The St. Joseph Church’s English Charismatic Prayer Group organized a talk with the theme “Open Family: Reflecting on Love, Respect and Forgiveness”, on 8th April 2016. The session was led by Sister Mary David and took place in the church’s community hall.

Among the many crucial points that were highlighted throughout her talk, the importance of love, and how it has to begin with the heads of the family, were stressed. She also went on to address the negative effects technology has brought onto family life and challenged the crowd to take the time to set aside all forms of gadgets for one uninterrupted meal with the family.

Sister Mary then led the crowd in a ‘Forgiveness Activity’ where they were divided into 4 groups and were given plastic containers filled with salt (to represent painful life experiences), sugar (to represent life’s sweetest memories), bitter gourd (to represent bitter life experiences) and lemon (to represent the times when things went sour in our lives). Each member in each group was told to hold the container in his/her hand and leave all of his/her past experiences, be it, sour, bitter, salty or sweet in its respective containers. This activity prompted all those present to leave the past behind and move forward with their families in this new life that Easter has brought forth.

After the activity, Sister Mary encouraged the crowd to come forward with their families to wash each other’s hands as a symbol of forgiveness and the willingness to start anew. Everyone, regardless of age and gender came forward to participate in the activity.

The session ended with a small fellowship where the crowd got to mingle with each other. It was a successful session and many were touched.

by Gloria Christabel.