{"id":307130,"date":"2019-11-07T22:05:04","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T21:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/living-the-gospel-looking-through-new-eyes\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:40:18","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:40:18","slug":"living-the-gospel-looking-through-new-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/living-the-gospel-looking-through-new-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Living the Gospel: looking through new eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"

St Paul\u2019s words \u201cRejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep\u201d (Rom 12:15) invite us to \u201cmake ourselves one\u201d, to put ourselves \u201cin someone else\u2019s shoes\u201d, as an effective way of living real love. When we put this into practice, we notice things starting to change around us, beginning with our family relationships, our schools, places of work and our local communities. With gratitude we discover how our love, when given freely and sincerely, sooner or later will be returned and become reciprocal.<\/em> Welcome<\/strong> A woman with a troubled past came to live in our locality. When we realised who she was, we did not want to have anything to do with her. In fact, we discovered she had murdered her own son, and had not been sent to prison because she was pregnant and suffering from depression. Our parish priest reminded us not to condemn her, but actually every time we saw her, it was extremely difficult not to think of what she had done. As time passed, helped by the parish priest, this woman became the measure of our capacity to welcome others. And with our sustained effort to \u201clook at the other person through new eyes\u201d, the whole quality of our community life improved. We reflected it was precisely through this woman in need and our mercy towards her that God was giving us an important lesson from the Gospel. And we received a real gift one day when, through her tears, she shared her story with us: all her sufferings and the violence she had herself endured. She thanked us because we had proved to her that love exists and that the world is not only evil as she had known it up to then. (M.P. \u2013 Germany) Supporting deaf and dumb children<\/strong> Our institute is funded partially by the State and partially by our own efforts, through selling our own hand-made craft items. But there are always so many in need. One day the parent of one of our pupils came to tell us they couldn\u2019t find the money to solve a serious problem. I took the last money we had and give it to him. Later that same day a visitor came whom we had never met before. She told us, \u201cI saw the statue of Mary in your garden and stopped to pray. I respect what you do here, it is admirable. I don\u2019t know what I can do for you, but maybe this will help\u201d. And she gave us two bank notes totalling exactly double what I had given away in the morning! (J. \u2013 Lebanon) On a cruise trip<\/strong> I\u2019ve never known my mother to be healthy. She has always been unwell and for decades confined to bed. My father despite his brilliant and successful career, stayed close to her, ensuring she had everything she needed. One day I was invited on a cruise trip and I accepted immediately, making any number of excuses to myself. On that trip, while my colleague was talking about his family, I realised that I had very little to say about my own, it seemed I almost felt ashamed of the ongoing suffering in my family. However, when he asked about my parents and I started talking about my father\u2019s dedication to my mother, I found I was actually so proud to have a father like this, and I began to understand that suffering is of value. When I returned home, I immediately went to ask forgiveness from my parents, not so much for having left them to go on holiday, but because I had not been able to recognize that they needed me. With that \u201ccruise trip\u201d my life changed. And the last days of my mother\u2019s life became a gift for the whole family. (S.S. \u2013 Spain) Asking forgiveness<\/strong> Early one morning in the kitchen, my wife and I were agitated over unresolved problems. We could see no way out and, as on other occasions, a furious argument was about to explode. I paused just for a moment and asked myself if all the promises I had made to God to make a new start were valid or had they all gone up in smoke? I went to my wife and, even if I did not find it easy, I asked her for forgiveness. Immediately, she responded, saying that she was the one to blame … By the time the children arrived in the kitchen, they found not only the breakfast ready, but their parents who were growing with them, striving to transmit to the children the right key to living well. (R.H. \u2013 Slovacchia) <\/p>\n

edited by Stefania Tanesini<\/em> (from Il Vangelo del Giorno, Citt\u00e0 Nuova, anno V, n.6,novembre-dicembre 2019)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St Paul\u2019s words \u201cRejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep\u201d (Rom 12:15) invite us to \u201cmake ourselves one\u201d, to put ourselves \u201cin someone else\u2019s shoes\u201d, as an effective way of living real love. When we put this into practice, we notice things starting to change around us, beginning with our family relationships, our schools, places of work and our local communities. With gratitude we discover how our love, when given freely and sincerely, sooner or later will be returned and become reciprocal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"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-307130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307130","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}