The Uniservitate community continues proposing a monthly time to pray together. We are talking about the Uniservitate World Prayer, an initiative that started last January and takes place every first Thursday of the month at a different university.
In April, the African Uniservitate team at Tangaza University in Nairobi led the reflection centred on The Bible’s call to prioritize love in our relationships. In May, the team from Buenos Aires led the prayer at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina, focused on the invocation to Mama Antula, the first Argentinean woman canonized last February.
Inspired by the words of Ephesians (4: 1-6), “I beg you, bear with one another in love”, our friends in Kenya put on a short dramatization in the beautiful chapel of their university. They staged an episode of family violence followed by a reconciliation ritual that seeks peace and love for each other and nature. According to African culture, creation and human beings are connected. Therefore, misunderstanding among human beings also harms the creation. Hence, as reparation, the gesture of reconciliation included a shared meal and the planting of a tree together. The final exchange of greetings was accompanied by the singing of St. Francis of Assisi’s peace prayer.
In May, from Buenos Aires, the prayer involved three areas of the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina: Social Commitment, Marriage and Family, and Ministry. Juan Cruz Hermida and Alejandra Parker introduced and invited to invoke Saint Maria Antonia de San José, also known as Mama Antula, whom Pope Francis calls the “Wayfarer of the Spirit”. Mama Antula was a laywoman who, relying on the Cross and the image of the Child Jesus, challenged the power and customs of an age when women could only choose to marry or become nuns. In 1767, following the expulsion of the Jesuits from America and the banning of everything related to that order, she chose to devote herself to spreading the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. She performed important evangelism work among the indigenous peoples of northern Argentina, teaching them to read and write and transmitting the faith to them and the elite who ruled the destinies of the then-emerging Argentinean nation. To reach Buenos Aires, she walked some 5,000 kilometres and, in that city, built a house where, in eight years, she succeeded in offering spiritual exercises to over seventy thousand people. With his life, she preached to listen to God’s will, trust in Providence and always desire to evangelize.
Participants had the opportunity to share their experiences in Padlet. Mama Antula’s faith, strength, steadfastness and unwavering commitment to spreading the gospel, among other things, were highlighted from different parts of the world.
The “Uniservitate World Prayer” is open to all higher education institutions wishing to participate. All you need to do is register in advance by filling in a simple form.
The schedule of moments of the World Prayer until September is as follows:
4th July: De La Salle University (Philippines)
1st August: CLAYSS
5th September Australian Catholic University
3rd October: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador