{"id":307990,"date":"2021-08-13T01:00:35","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T23:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/living-the-gospel-sowing-love\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:42:34","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:42:34","slug":"living-the-gospel-sowing-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/living-the-gospel-sowing-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Living the Gospel: sowing love"},"content":{"rendered":"

St Augustine said, \u201cOnce and for all, I give you this one short command: love, and do what you will. If you hold your peace, hold your peace out of love. If you correct someone, correct them out of love. Let the root of love be in you: nothing can spring from it but good<\/em>\u201d<\/em>.<\/em> Put love …<\/strong> I could never have believed that my husband would turn into a stranger. His behaviour demonstrated such selfishness that he alienated all those around him. Actually this hid a deep sense of inferiority on his part. But it got to the point that I couldn\u2019t even celebrate our two children\u2019s successes without offending him. Yet when we first met, I had felt so supported by him! But now I felt my world had fallen apart and I was at crisis point. Around this time, I heard from an old school friend who had entered the convent but had just decided to leave. I went to see her and she shared her experience of loneliness, of disappointed idealism, of jealousies within the community, a community which existed for the best of humanitarian aims. As she spoke, I seemed to see myself in a mirror. We began to meet regularly and a phrase she quoted from St John of the Cross illuminated me on what I needed to do to try to save my family: \u201cWhere there is no love, put love and you will find love\u201d. I decided to try. It wasn\u2019t easy. But today things are different, both for me and for my friend. (M.d.A. \u2013 Albania)<\/em> Staying in Syria<\/strong> Ten years ago, as life was becoming very difficult for us Christians, we asked ourselves if it was really the case to stay in our own country. Many had chosen to flee, and apparently had found safety, far from the sounds of gunfire and from the fear. However, even if we can\u2019t do much, we realise that our presence here has become a true mission. Not so much about giving a witness of loyalty to the land or keeping the faith, but rather of being close to people, as Pope Francis has described. We\u2019re sure that this situation, difficult as it is, is offering a great life lesson to our own children. (V.M. \u2013 Syria)<\/em> Learning from the smallest<\/strong> Kanna comes from a Christian family and goes to a nursery where the teacher and many of the other children belong to different religions. At the end of the year, the teacher greets each of the children one by one. When she reached Kanna, she said, \u201cThank you because you\u2019ve taught us about Jesus. When you speak about him, we can feel he\u2019s close to you. You taught us the prayers you learned at home and they\u2019re beautiful. This morning I saw you when you gave the prize you\u2019d won to one of your friends. This gesture really moved me! I\u2019m about to get married, but before I do I want to be baptized. I\u2019m taking preparation because I want to believe in Jesus like you do.\u201d (Z.J. \u2013 Japan)<\/em> <\/p>\n

Edited by Lorenzo Russo<\/em><\/p>\n

  (translated from\u00a0Il Vangelo del Giorno, Citt\u00e0 Nuova, anno VII, n.4, luglio-agosto 2021)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St Augustine said, \u201cOnce and for all, I give you this one short command: love, and do what you will. If you hold your peace, hold your peace out of love. If you correct someone, correct them out of love. Let the root of love be in you: nothing can spring from it but good\u201d.<\/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-307990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307990","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=307990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}