{"id":306390,"date":"2018-08-09T23:10:55","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T21:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/in-the-seggau-palace\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:37:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:37:49","slug":"in-the-seggau-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/in-the-seggau-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Seggau Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \u201cWe were invited to this enchanting place, the \u201cgreen heart\u201d of Austria<\/a>, by Bishop Wilhelm Krautwaschl<\/strong>, current bishop of this 800 year-old diocese,\u201d writes Thailand\u2019s Cardinal Francis Xavier Kriengsak<\/strong>, who is coordinator of the Bishop Friends of the Focolare Movement.<\/strong> \u201cFor us, this this stay was an opportunity to live together as brothers, to share each other\u2019s joys and sorrows, to regenerate our strength and to anchor ourselves once again in the essential.\u201d History:<\/strong> The first meeting of Bishop Friends of the Focolare<\/a> was held in 1977 upon the invitation of theologian Klaus Hemmerle<\/a> (1929 \u2013 1994), once bishop of Aquisgrana, Germany. That time, the meeting was attended by twelve bishops from five continents. At the General Audience in the Vatican, Pope Paul VI greeted them and encouraged them to go forward.<\/strong> At the next meeting when he met them for the last time, he said: \u201cAs the head of the Apostolic College, I strongly encourage you, I urge you, I exhort you to continue in this undertaking.\u201d The same encouragement arrived from successive popes, including Pope Francis who sent his personal greetings<\/strong>. In 1981 these summer vacations with a small group of bishops were began. In 1984, Chiara Lubich<\/a> invited them to \u201cdecisively launch themselves, along with the whole Work of Mary, towards the unity of the churches<\/a> and dialogue with other religions<\/a> and people of good will<\/a>\u201d in accordance with the Church\u2019s and the Focolare spirituality\u2019s objective. The bishops write: \u201cThat invitation provoked a leap in quality in our communion [with one another].\u201d \"\"<\/a>This year 63 prelates from 31countries attended, including Lutheran bishop Christian Krause, once president of the World Lutheran Federation.<\/strong> The goal was the same as always: \u201cto enter more deeply and live the spirituality of communion\u201d<\/strong> and to \u201cexplore the ways it could strengthen the Church\u2019s journey\u201d<\/strong> in various socio-cultural circumstances. The setting was the beautiful Palace of Seggau (XII century), ancient seat of the Bishop of Graz and now transformed into a conference centre immersed in lush green surroundings. The meeting opened amidst much joy and fraternity, they write, \u201cwith a review the beginnings of the bishops\u2019 participation in the charism of unity<\/a>, which has led them to aim for a life of communion not only during summer vacation, but also at a distance and throughout the whole year.\u201d \"\"<\/a>There were several presentations.<\/strong> Fr Fabio Ciardi, OMI,<\/strong> who is head of the Abba School, offered several reflections on Chiara Lubich\u2019s experience of light in 1949<\/strong>. Archbishop Vincenzo Zan<\/strong>, Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, described the Synod on young people that will take place in October. Bishop Brendan Leahy<\/strong> from Ireland reported on the Meeting of Families that will be held in Dublin at the end of August. Focolare president, Maria Voce<\/a>, anticipated the topic that will be explored by all the Focolare members throughout the next year: \u201cThe Holy Spirit<\/a>, Soul of the Church and of the world.\u201d<\/strong> Then, together with co-president Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n<\/strong>, she talked about their visit to several Asian countries last January where they met with communities of the Movement. They also described the recent large gathering of young people at the Genfest<\/a> in Manila, Philippines. They listened again to the Pope\u2019s speech at the Focolare town of Loppiano<\/a>, Italy, on May 10th, which Moran described as a \u201ckind of guidebook\u201d for the Work of Mary\u2019s journey.\u201d The Governor of the region welcomed the bishops in the Main Hall of the university of the Jesuits and offered them a reception.<\/strong> This is an unprecedented event, he remarked, which places us in the good collaboration between civil institutions and the church \u201cin an ecumenical spirit and openness to all religions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From July 24th to August 1st the annual summer gathering of bishops who animate the meetings for Bishop Friends of the Focolare Movement, was held in Seggau, Austria, attended by 63 prelates from 31 countries, who wanted to live and enter more deeply into the spirituality of communion.<\/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-306390","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\/306390","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=306390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}