{"id":307004,"date":"2019-07-21T20:02:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T18:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/the-gospel-lived-a-culture-based-on-giving-and-sharing\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:39:59","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:39:59","slug":"the-gospel-lived-a-culture-based-on-giving-and-sharing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/the-gospel-lived-a-culture-based-on-giving-and-sharing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gospel lived: a culture based on giving and sharing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chiara wrote in 2006 \u00abThroughout the Gospel Jesus invites to give. To give to the poor, to whoever asks, to whoever needs a loan. To give food to the hungry, a coat to the one who asks for a cloak, to give freely….He himself was the first to give: health to the sick, forgiveness to sinners, life to all of us. He encourages generosity to combat the selfish instinct to hoard, to focus on the other so as to overcome the focus on our own needs; to give so as to combat the culture of having\u201d.<\/em> The wedding<\/strong> One of my daughters was getting married and given our limited family economy it was difficult for us to cover all the expenses. With ten days to go I still did not have a suitable outfit for the day. Furthermore it was not easy to borrow from someone given my size. Just at that time a container arrived from Florence with clothes and household goods. It had been prepared and sent by some families in Italy for our community. A friend decided to look through the many things to see if she could find something for me. She was delighted to find a beautiful piece of material and even thought of the style of dress to make with it. On the wedding day whenever I was complemented on my outfit I replied that God\u2019s providence made use of friends near and far. (M.A. \u2013 Paraguay) On Dialysis<\/strong> For three years now I have to have dialysis three times a week as I wait for a transplant. It\u2019s not easy at the clinic and I try to build a relationship with each patient. If someone likes talking about food, I talk about food. If someone is interested in sport, we talk about sport. However one day I was particularly tired of fighting and my spirits were low. I hadn\u2019t the energy to smile nor to greet people. A nurse who knew me well said \u201c You too, Aracelis?\u201d Immediately the anguish and discouragement disappeared and I began to think of the others and not about myself. (Araceli J. \u2013 Brasil) Adopted<\/strong> I was always ashamed not to know my biological parents even though the family which adopted me did everything to fill the gaps. When I fell in love and then married K my problems, which seemed to have disappeared, surfaced again. In fact when it came to educating our children we had opposite opinions. I left her without giving any explanation. For those who have had a family it is difficult to understand someone who feels existentially alone. Now, after a long time, trying to draw out love from a dry heart is helping me to recover. (T.A.F. \u2013 Hungary) The challenge<\/strong> One day a colleague offers me a sheet of paper explaining that it is a phrase from the Gospel with a commentary to help live it. I read: \u201cLove your enemies\u201d. I reflected and the next day I am ready to take up the challenge. I found my mother in the kitchen. We haven\u2019t spoken for two months. I sit down and have a coffee with her. \u201cDid you sleep well?\u201d I ask her. In the afternoon my brother comes to my room and asks me if he can borrow a jumper. \u201cOpen the cupboard and choose the one you want\u201d I reply. These are small deeds but I already feel different. (A.F. \u2013 Italy) <\/p>\n

\u00a0by Chiara Favotti<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chiara wrote in 2006 \u00abThroughout the Gospel Jesus invites to give. To give to the poor, to whoever asks, to whoever needs a loan. To give food to the hungry, a coat to the one who asks for a cloak, to give freely….He himself was the first to give: health to the sick, forgiveness to sinners, life to all of us. He encourages generosity to combat the selfish instinct to hoard, to focus on the other so as to overcome the focus on our own needs; to give so as to combat the culture of having\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"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-307004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307004","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\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}