As announced a few days ago, the SMA-OLA Session started this Tuesday, July 19 at the Centre Brésillac of Calavi in Benin. This first day was devoted first to the welcome and installation of participants. In the afternoon, there was a first meeting during which various officials succeeded each other to express their welcome to the forty delegates present at this session, and to give some information on the practical arrangements.

Among the speakers were Father Dominic Antoine, Superior of the Center, Sister Anne Falola and Father François de Paul, both members of the Commission that organized this session.

The floor was then left to the facilitators of the Session, namely Father Basil Soyoye, SMA, and Sister Anicette Lantonkpode, OLA. They admirably led the wagon to allow a brief presentation of each participant.

The day was crowned by the opening Mass presided over by Father François de Paul, SMA Vicar General and member of the SMA-OLA Commission. In his homily, he emphasized what is the essence of our family bond. He insisted on the fact that “Doing God’s will becomes the sap that nourishes our fraternity. He emphasized how “the search for God’s will was paramount in the lives of Venerable Marion de Brésillac and Father Augustin Planque”

It was a day filled with positive energy, punctuated by the joy of the reunion between men and women workers of the same vineyard. The birds of the sacred forest of the Brésillac Center sang their song of the great days as if to send back to us the echo of the joy that invaded the hearts of Brésillac and Planque.

Pierre-Paul DOSSEKPLI