{"id":305720,"date":"2017-12-08T01:10:18","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T00:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/after-the-visit-of-francis\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:35:59","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:35:59","slug":"after-the-visit-of-francis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/after-the-visit-of-francis\/","title":{"rendered":"After the Visit of Francis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PopeMyanmar_02\"<\/a>Peace, respect for the dignity of every people, and dialogue were some of the lofty goals left by Pope Francis<\/strong> to the populations he visited during his recent trip in Asia. Testimonies from the <\/strong>Focolare<\/a> community <\/strong>have begun to arrive from Myanmar <\/a>in recent days where, together with others, they were involved in taking care of different aspects of the trip \u2013 things like translations, maintaining order, health care, and the orchestra. Here are a few of the reports: <\/strong>\u201cPope Francis\u2019s coming was a dream come true for us. It took a while for the amazement to become conscious awareness of what was really happening.\u201d \u201cThe tears streamed down the cheeks of the elderly. But also the youth, for whom it was more difficult to grasp what was taking place, were overjoyed.\u201d The small minority of Catholics in the country felt encouraged: <\/strong>\u201cWe were a little flock and isolated. Finally we saw our shepherd up close. These people are no longer on the margins, but under the world spotlight. Finally something happened to be proud of. The Pope is in Myanmar.\u201d \u201cWe don\u2019t have to be afraid of anything anymore.\u201d \"PopeMyanmar_01\"<\/a>Gennie works with Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), <\/strong>civilians who are forced to escape persecutions and, unlike refugees, haven\u2019t crossed international borders. In the majority of cases, while waiting for a new life, they\u2019re deprived of help and protection. After Pope Francis\u2019s visit, she writes: <\/strong>\u201cToday this hope is renewed. \u201cMy own personal hope is in Love, and from now on it will be more and more alive in me.\u201d \u201cOn November 28 we left with a group of a hundred people from the farthest villages of the country. We travelled in at least five buses. \u201cThe trip <\/strong>was organized by our parish. Seeing the Pope was like a dream for us. We left at nine o\u2019clock in the morning and travelled for ten hours. We were full of enthusiasm, we prayed and sang. We took a short-cut, but it took all of us around twenty hours to get there because we didn\u2019t want to let our friends fall behind and be on their own. But nobody complained about that.\u201d \"PopeMyanmar_05\"<\/a>The group reached Kyaikkasan Ground <\/strong>of Yangon at around 5:30 in the morning as Mass was about to begin. It was attended not only by the small Catholic minority, but also by Muslims, Buddhists and faithful of different religions. \u201cOur group couldn\u2019t get in, but we found a spot near one of the entrances. Through the Pope we were able to feel the Church\u2019s love for the smallest flock. You could sense a very strong love also among the whole population, not only among the Christians. Our taxi driver told us that he had been driving people for free to the stadium since early morning, and that the public trains were doing the same.\u201d One Buddhist youth<\/strong>, who had just attended the Mass, wrote: \u201cHere too I felt I was in a family. I notice a deep peace in my heart.\u201d \"PopeMyanmar_04\"<\/a><\/strong>Gennie continues: <\/strong>\u201cThe new criteria that should be observed from now on are totally topsy turvey and new: the VIPs are all there in the Magnificat <\/em>. . . He has raised up the lowly . . . filled the hungry with good things.\u201d \u201cWe have to thank everyone for this experience \u2013 the Yangonians, who were always so patient with the crowd; the people who prepared the event, but especially Pope Francis who made the decision to come to such a far-away land. It\u2019s a new daybreak for Myanmar.\u201d Valentina is a medical doctor. <\/strong>She and other doctors lent their services to help with the health care. \u201cIt was an occasion that put us together, without borders. We Catholic and non-Catholic doctors worked straight through and were very tired, but we received a sort of grace, that of being able to love without stopping.\u201d Jerome worked as a translator: <\/strong>\u201cFor me it was especially beautiful to see the youth waiting from early in the morning at the Cathedral of St Mary in Yangon. At the end of the Mass the Pope turned to us with lots of encouragement for us to work or peace. I now feel called to greater generosity, to be joyful and brave as he asked us to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After working hard alongside others in preparing and carrying out Pope Francis\u2019s visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh, the local Focolare communities are now getting ready to focus their efforts on putting his message into practice.<\/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-305720","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\/305720","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=305720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}