Congress attendees urged to envision Christ-centered future of hope

Published: 2008-03-05

ANAHEIM, Calif. (CNS) -- More than 40,000 participants at the Los Angeles archdiocesan Religious Education Congress in Anaheim Feb. 28-March 2 were encouraged in numerous workshops and multicultural liturgies to raise their sights and spirits toward envisioning a Christ-centered future of hope and possibilities. The theme for the four-day gathering -- which included a youth day Feb. 28 -- was "Lift Your Gaze ... See Anew!" The theme was addressed during the opening of the congress itself Feb. 29 by Sister Edith Prendergast, a Religious Sister of Charity and director of the Office of Religious Education, sponsor of the congress. This year's motif, she said, "is an invitation to open wide not only our physical eyes, but the eyes of our hearts, and the eyes of memory and the eyes of blessing -- and to see beyond and to see beneath and to see whole panoramas of goodness and beauty, and to recognize the sacred at the heart of all of reality." Sister Prendergast said, "God invites us to be wide-eyed, open and visionary."

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