Check out our Sundays page for our most recent resources and videos. Welcome to Emmanuel Community! Whether you are connecting with us for the first time or have heard about us before, it is my pleasure to invite you to journey with us.
Father Dominique's Corner
SUNDAY CONNECT - A NEW RESOURCE
It was originally only for lay people, both single and married, but today its membership includes priests and consecrated lay persons who have matured their vocation through their experience within the Community. In , the establishment of the Community at Paray-le-Monial, where the apparitions of the Sacred Heart took place, marked a major milestone in its history and the beginning of its spread worldwide. Since the s an increasing number of bishops have been entrusting parish missions and parish animation to the Community, turning them into real centres of fraternal life and evangelisation. The Emmanuel Community is named after the passage from Scripture, "Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel" Is 7: 14; cf. Mt 1: 23 , and its members are people who are called by God to live together to serve and proclaim Jesus Christ. The core of the Community is the Jesus Fraternity, which is made up of members who give themselves to the Lord in consecration and total devotion to the mission.
"and they shall name him Emmanuel"
The Emmanuel Community is a Catholic association of the faithful, of Pontifical right, founded in by Pierre Goursat and Martine Lafitte-Catta , starting from a prayer group, belonging to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. The Community consists of members with different states of life families, singles, priests and celibate brothers and sisters having the most different professions and trying to live a fraternal life in the world. It sees its aim as to respond to God 's call to holiness addressed to each person, mainly through intense personal prayer , Eucharistic adoration , compassion for the spiritually and materially poor and evangelization. Members are helped to grow spiritually in various ways: "household meetings" small groups of members, meeting regularly for prayer and reflection on God's action in their lives , "spiritual companionship" personal meeting with a more experienced member , monthly meetings of all the members in a country or region. The Emmanuel Community organizes generally weekly prayer groups in various cities around the world. It organizes international or national "sessions" meetings of evangelization and Christian formation, tailor-made for various social and professional groups as well as youth forums, in various locations. Once bishops entrust a parish to a priest belonging to the Emmanuel Community, the members in the vicinity are themselves entrusted with animating and helping parish activities. It also operates Fidesco, an NGO whose purpose is to send young professionals from the developed world on solidarity missions in developing countries.
The Emmanuel community is for men and women of all walks of life: from ordinary, professional and social backgrounds, of different classes, ages, and nationalities. We are a community made up of different vocations: lay people married couples, single men and women, youth , priests and laymen and women consecrated in celibacy. This unity is expressed in a particular fraternal life through weekly gatherings known as households as well as monthly meetings and national meetings. These allow brothers and sisters to come together to share how the Lord is working in their lives; how they are striving to evangelize in their every day and bringing their important petitions so that they may carry one another in prayer. It also gives them an opportunity to go deeper in faith formation through different teachings and formation programs. These meetings and the larger gatherings help to reinvigorate their call to serve the Lord, the Church and one another, particularly through evangelization. Unity is also manifested in various other services such as compassion to the poor and sick as well as a variety of apostolic efforts rooted in the mission of the new evangelization. The Holy Spirit guides members of the Emmanuel Community to personally encounter Christ, which creates in them a desire to walk with Him in holiness. It is essential for both evangelization and sanctification.
