Meeting 4. - My Father - Our Father
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Introduction for the animator and goals
=======================================

You already know your group. Think about whether it is ready for a shared
intercessory prayer to truly become the finale of this group meeting.
If not, adapt the last point so that it becomes your own intercessory
prayer for the group instead (then you can devote less time to it).

Since the last group meeting, a lot has happened -- Seder, Mass with the
Bishop, two conferences, the presence of guests -- and we do not want to
'skip over' that. These were important high points of the retreat.
We want to strengthen them by sharing them.

**The goal** of this meeting is to move from the role of receiver of
content to the role of one who proclaims the Gospel.

.. note:: It is very possible that a large part of your group made this
          transition a long time ago and have already been animators for
          years. That only makes it better. You do not have to change
          this goal. Treat it then as a renewal of zeal, fervor, and
          passion. Even if someone is an animator by function
          (a ministry in the community or parish), there is never enough
          integrity in extending animation from the meeting room to an
          ordinary shared coffee. And if you have someone in the group
          who has long been a fully integrated animator who takes the
          Gospel as daily bread, that person will not only have nothing
          against such a goal, but will even support you in it.

This transition is meant to take place at this meeting almost
incidentally, in a discreet and natural way. It is made up of the
following stages:

#. Participants themselves share their experience of the retreat and
   their prayer of Our Father. Function: faith is in your heart, not only
   in your head.
#. Participants receive worksheets and openly step into facilitating the
   meeting. Function: blurring the distinction between participant and
   animator.
#. Participants listen to the animator's testimony and receive worksheets
   and ready-made outlines. Function: equipping them with concrete tools
   (which are not just theory, because we have just worked with them),
   creating the sense that they are prepared, and lowering the entry
   threshold.
#. Shared intercessory prayer. Function: because 'our gospel came to you
   not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with
   full conviction' (1 Thess 1:5). We give one another support.

**Bring with you to this meeting** the 'Awinu worksheets.'
You need 5 sheets for each participant in your group.

.. note:: The sheets will most likely be picked up from the printing team
          during the retreat itself. They will contain what appears in
          point 4 of this outline.

Stop and name the good
======================

Before we enter today's important content, let us pause for a moment.
We do not want to begin the meeting with new topics, but with what has
already been given to us.

The prayer 'Our Father' teaches us an attitude of gratitude. That is why
we first return to what has happened within us since the last meeting.
If needed, reach for your name badge and look at the daily schedule --
let the concrete events help you remember what took place. Not in order
to replay everything, but to catch what was most important for you.

Let us read the following two questions, and then give ourselves
a moment of silence:

.. note:: Realistically, 1 minute.

- What from the recent retreat events has moved your heart most deeply?
- What from this time has most caught your attention -- your thoughts,
  your focus, your mind?

Let us share the answers.

Our prayer
==========

*We begin with a short substantive part. The animator may reshape it
freely, for example in the form of personal testimony.*

During today's conference we heard that when we pray the Lord's Prayer,
what we are really saying is: 'My Father, who is also ours.' Sometimes we are
tempted to separate 'individual' faith from 'communal' faith -- almost
treating them as two separate spaces. We like to organize and classify:
Amidah as individual prayer, Kaddish as communal prayer.

Jesus, however, shows another way. He creates 'Our Father,' joining
personal and communal prayer into one whole. This is not accidental --
it is a clear plan, and for us a very concrete confrontation.

Let us read:

    As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel
    over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the
    weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise
    the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment
    on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass
    judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that
    he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to
    make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another,
    while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully
    convinced in his own mind.

   -- Rom 14:1-5

This is the point of departure for what we are about to do.
We are called to receive one another kindly -- without disputes and
without contempt. As believers, we are meant to create such an
atmosphere that **no one is afraid to enter the community with their own
individual spirituality. Such a space in which no one has to switch
their heart into a communal mode.**

Let us read:

    When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child,
    I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish
    ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
    Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been
    fully known.

   -- 1 Cor 13:11-12

How much hope there is in this. Not only are we different from one
another -- and that is okay -- but we do not even need to be attached
to who we are today. The 'me' of today, the 'me' from ten years ago,
and the 'me' from ten years from now are also people who will differ
from one another.

With such an attitude, let us enter the next point of our meeting.

*The animator takes out the printed versions of the Lord's Prayer;
each participant finds their own and takes it.*

.. note:: The printed versions of the prayers will be received from the
          printing team before the meeting. It may happen that someone,
          for various reasons, did not hand in their prayer at all
          (they did not want to because a child was crying, they felt
          uncomfortable with it, and so on). That is OK. Try to
          encourage such a person to share their reflections.

- How did I feel while writing this prayer?
- Why did I write it this way? What was difficult? Was this the plan
  from the beginning?
- If I had 2 more hours for it, what would I do differently?

Faith needs the enlivening of what is 'well known.'
Fold your sheet with your prayer and put it into your notebook.

Awinu
=====

*The animator hands out one worksheet to each participant.
The cards contain the content below.*

.. note:: One each. You have 5 per participant, but at this stage give
          out only one and do not show that you have more.

We are giving you a piece of the outline. We want to take responsibility
for the space of this meeting TOGETHER, openly and consciously.
Until now, you may have experienced that someone prepared the content,
planned the dynamics, and indicated the direction. Now we are taking
another step -- this space becomes shared. This is no longer a 'meeting
for you,' but a 'meeting with you and through you.'

In a moment we will be choosing one question from each stage on which
each of us wants to share. In practice, that can mean even 20 to 25
short statements in 30 minutes. This requires attentiveness, brevity,
mutual respect for time, and readiness not to say everything, but to say
what is most important. Each of us co-creates the dynamics of this time
through our words, silence, the length of our statements, and the way
we listen.

We are not entering new content. What you have before you is not another
conference or a new theory. It is a summary of our common journey since
Friday. We return to what has already been sown -- to experiences,
prayers, conversations, and movements of the heart. We return in order
to see more deeply.

From the very beginning it was all about 'Our Father.' Everything we
lived through -- the Seder, the conferences, the shared prayers --
was leading right here: to discovering that 'my Father' and 'our Father'
are not two realities, but one experience.

Now this experience passes through your words.

**Awinu**

**Alef** (head, beginning)

- If I were telling someone about Meaning, where would I begin?
- When did I come to know the Alef of life? When did I understand that
  this was it?
- What is my spirituality or faith rooted in?

**Aw** (the first in the house, the foundation of the line, father)

- Which of the homes in which I live is open like the letter Bet
  (the letter Bet looks like a tent seen in side view; tents were for
  many years the home of the Israelites -- see the feast of Sukkot)?
- What happens in me when I realize that when I write 'God, Father'
  in Hebrew, I am drawing a house on the page?
- For whom am I Father or Mother, that is, a creator of home?

**Avi** (I standing next to the father, daddy)

- What changes in me when I add myself next to the father -- when the
  Father becomes personal and not anonymous?
- When and in what way did my religious experience allow closeness in?
- Where in the experience of faith do I most clearly see the relational
  dimension contained in this word?

**Awinu** (my daddy, who at the same time is ours)

- In what way can the relationality and intimacy contained in 'avi'
  be carried over into the community of believers, into 'awinu'?
- The word *daddy* is intimate and at the same time communal --
  *our* daddy. Where in the experience of the Church do I see signs of
  such a relationship?
- Joining the intimacy of a relationship with its openness to others
  is demanding. What does that tell me about Jesus?
  How does that translate into my faith?

We have shared our reading of 'Awinu' -- my Father, who is ours.
As a summary, let us read:

    For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
    For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
    but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry,
    'Abba! Father!' The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that
    we are children of God, and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God
    and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order
    that we may also be glorified with him.

   -- Rom 8:14-17

- How do you feel about the Apostle calling us 'children of God,' knowing
  whom we normally call the Son of God?
- With whom do we cry, 'Abba! Father!'?

Let us be animators!
====================

*The animator hands each participant 4 additional worksheets.*

- Why do you think I am giving you several copies of the same thing?

**This is a very simple moment, but an important one**:
we are not so much 'leading a meeting' as beginning to co-create a place
in which others can feel safe, free, and true. Space does not arise from
a ready-made plan, but from our presence, attentiveness, and kindness
toward one another.

Take this meeting with you into your home, your environments,
your acquaintances, and your friends. Talk with them about
'my Father, who is ours,' about what you lived through here,
and about what they are living in faith.

This is not a task for 'the chosen few.' Each of us can create this
space: by our attitude, our patience, by not judging, not correcting,
not rushing people. In this way we begin to experience that
**being an animator is not a role, but a way of being with another
person.**

**Support for the participant:**

In your notebook you will find links to PDFs -- you can return to them
whenever you need a point of reference, inspiration, or a short reminder
of the path we have walked.

You will also find meeting outlines there. Not so that you cling to them
tightly, but so that they give you a sense of support. Sometimes one
sentence, one question from a page, is enough to move forward.

Prayer
======

Intercessory prayer that meetings around Awinu may become a reality.

Let us open the passage below, and let the first words of our prayer
be the words of St. Paul:

    I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner
    worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility
    and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
    eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
    There is one body and one Spirit -- just as you were called to the
    one hope that belongs to your call -- one Lord, one faith,
    one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through
    all and in all.

   -- Eph 4:1-6