![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Con-i-giovani-4.jpg\")
<\/em><\/a>It was a special Saturday for the large Focolare family in the Domincan Republic. <\/strong>Seven-hundred people met in the Church\u2019s Casa San Paolo, a small country with a dozen provinces, two-hundred by three-hundred kilometers, but rich in local beauty and \u201ccampanalism\u201d with both its positive and negative implications.<\/p>\nThis was brought out during the meeting between Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti with 150 young people<\/strong> who are close to the Movement in the Domican Republic. Priscilla, for example, shared how she had moved from her province, Santiago Rodriguez, which is rural and famous for its large banana cultivations, nearer to the capital, in order to study psychology. The adjustment to the new environment, the people, and the way of living wasn\u2019t easy. But being close to the youths of the Focolare helped her to insert herself into her new surroundings, and even to become a leader among her friends.<\/p>\n The influence of egotistical urges and a lack of clarity also emerged during this meeting, the noise of the city, of temptation and sin: \u00abOur amplifier,\u00bb<\/em> Maria Voce replied, \u00abis the presence of Jesus in our midst, who makes his voice heard, and he makes it heard loudly, even more loudly than all the other noises.\u00bb <\/em>Chiara Luce Badano, the young woman of the Movement who was recently beatified, is an example for their lives, who helps them to face their difficulities even when, what is accepted as normal becomes a cause of judgement against them because of their involvement in a Christian lifestyle that goes against the current. \u00abWell, is it more important to be concerned that your companion is happy with you, or whether God is?\u00bb <\/em>asked Maria Voce. Then \u00abBut these young people should be able to feel the joy that there is among you.\u00bb<\/em> It\u2019s not a matter of becoming isolated, but of advancing the beauty of life \u201cwith Jesus\u201d in order to share with others the beauty of doing this \u201ctogether\u201d.<\/p>\n By Michele Zanzucchi<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti offer the lively young Dominicans of the Focolare Movement \u201csomething more\u201d. They invite them to \u201cdo great things\u201d and to \u201cshare with everyone the joy of living \u201cwith Jesus\u201d and \u201cfor Jesus.\u201d<\/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_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292380","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=292380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The young audience sat in silence. It seemed strange, given the exuberant vitality of Dominican youths, who are also capable of great depth and generosity. The questions showed their desire to be radical. And so Maria Voce insisted on speaking about \u201cvocation\u201d and aspiring for great things: \u00abAt your age there is a love for taking risks, the spirit of adventure, doing something different. It\u2019s precisely at your age that you have the grace to do something crazy! You can have a lunacy for God, following his call, even if you aren\u2019t sure of it. <\/em>It\u2019s worth it. \u00bb <\/em>Giancarlo Faletti undscored how \u00abIt is in the nature of young people to search, in school they do research, they search for work, sport, love, involvement. <\/em>It is in these things that each person\u2019s potential is brought into evidence, and also the capacity to listen. Not only to listen to exterior voices, but above all, to the interior voice that asks me why I\u2019m doing what I do. I can\u2019t hide myself in front of so many things, in front of such a busy life: I must listen to the voice that asks me where my life is going. \u00bb <\/em><\/p>\nOne young woman named Marguerita<\/strong> commented on what Maria Voce said: \u00abWhen Maria voce spoke to us of Jesus who cried out his abandonment on the cross, I realized that it\u2019s not only suffering, living it doesn\u2019t doesn\u2019t leave us with our suffering, but it brings us the joy of living with Him and for Him.\u00bb <\/em>Pablo from Santo Domingo underscored that \u00abthe simple joy that I experienced today is like a virus that I have to spread to my friends.\u00bb \u00abYou\u2019re generous, \u00bb <\/em>Maria Voce concluded, \u00abyou\u2019ve shown me that you are. And so you\u2019re capable of great things. Let\u2019s carry on without any fear to give even more. \u00bb <\/em><\/p>\n