\u00a0Until a few years ago our seminary was situated in a traditional type structure, with bare walls and long hallways.\u00a0 Maybe it was also for this reason that each of us was running the risk of remaining closed in his own world.\u00a0 Some of us seminarians came in contact with the spirituality of unity.\u00a0 It was a great discovery to realize that the Gospel could be lived in such a concrete manner and especially with a sense of community.\u00a0 So we immediately started living the \u201cWord of Life\u201d with poise and enthusiasm – it is a phrase from the Gospel that everyone in the Focolare Movement commits to translate to practice during an entire month – and it wasn\u2019t long before we too began living our first experiences.\u00a0 Soon other seminarians joined us, attracted by this novelty of life.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the number of students had grown sensibly and there wasn’t enough space for everyone in the seminary building.\u00a0 The counselors then decided to turn a big living room area into a room for twelve seminarians.<\/p>\n
But no one wanted to move, as everyone preferred having their own room.\u00a0 We understood that it was an opportunity to love in a concrete way and to throw ourselves into a stronger life of communion.\u00a0 So we offered to move.
The following year there was still a problem with the lack of rooms and the counselors suggested we continue our experience in a house near the seminary.<\/p>\n
We began this new adventure trusting that it was something that God was suggesting.\u00a0 We put everything in common:\u00a0 clothes, books, money, and even our many needs.\u00a0 To support ourselves, we started different activities, among which raising chicks.\u00a0 Curious about this activity, many people would offer their help and would bring us food for them.\u00a0 Everything was an opportunity to be a testimony to our ideal of unity and so our house became a meeting place and a big family grew around us.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the diocese decided to build a new seminary.\u00a0 The experience of our \u201clittle house\u201d inspired the idea to project it not like a big building, but an assembly of various homes with a chapel at the center.\u00a0 There have been many episodes since then and the hardships accompanied us as well.\u00a0 But whenever faced with difficulties we always told each other that only living and being a testimony to reciprocal love is what counts.<\/p>\n
One day one of us needed a pair of slippers and I needed a pair of shoes for a celebration.\u00a0 We renewed the pact of mutual love between us, convinced that the first thing to search for is the Kingdom of God and the rest would be given to us in surplus, and we newly began loving everyone – superiors and fellow students – in the small things, trying to see Jesus in everyone.\u00a0 Come night time, a fellow student asked me if I needed a pair of shoes because he had received two pairs; a lady offered us a sum of money, the exact amount needed to buy a pair of slippers.\u00a0 We felt God\u2019s concrete love.<\/p>\n
One of the weak points in our seminary life was sports.\u00a0 Inevitably, every soccer game ended in contrast and discussion.\u00a0 So we planned a tournament that had as a rule that everyone rejoice for the success of others as his own.\u00a0 It went extremely well!\u00a0 Our spiritual guide was the happiest.\u00a0 And many seminarians thanked us for giving them the opportunity to discover that the Gospel can be lived in sports too.<\/p>\n
We tried to transmit this life outside of the seminary as well, especially in pastoral activities.\u00a0 One day, with a fellow student, we went to a female prison.\u00a0 Before going in, we told each other that we would stay solid in mutual love and see Jesus in each of the prisoners.\u00a0 At first they were quite indifferent, each of them concentrated on her own work. Then we tried to sing something for them and they slowly all came closer.\u00a0 Once the relationship was established, we were able to talk to them about some experiences we lived through the \u201cWord of Life\u201d.<\/p>\n
They were extremely happy and they made peace with each other.\u00a0 We could not understand how Jesus could act so quickly.\u00a0 One of them said she understood that she had to live by loving, even in prison, and that was the only way she could be free, maybe even more so than many that live in actual \u201cfreedom\u201d.\u00a0 Another one brought us to the door of her cell to tell us how that same night she was planning on killing herself, but that the love we brought gave her the joy to live again.\u00a0 It was obvious that we weren\u2019t the ones who had done these things, but Jesus present among us through mutual love.<\/p>\n
(N. U. A. Q. – Columbia) From Columbia<\/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-290926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290926","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=290926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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