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The UEA will hold a new session from August 21 to 25 this summer at the Assumptionist center in Lyon, France. About 300 participants are expected to attend: teachers, lay Assumptionists and other friends, religious in formation, those who support ecumenical dialogue, and many others. The format remains similar to that of years past. Under the direction of experts, there will be conferences, workshops, personal witnesses, etc.
Dialogue is needed more than ever. It is an essential element of our humanity, in a world where fear trump trust. « Dialogue, let us enter in dialogue! ». Who does not want to dialogue? This word is bandied about a lot these days. At the level of the entire planet ---- between cultures, religions, civilizations, generations, neighborhoods, not mention next-door neighbors. Everyone is calling for it. But, in fact, how many people actually DO it? Has ‘dialogue’ become a catch-all expression, an impossible ideal, a Pollyannaish wish?
Dialogue is needed more than ever, especially in a world where the individual reigns supreme and where many Churches remain shut up in their shells of self-affirmed identity. To be human is, in fact, to enter into dialogue: within oneself, with the other, with the world, with God. To be Christian is to take the risk of speaking and listening to the other and to the Other who reveals himself to us. To be Church is to reject a sense of self-reliance; it is to hasten the Kingdom of God by announcing and practicing the Gospel of the encounter. In so doing, to use a remarkable phrase of Pope Paul VI some 50 years ago, we enter into “conversation” with the world and with man. To live, to believe --- means entering into dialogue.
Together with times to celebrate and relax during these days of August, the participants of this year’s UEA will be invited to reflect on three themes:
Dialogue: how to go about it?
God in the midst of our experiences of dialogue.
Believers faced with the challenge of dialogue.
Each day will begin with a conference outlining what is at stake with a particular theme and giving certain points of reference that will foster our reflections; philosophers and theologians will be present at these moments. In the afternoon, workshops and forums conducted by experts and those giving personal witness will offer opportunities for everyone to get involved with their diverse experiences and opinions. Each morning and each evening there will be times of prayer. On the last day there will be a commissioning service when all participants will be sent off as “artisans of dialogue.”
Here are the names of some of the presenters: philosophers and theologians (Thierry Magnin and Jean-Noël Dumont, P. Bernard Sesboué, sj., Pierre Lathuilière, Elisabeth Parmentier). Others invited as leaders include: HR directors, Christians who have been involved in volunteer work, lawyers who work with the underprivileged, people involved in the social media, etc.
This year the “Groupe des Dombes,” a forum of dialogue between Catholics and Protestants, to which the renowned Assumptionist theologian, Bruno Chenu (deceased 10 years ago) belonged, will attend the UEA. During this 60th anniversary of Vatican II, the UEA would like to underline the ability of finding elements of truth in other Christian churches and traditions, as the Council directed believers.
This gives you a taste of this year’s UEA to which you are all invited – a time of study but also, as usual, a time of R&R, prayer, and fellowship.
See more at: http://www.assomption.org/fr/evenements/universite-europeenne-assomptionniste-uea-2013-le-dialogue
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