“I don’t agree with suicide bombers.” “And I don’t agree with the bombardments over your cities.” This conversation, between a young Palestinian girl and an Israeli soldier, took place at a check-point in an occupied Palestine territory. Comments like these are the opposite to what you hear elsewhere, but they reflect the type of experiences that are being shared on the stage at the Mariapolis Centre in Castelgandolfo, where the International Marian Congress is being held to promote the Year of the Rosary nominated by Pope John Paul II. His intention was to relaunch this Marian prayer, defined by him as a “compendium of the Gospel”, in order to encourage today’s men and women to search for peace and a new dimension of the Spirit, to “contemplate Christ with the eyes of Mary” and to be like him “builders of peace and of a world more in accordance with the plans of God”.

The experiences shared during the congress demonstrate the power of the Gospel which is capable of crushing hatred through love for one’s enemies. It is a way we’re obliged to undertake “following the 11th of September which placed us at a crossroad. It’s up to us to follow the right road”, as Mgr. Piero Coda said in his talk. Dieudonné from Burundi shared his experience: 12 members of his family were massacred during bombardments in his city, but this isn’t what made him change his way of life. He decided to put into practice the art of evangelical love even in his encounters with the military who, though often quite merciless, were in need of assistance. He recounted, for example, the episode when he saved the life of a drunken soldier who was about to fall off a bridge.

This is just a glimpse of the many testimonies inserted in the sections of the program dedicated to the five “Mysteries of Light” which, together with theological reflections, penetrated in depth the various stages of the life of Jesus and Mary. The first mystery, the Baptism of Jesus, was presented by Fr Fabio Ciardi who commented, “It is an invitation to recognise Jesus as the Son of God so as to submerge our old self in the waters of baptism and so be reborn to new life in order to find ourselves brothers and sisters in the heart of the one Father.”

As Mgr Domenico Sorrentino, Archbishop of Pompei, underlined in tracing the history of the Rosary, the Holy Father invites us to take a step further, “He does not limit himself to entrusting peace to the intercession of Mary, but he presents it as the fruit of this prayer, which is a ‘prayer for peace’, since it consists in the contemplation of Christ.” “It has a peaceful effect.”

The participants of the Congress at Castelgandolfo have been living an experience of contemplation, and this hasn’t been limited to the 1500 participants from 70 countries present in the hall. The proceedings have also been followed through 11 satellite linkups generously donated by ESA, Telepace, EWTN and the CRC (Canada) which have made it possible for local and national television channels to transmit the entire event. On the first day of the conference there were 7000 live Internet connection points with an audience of 20,000. Messages were received from all over the world, and here is an example of some of the feedback: “It’s amazing to see how sublime spirituality and down-to-earth living can go together,” wrote someone from Amersfoot in Holland. “We’re watching the transmission. It’s full of light and we feel part of the event,” a message from Edinburgh said.

The profound spiritual dimension of the Marian conference was announced right from the beginning: “We will be focussing on the Rosary which is a constant song of love to Mary,” said Professor Giuseppe Zanghi, Director of the New Humanity theological journal, “It will be above all an opening of the eyes of our soul on the mysteries of the life of the Son of Mary. And while we will be opening our minds and hearts to Jesus, Jesus himself will speak of Mary to our hearts and minds – in the way that He speaks, a way which does not end in poor words but in a new creation.”

One of the many novel aspects of this event was the charismatic dimension in the understanding of Mary and the Rosary. The Marian Congress offered this contribution in response to letter that Pope John Paul II consigned to Chiara Lubich on 16 October 2002, the same day on which he had relaunched the prayer of the Rosary.

The culminating moment of the day was the talk given by Chiara Lubich who communicated the gifts of light from the origins of the Focolare Movement, which is recognised by the Church as the “Work of Mary”. Chiara recounted a dramatic moment of the beginnings of the Movement: “One day, beneath an atrocious bombing, face-down on the ground and covered with the thick dust that filled the air, I picked myself up almost as if miraculously preserved. Calm and filled with peace in the midst of the cries of the people around me, I realised that in those moments I had experienced a deep suffering: that of never again being able to say the ‘Hail Mary’”. Later on she understood that this “‘Hail Mary’ had to be made up of living words, of people who, almost like other little
Marys, would give Love to the world.”
It has to be that Love which is Jesus himself, that Jesus who, as Chiara added, “we can spiritually generate today as the Gospel promises when it says: ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name (in my love, as the Fathers of the Church explain), I am in their midst” (Mt 18:20). This is a task which, as Cardinal Vlk, Archbishop of Prague, said during his homily, has been defined as the “primary task awaiting today’s secularised society”.

Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare Movement, spoke of her discovery of the new countenance of Mary who is of “an incomparable beauty. She is all Word of God, all clothed in the Word of God”. She also spoke of “the call of every Christian to repeat, like Mary, Christ, the Truth, the Word, expressed in the personality that God has given to each one”. This is a vision “rich in consequences, for example, in the ecumenical field”. On Wednesday there will be testimonies shared by members of the Lutheran Church, the Evangelical Reformed Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church and Coptic Orthodox Church.

An ulterior novelty which will permeate the whole conference is the ample space given to artistic items: songs, music, dances from various cultures and literary works (Dante, Sartre), because, as the words of Chiara Lubich’s meditation sung by Gen Verde say, “of Mary we cannot speak, but sing. Love flourishes in poetry”.

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