![1956: I saw the Holy Land]()
15 Feb 2011 | Non categorizzato
Dome of the Rock – (…) As I beheld the city from the bright blue coastline near to the hills that are dotted with thousands of houses, as our plane soared out over the water so that we could catch a first glimpse of the Palestine hills, I didn’t believe that Jerusalem and the Holy Places were going to make such a deep impression on my mind.
My stay in Palestine lasted seven days.
I don’t recall the schedule of our visits, but the places are deeply impressed in my mind: Bethpage, the Church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu, the stone steps of Jesus’ testament, Gethsemane, the Antonia Fortress where Pilate stood Jesus before the people and said: “Behold the man!” the site of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin; the site of the ascension enclosed in a small kiosk; then there was Bethany and the road that leads from Jerusalem to Jericho, which is mentioned in the parable of the Good Samaritan; Bethlehem. . . a long list of such sweet names that neither life nor death will ever erase. At evening’s fall, raising my eyes to the sky, there were stars dripping light, skies that we never even dream of here in Italy, and I felt a strange and logical affinity between that firmament and those holy places. (…)
An old road to Jerusalem, an uphill climb, perhaps three meters wide, echoing the cries of merchants who are selling their goods on the left and on the right. People elbowing each other as they come and go, dressed in the most varied types of eastern designs.
You keep climbing and, as you pass through this bazaar – this is what the local people call it – you now and then come upon a doorway that you’re not sure belongs to the house or to a chapel: “Here is a station of the Cross, here’s the third station, here’s the fourth. . . Here is where Jesus met his Mother, here is where he met Simon of Cirene. . .” It was the road of the Via Crucis, the path that Jesus followed.
A few meters higher we are informed: “We’ve reached the sepulcher. Here in this church, held up with these powerful unsightly beams is the most sacred place imaginable: Calvary and the sepulcher.”
There was a living sense of pain in my soul, almost fear or dismay.
We went inside and filed up a narrow, narrow staircase whose marble had been worn down by the millions of pilgrims who’ve climbed it. And we found ourselves before an altar where the Greek Orthodox and Armenians could celebrate.
A guide showed us a rock that could be seen through a glass window, a hole, and then he told us: “The cross was planted in this hole.”
Inadvertently, without saying a word, we all went to our knees.
It was a moment of deep recollection for me.
The cross was planted in that hole… the first cross.
If there hadn’t been this first cross, my life and the life of millions of Christians who follow Jesus by carrying their cross, the millions of sufferings, the pain of millions, would not have had a name, they would not have had any meaning. Jesus raised upon the cross like a criminal, gave meaning and value to the sea of anguish which touches and, at times, submerges humanity, and often every individual.
I didn’t say anything to Jesus in that moment. The perforated stone had spoken.
I only had to add like an ecstatic child: “Here, Jesus, I want to plant, once more, my own cross, our crosses, the crosses of all those who know you and all those who don’t.”
Extracts from Essential Writings, “The Attraction of Modern Times”, by Chiara Lubich.
![1956: I saw the Holy Land]()
14 Feb 2011 | Non categorizzato
It was a gathering of some representatives of the ecclesial movements and new communities present in Jerusalem. Here where the Universal Story had a new beginning, and also the small “sacred story” of each group concerning its place and its individual way.
Some hundred people were present in a hall of the Curia in the Custody of the Holy Land, just behind the New Gate.
Chemin Neuf, the Community of the Beatitudes and the Emmanuel Community of France; Cançao nova, the Sons of Mary, the Obra de Maria and Shalom Communityfrom Brazil; Regnum Christi from Mexico; John XXIII Association, Communion and Liberation and the Focolare from Italy (with international dimensions) told of their adventure with simplicity, each of them very original and yet quite similar to one another. Almost all of them shared common approaches: providing hospitality; meeting pilgrims; working to making the treasures of the Holy Land known (also at an ecumenical and interreligious level), and promoting tourism to the holy sites. Numerous movements and communities specialize in the field of evangelization through the media. There were also many examples of communities who worked together.
Like everything in Christianity, this meeting in Jerusalem was not noteworthy for its numerical dimensions, but but for its qualitative dimensions. It was the quality of relationships which was the highlight. “Perhaps one task of the movements and new communities is to bring to the Catholic Church and more generally to all of Christianity, the only primacy found in the Gospel, the primacy of love,” explained a young woman from the Chemin Neuf Community.
Some movements have been present on location in the Holy Land for years, others for just a few months. The joy and fellowship was what made everyone take note at this meeting that was begun by Maria Voce with the simple sharing of her activities.
In the course of a frank dialogue with those present, Maria Voce explained the meaning of the dialogue between movements and new communities: “I find myself before people and groups who desire to witness that mutual love which constructs the Church.”
In particular, responding to a question from a representative from Communion and Liberation, she said: “Certainly, following the Vigil of Pentecost 1998,” in Saint Peter’s Square, in answer to the call of John Paul II, “we felt linked, united to the Pope’s appeal as he invoked the Holy Spirit. From that time on, Chiara Lubich noticed in the Pope a desire that the movements be in communion among themselves.” To favor “that charismatic, marian presence which is “coessential” to the petrine dimension.” And so, since then, “wherever you find the Focolare Movement, you meet this desire for unity between movements and new communities.” Each with its own charism, “which complements the charism of the others. Communion isn’t uniformity. . . If (each of) our charisms is the most beautiful one, then, in the end, the Church is more beautiful, because the charisms are gifts that are to be submitted to reciprocity.”
“How can you live ecumenical and interreligious dialogue in the Holy Land?” asked one young Brazilian woman. “Dialogue is a lifestyle,” Maria Voce responded, “more than a thing that you “do”. It means placing yourself before another person out of love.” Loving without interests, always, being the first, both with other Christians and with the faithful of other religions. “For us, dialogue has always meant a dialogue between people, not between ideologies or religions. . . Because there is love in every person on earth.” Besides, “Unity comes from God, who only asks people to love each other.”
By Michele Zanzucchi
