Over 40 seminarians and several priests from 17 countries on the 5 continents took an end-of-the-year holiday trip to Loppiano. “We chose the Focolare’s international town to have an experience of God in the communion among us,” they write, “and to go deeper into that radical choice of the Gospel that our heart burns for.” It was precisely the Gospel that they wanted to have as the basis of their stay in Loppiano, starting from the Golden Rule, that mandate which can also be found in the sacred writings of all the Great Religions: “So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you” (Mt 7:12). The group stayed at Vinea Mea, the permanent residence of the School for Priests from different parts of the world who wish to be formed in the Focolare’s Spirituality of Unity and to experience a Church that St. John Paul II described as “Home and school of communion” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 43). The seminarians were accompanied in their experience by the priests at Vinea Mea and by experts from Loppiano. The method used in presenting the topics – including some that were theologically quite dense – was dynamic and experiential and even included personal examples from their own lives, which helped the young men to come to terms with where they stood personally with Jesus’s message One of the seminarians writes: “I was very struck by one of the main points of the spirituality of Chiara Lubich, which was presented in the talk on ‘Jesus Forsaken, God’s window on the world and the world’s window on God’. I realized that his gaze of love opens the way for humankind toward God, but also opens God’s path toward humankind in a way that is ever new.” Another writes: “I understood that the Jesus who became a man out of love and expressed the culmination of that love in the abandonment on the cross, is not only a beautiful theological concept, but should become life in me, in love and service for whoever is near to me.” Their interaction with the citizens of Loppiano enhanced their understanding of how to build unity among themselves in spite of the many differences. Some impressions from at the concluding session: “In these days I discovered that even in our interpersonal relationships the key is being able to make myself nothing in front of the other person, as Jesus Forsaken did, burning the difficulties involved in the life of unity in Him.” “What struck me the most was the joy with which the inhabitants of the Mariapolis [Loppiano] face weariness and service, and transmit God to everyone else.” Compiled by the Gens Centre