{"id":292626,"date":"2011-08-03T14:17:51","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T12:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/trip-to-slovenia-2\/"},"modified":"2024-05-13T20:43:29","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T18:43:29","slug":"trip-to-slovenia-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/trip-to-slovenia-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Trip to Slovenia\/2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20110803-03\" <\/strong><\/p>\n

A surprising welcome for Maria Voce<\/span><\/strong><\/a> and Giancarlo Faletti<\/span><\/strong><\/a> in Slovenia where a group of smiling Friulians and Slovenians waited for them with flowers. It was an unusual sight, given that these two peoples have had mutual disagreements since 1918 due to the world wars. The Focolare\u2019s Gospel Ideal has helped them in overcoming the past, and for this reason the atmosphere is warm and festive as the Slovenian people are.<\/p>\n

This is a community that has been strengthened by long years of fidelity even through great suffering. A community which Maria Voce noted presented itself \u201cmature\u201d and rooted \u201cin mutual love, that love which links one to the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a small people in terms of its territorial expansion, but decisive and concrete in its Gospel experience. The lively youth of this land gathered together 600 of their countrymen, and presented to them the life of Chiara Luce Badano<\/span><\/strong><\/a>, a Gen<\/span><\/strong><\/a> who was recently beatified. Another original experience has been the constructive contact with other Catholic movements without which \u201cthe Church cannot go forward,\u201d as the recent Archbishiop of Ljubljana pointed out. And it is for the contact with the faithful of other churches and religions.<\/p>\n

Faced with a growing secular trend, on the 20th<\/sup> of June major representatives of the religions in Slovenia signed and launched a public appeal for religious freedom. Thousands of people had previously held public manifestations in defence of family values \u200b\u200band against legislation that opposed them. These were projects that involved the community of the Movement in standing up for that \u201cquality in relationships that creates the family, to that Gospel spirit which is a family spirit,\u201d as Maria Voce stated on the last day of her stay in Slovenia.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Skofja Loka<\/p><\/div>\n

Another significant moment was the August 2 visit of Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti to a noteworthy educational project at the \u201cSunray\u201d<\/strong> Pre-school in the historic city of Skofja Loka, twenty-five kilometres from the capital. The whole is immersed in green and overlooked by a castle \u2013 one of the two-thousands castles to be found in the whole state \u2013 the summer residence of the ancient patriarchs of Aquileia.<\/p>\n

Twenty-eight teachers \u2013 including twenty from the Focolare \u2013 have been bringing ahead this educational project since 2003. It involves 120 children between the ages of six months and six years, and is founded upon the spirituality of communion<\/span><\/strong><\/a> of Chiara Lubich<\/span><\/strong><\/a>. It is amazing to witness how such a pilot-project, which is born from a Gospel experience, provides a life education based on relationships of mutual love and respect, and of listening and it engages teachers, parents and the children themselves.<\/p>\n

Although they do not teach the catechism in the traditional sense, they do present Jesus to the children as someone who was born into the simplicity of a family and as someone who accompanies their growth.<\/p>\n

The project has been a large success and more requests are arriving to open similar pre-schools based on the same pedagogical model. Few know the suffering that lies beneath it all, due to the State\u2019s reluctance to support such projects. Maria Voce exhorted the teachers to \u201cwrite of their extraordinary experience\u201d as she continued to hold up the value of a work that strives to educate children at a relational dimension which is based on the new commandment of Jesus: \u201cThis is my command: Love each other as I have loved you.\u201d It was an historical moment for Sunray Pre-school whose very name expresses the sensation one has while visiting there. To the joy of everyone, Maria Voce suggested two \u201cprotectors\u201d for the project: two focolarini who showed great love for the youth: Camilla and Vincenzo Folonari.<\/p>\n

By our correspondent Mario Dal Bello<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first moments with a small but great people. A community strengthened by suffering and faithful to Gospel values. Visit to Sunray Pre-school, an original educational experience.<\/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":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292626","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\/292626","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=292626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}