{"id":306208,"date":"2018-06-04T23:10:23","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T21:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/living-the-gospel-blessed-are-the-peacemakers\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:37:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:37:19","slug":"living-the-gospel-blessed-are-the-peacemakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/living-the-gospel-blessed-are-the-peacemakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Living the Gospel: Blessed are the peacemakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cake<\/strong> Family life is not always straight forward. An argument can break out when you least expect it. Last weekend we were in the car on our way to visit friends. My wife had spent a whole day in the kitchen preparing a really special cake. Just as we were about to arrive I realised I had missed the turning to their road and I put my foot down hard on the brakes. As the car came to a sudden halt, the cake propelled forward onto the floor. A heated \u201cdiscussion\u201d ensued. I wanted to make the point that the cake had been left in the wrong place where it could fall, as in fact it had done. However, I managed to stop myself and instead I apologised. Eventually the tension eased, and when we arrived at our friends\u2019 house, bearing no gift and with our clothes covered in cake, we were nevertheless in harmony with each other. Enrique – Spain<\/a> Someone less fortunate<\/strong> I had just got off the train when a youth pushed passed me, chased by three men shouting \u00abStop thief!\u00bb. They caught up with him and started to beat him. On seeing this I rushed in and tried to shield him. He was just a young boy, he looked about 16 years old. Curled up on the ground he tried to say in broken Italian that he had stolen food because he hadn\u2019t had anything to eat for days. When the police arrived, he explained that he was a refugee from Congo, where all the members of his family had been killed. I asked to be allowed to accompany him to Accident and Emergency. \u201cYou have saved my life,\u201d he said along the road, \u201cyou are my Italian mother!\u201d He was diagnosed with cranial trauma and three broken ribs, and admitted into hospital. As he didn\u2019t have the clothing he needed, I went to buy some for him. On my return, someone asked me why I was going to so much effort for a stranger, and for a thief at that! I replied without hesitation, \u00abI\u2019m a Christian and it\u2019s my duty to help a neighbour who is less fortunate than myself\u00bb. Anna Maria \u2013 Italy<\/a> A bessing denied<\/strong> G.\u2019s life ended in the most shameful and miserable way, following a night of alcohol and prostitutes. At that was not all. The night before he died, he had taken his fifteen year old son into this dark world to, as he said, teach him how to \u201cbe a man\u201d. When I was called to bless his dead body, I immediately responded that he did not deserve the Church\u2019s blessing. I felt I was doing the right thing in the name of justice and in order to give a good example. However, afterwards I didn\u2019t feel at peace in myself. I thought of the man\u2019s widow and children. Was I right to deny them this small comfort? Didn\u2019t I only know the man\u2019s story superficially? And yet I had set myself up as his judge, in the place of God. After a sleepless night, I made a decision. I went to visit the man\u2019s family, to ask their forgiveness and to make arrangements for a Mass for the repose of the soul of their loved one. Maybe this gesture brought a little peace to them. E. P. \u2013 Italy<\/a> Aquiline nose<\/strong> Among my group of friends, we always talk about things like fashion and make up and so on. One day, one of the girls started mocking me, saying I had an \u201caquiline\u201d nose. This made everyone laugh. I rushed away, feeling humiliated and I stayed in a bad mood for days. My family saw the state I was in, but nothing they could do could make me feel better. Then one evening my sister invited me to go with her to a meeting of people who base their actions on the Gospel. I agreed and when I got there, I felt as if I had entered another world, one in which important things really had value and not just banalities like the shape of a nose or of a dress. Since then, I have experienced profound peace within me. I now feel truly myself. C. K. – Poland<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To be a peacemaker means creating opportunities for reconciliation at all levels, both with ourselves and with others.<\/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-306208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306208","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=306208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}