{"id":290646,"date":"2003-05-04T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-05-04T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/unpublished-account-of-the-intervention-of-mary-in-history\/"},"modified":"2024-05-13T20:36:25","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T18:36:25","slug":"unpublished-account-of-the-intervention-of-mary-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/unpublished-account-of-the-intervention-of-mary-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Unpublished account of the intervention of Mary in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"\"It was an unpublished account revealing Mary\u2019s strength of peace, in action in the history of peoples, in moments of grave suffering, that Prof. Tommaso Sorgi, Director of the Igino Giordani Centre in Rome, presented to the Marian Congress. He showed that the \u201cRosary is an effective weapon even in the political arena\u201d. To give an example, he spoke of what happened just a few years ago. Half way through the 1980s, the bishops in the Philippines launched a prayer campaign for their own conversion, that seemed necessary to obtain from heaven the liberation from the Marcos\u2019 dictatorship. Five million Filipinos adhered to the campaign and the world saw a complete turnaround of events: \u201cThe dictator fled into exile and the revolution of the Rosary liberated the people without bloodshed\u201d. It was the Magnificat in action: Mary magnified the Lord who \u201cscattered the proud and brought down the powerful from their thrones\u2026\u201d. The Magnificat, therefore, \u201ccan be assumed as the model for political action\u201d. This was the perspective opened up by prof. Sorgi in these times when there is an urgency to \u201cbring down the fundamental categories of power\u201d. He proposed \u201cthe Magnificat as the social \u2018magna charta\u2019\u201d But the regality of Mary, he underlined, is a \u201cregality of love\u201d, a \u201cmaternal regality\u201d. Politics can therefore assume \u201cthe warmth of a service of love \u2026 the soul it so badly needs\u201d. Following the talk given by prof. Sorgi, prof. Adam Biela, an academic and politician, shared in his testimony how prayer is a source of inspiration and strength in his political commitment to go against the current in favour of a true development of his country <\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cThe great civilised and democratic countries have opted for war as the means for resolving conflict.\u201d This was the strong message given by prof. Andrea Riccardi, founder of the St Egidio Community, in his address on the second day of the International Marian Congress. In his talk he poses a question which \u201cmakes everyone uneasy\u201d: \u201cWill war once again be the future of the world?\u201d And here, prof. Riccardi highlights the strength of peace emanating from femininity, illustrating that Mary, at the foot of the cross, is the one who, though \u201covercome\u201d by the violence of the death of her Son, \u201cconceals in her tears the strength of life and hope\u201d and is \u201cunbending in the face of the logic of conquered and conqueror, friend and foe.\u201d \u201cThe mystery of faith that we see in Mary,\u201d prof. Riccardi continues, \u201cis that strength can be found in weakness, lowliness can be found in greatness, life can be present in a body destined to die.\u201d Today, \u201cMary represents the strength of peace in the midst of war\u201d. \u201cA mother\u2019s concern\u201d for the needs of others, \u201ceven though unspoken\u201d, as shown by Mary at the \u201cMarriage Feast of Cana\u201d, was the focus of a talk given by Anna Pelli. It was a reflection on this Gospel episode, one of the Mysteries of Light<\/em> that was deepened during the Marian Congress. This Gospel episode was reflected in an experience recounted by Carmen and her daughter, Maricel, from the Philippines. Their family had undergone many sufferings: financial difficulties, alcohol, drugs, constant arguments and the repercussions all this had on each of the eight children. They lived in a shack on the outskirts of Manila. Theirs was a story of resurrection starting from the discovery of God\u2019s love and of Mary as a model to imitate. Carmen, the mother, shared how her life changed when she came into contact with the Bukas Palad Social Centre,<\/em> run by the Focolare Movement. She was able to start again with her husband, who for years had been drinking and gambling. Maricel shared her experience of giving up the life of drugs she had led for seven years, finding the strength to forgive her father who, during their estrangement, had changed so dramatically. Maricel looked after him in the last days of his life. It was a miracle of love which flowed on to other poor families in their district through the Bukas Palad<\/em> centre where Carmen and Maricel now dedicate their time as social workers.<\/p>\n

\"\"The artistic contribution of today\u2019s program was truly extraordinary. It was focussed on this Mystery of Light, the \u201cMarriage Feast of Cana\u201d, leading everyone into the very heart of the Gospel. The choreography \u201cDo Whatever He Tells You\u201d by Marinel Stefanescu illustrated not so much the wedding feast but rather the profound meaning of the miracle of the water changing into wine, symbol of the blood which Jesus himself would shed in order to work the greatest miracle of all: the Resurrection. Another moment in the intense program of the Marian Congress was the contribution given by the new charisms on the vital understanding of Mary and the Rosary. There was a round table session composed of representatives of various movements and ecclesial communities including: Catholic Charismatic Renewal, St Egidio Community, Cursillos, Schoenstatt and the Legionaires of Christ.<\/em> \u201cI enjoyed the sharing of testimonies by representatives of the different charisms; it was as if we could see Mary alive and present in each one in the heart of the Church,\u201d wrote a person from Paraguay who had followed the congress through the Internet. And a participant from Argentina commented: \u201cThe series of testimonies shared by exponents of various movements was a witness to the variety of gifts which make the Church beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

A particularly profound testimony was that shared by Fr Pasquale Foresi, co-founder of the Focolare Movement and the first focolarino<\/em> to be ordained a priest. What emerged through his talk was a renewed priesthood, a Marian priesthood, and the fruitfulness of a life lived in the development of the Focolare Movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

International Marian Congress<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}