{"id":327116,"date":"2015-03-05T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T04:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/war-in-syria-is-it-still-making-news\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T14:59:44","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T12:59:44","slug":"war-in-syria-is-it-still-making-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/war-in-syria-is-it-still-making-news\/","title":{"rendered":"War in Syria: Is it still making news?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"20150405Siria2\"

Intensifying our prayers for peace<\/p><\/div>\n

At the general audience of March 1, 2015,<\/strong> Pope Francis<\/strong> remarked that \u201cDramatic stories continue to arrive from Syria <\/a>and Iraq <\/a>concerning violence, kidnappings and damaging harassment of Christians and other groups. We wish to assure all those who are caught in those situations that we have not forgotten them, but are near to them with our insistent prayers that the intolerable brutality of which they have been victim may soon come to a halt.\u201d The vast crowd that filled St Peter\u2019s Square paused for a moment of deep prayer, as it remembered the two tortured countries of the Middle East.<\/p>\n

From Syria they write:<\/strong> \u201cMany surrendered to the idea that the war is a fact of life and that the hundreds of people who die every day no longer make news. The people have reached the limit of endurance and the winter is long and cold, without diesel fuel, electricity and water. The mortar fire continues to sow death in the big cities, while battles continue on the peripheries and in villages. The economy is on the ground and many families are unemployed; and legal outlets from the country are nearly closed. One Syrian bishop said that our people are humiliated and have had their human dignity insulted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"20150206_161931\"<\/a><\/strong>Despite the evil that is rampant in Syria, the local Focolare community continues to believe \u201cthat there can be a better future here. We continue to find strength in living the Gospel, even with courageous witness.\u201d They know they are not alone but belong to a great family around the world that is continuing to pray for them and work for peace. \u201cAlthough tiredness, after four years of war and the prospect of a dark future for the country weighs on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was the Aleppo to which the members of the men’s focolare returned on February 23, 2015. They write<\/strong>: \u201cAfter three months away, we\u2019ve returned to set up our Focolare Centre in Aleppo, together with Sami our married focolarino who lives with his family on the coast. He comes to stay with us once a month. Staying here is a challenge, for we are aware that Jesus in our midst, through mutual love, is the only source of hope and comfort for the local community and the people around us.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cDuring our journey,<\/strong>\u201d they conclude, \u201cwe stopped for a week in Damascus, at the women’s focolare. They have supported the community in our absence. Then we spent a week in the community of Kfarbo in the middle of the country. There was a lot of joy over our return: now the family is complete! We are all very grateful for the prayers of so many people around the world who are supporting us in this hard trial.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After three months away the focolarinos return to Aleppo. From the Focolare community in Syria, a message strengthened by the life of the Gospel.<\/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-327116","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\/327116","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=327116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}