{"id":307808,"date":"2021-03-09T03:00:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T02:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/discovering-god-where-he-seems-to-have-disappeared\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:42:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:42:06","slug":"discovering-god-where-he-seems-to-have-disappeared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/discovering-god-where-he-seems-to-have-disappeared\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovering God where He seems to have disappeared"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Focolare Movement in Germany, together with other Catholic organisations, organised an online conference on the search for God in a world where He seems increasingly absent. This \u00a0contributed also to the Catholic Church\u2019s synodal process in Germany.<\/em> \"\"“God disappears \u2013 and maybe, could this be necessary? God disappears – is it He perhaps who wants it this way?” These were the provocative questions\u00a0 that guided the programme of an online conference that was held in Germany on\u00a0 February 26-27. \u00a0It\u00a0 was organized\u00a0 by the Focolare Movement in Germany together with \u00a0the “Herder-Korrespondenz”, a monthly Catholic magazine, and the Catholic Academy of the\u00a0 Dresden-Meissen Diocese in the former GDR.\u00a0 It was meant to address one of the most urgent questions many Christians ask today: \u201cWhat do we have to do and how do we have to move in a world where God seems to be no longer present?” 350 participants from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other European countries were ready to discuss in depth the causes of an ever-increasing absence of God in society and in the lives of individuals. As Heinrich Timmerevers, the Bishop of Dresden \u00a0said\u00a0 in his opening speech, they were \u00a0even ready to ask the shocking question, “Is it perhaps the Church itself that is driving people away from God because of the crisis caused by abuse?” In a \u00a0message sent to the participants, Margaret Karram, President of the Focolare Movement \u00a0said\u00a0 that the theme of God\u2019s absence \u00a0touches \u00a0the core of the Movement’s spirituality, that springs from the figure of Jesus crucified and forsaken \u00a0by men and God, “the hardest \u00a0moment for Jesus and at the same time the most divine, the key to contribute towards fraternity wherever\u00a0 it is lacking […] and to reach out to those who suffer most because of this darkness”. During these two days, there were moments of critical and stimulating \u00a0reflection on all that motivates a firm faith in God, despite a growing tendency towards secularism, and also on new forms of interest – especially in young people – in something transcendent \u00a0that is passed on through authentic stories, experiences of deep attractiveness and a curiosity \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0to explore new reflections\u00a0 on the meaning of life. During this conference, the \u00a0awareness that\u00a0 Churches are often no longer able to meet the new religious needs of today’s men and women, was also present. The talk delivered by the German theologian Julia Knop was very strong; it was almost shocking. She started from the debate on the abuse of power and sexual violence by clerics and consecrated persons, and then \u00a0continued to show that an erosion of trust in the Church is also being felt among its most faithful members. The professor of dogmatics claimed that\u00a0 the Church\u2019s crisis\u00a0 is closely linked to the faith crisis. Stefan Tobler, the Reformed theologian stated that the \u00a0absence of God could \u00a0also prove to be an opportunity. While presenting\u00a0 traces of the mysticism in Madeleine Delbr\u00eal, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Chiara Lubich, he pointed out that the experience of\u00a0 God that vanishes could \u00a0become precisely the place where God reveals himself. “God is found precisely where he seems furthest away. It is therefore not a question of bringing him to the world, but of discovering him in the world”. <\/p>\n

Joachim Schwind<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Focolare Movement in Germany, together with other Catholic organisations, organised an online conference on the search for God in a world where He seems increasingly absent. This \u00a0contributed also to the Catholic Church\u2019s synodal process in Germany.<\/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-307808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307808","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=307808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}