disciples of Emmaus (Luke 24:5-35), on which spouses have meditated the whole week.

Professor Gabriella Gambino, Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, took the floor on Saturday, 20 July, and ended the meeting with a call for all END members to participate in the Eucharistic Table and become real testimonies of the joy of the Spirit received and turn the liturgy of the Eucharist into a daily liturgy of the mission.

 Gambino: Eucharist and Mission to keep alive the ardour of the couple’s meeting with Christ

The meeting’s closing conference by Professor Gambino, under the title “Walking with a Burning Heart”, outlined the way to bring back the ardour mentioned by Luke in the passage of the disciples of Emmaus to everyday life. “You walked along the road to Emmaus not alone, but as spouses, hand in hand; you welcomed Jesus, who walked among you, among your couple. You let him lead you and felt your hearts burning. From today, go with your burning hearts to give the gifts you received, driven by the warmth and deep strength coming from your meeting with Christ, both as individuals and as a couple”. Gambino explained that ardour is “thirst to be fulfilled each day, going back to Eucharist”, and to keep it alive, willpower, a reasoning effort or the memory are not enough: “The heart is burning while Christ talks with us in intimacy. The place of this dialogue is the Eucharist: we recognize him and meet him again there, as individual baptized faithful and spouses”.

“Through the Eucharist”, “the couple regains consciousness of their own ecclesial vocation and receives the grace, to be home Church”. Professor Gambino continues: “Awakening the desire to be heart to heart with God is a path that can be proposed to each Christian couple”, but the evangelizing mission of “making the world receptive to God and his Grace” can only take place “if we ourselves are receptive to the love of the Father”.

As for the mission, the Undersecretary urged families not to keep the gift of the meeting with Christ only for themselves: “Bring it to parishes and communities. Become serving hearts. Your charism exalts marriage as a sacrament in mission! Then carry it out with joy and share it. It should not be a privilege for you, but a duty to testify the beauty of marriage in a time when young people no longer get married”. Gambino explained that “Christian families have a duty to help other families become ministries, home Churches”. Especially the new generations of spouses “must be made more aware of being living ministries, necessary to building the Church”.

The speakers who shared daily food for thought included Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Sister Nathalie Becquart, the Bible scholar Marina Marcolini, Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer, the couple Masu and Xosè Manuel Dominguez de la Fuente, and Elisabeth Saléon-Terras, who has collaborated with the founder of the International END Movement, Father Henri Caffarel, for over 20 years.

Ahead of the 13^th International Meeting, on 4 May 2024 the Holy Father received the ERI (International Leading Team) members in private audience: “Safeguarding marriage is a real mission”, said the Pope; a mission that engages the whole family, from spouses to children, from grandparents to grandchildren, and that “means saving the testimony of a possible and everlasting love, that young people struggle to trust”. As the Pope said, “Marriage is a ‘pas de trois’, where the presence of Christ among the spouses makes the path possible, and the game becomes a game of gazes: gazes between the two spouses, and gazes between the spouses and Christ. It is a match that lasts one’s entire life, where you win together if you take care of your relationship.”

*****

Équipes Notre-Dame

The END Movement has about 160,000 members and works in more than 90 countries in the five continents. Every six year, it hosts an international meeting in some part of the world where the members of the Movement, couples and priests gather to celebrate the path of faith, to understand their role in the Church and in the world, and to set the guidelines for life that will assist the movement in the following six years.

The Équipes Notre-Dame try to testify that marriage is a source of love, happiness and holiness, as well as a human realization. Living in the world, confident of the values of the Gospel, they want to be “leaven in the dough” and be present in the life of the Church and society, as testimonies of the Christian marriage and a sign of hope.