{"id":327324,"date":"2015-05-30T04:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-05-30T02:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/a-special-greeting-from-syria\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:00:32","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:00:32","slug":"a-special-greeting-from-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/a-special-greeting-from-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"A special greeting from Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20150530-01\"<\/a>They arrived from<\/strong>: Damascus<\/a>, Aleppo<\/a>, Homs, Banias, Kfarbo and Tartous<\/strong>. Who would have ever imagined spending a week-end with the youth from all parts of Syria. Is this pure madness? The organizers asked themselves. Maybe so, but it became a reality. The number kept growing day after day, until it reached a total of 67. \u00abThis is how our adventure began,\u00bb<\/strong> they recounted. \u00abWe chose a safe place which all could reach, even if the trip took 10 hours. The idea was to spend three days together to live, share, pray, cry, and play, immersed in nature but with mutual love among us.\u00bb \u00abWhat matters most in my life?\u00bb<\/strong> was the title of the week-end, a question that echoed even more in an uncertain situation like that of the young Syrians. They divided into four groups that focused on different themes: \u201cA special bond with the Father,<\/em>\u201d \u201cWith Jesus every day,<\/em>\u201d \u201cthe Love that makes us free,<\/em>\u201d and \u201cLove for Mary,<\/em>\u201d which they deepened with passages of the Holy Scriptures, the Popes and saints, accompanied by true stories of other youth who had preceded them along the path towards sanctity. When I arrived for the week-end I was tired of the war<\/strong> – confided Fatima \u2013 and I felt that life was stagnant, but then once again I experienced God\u2019s presence in my life and his Love for us through the love of the others. Now when I undergo difficult moments, I just need to think that someone is praying for me and is trying to live in the same way, and this gives me a great inner peace. I have understood that the most important thing is to live life \u2026 loving Jesus in every neighbour.\u00bb \"DSCF5730\"On the first day they delve d deeper into one of the main tenets of the spirituality of unity, \u00abGod who is Love.<\/a>\u00bb Tracing the story of the beginning of the Focolare <\/a>in Trent during the Second World War, in the destruction of all, they traced also the reality of Syria today. \u00abEverything passes, only God remains,\u00bb someone said, and so: \u00abWhat matters most in my life?\u00bb. One of them said: \u00abLiving Christianity in a radical way.\u00bb On the second day, through a discourse of Chiara Lubich<\/a> to the youth in the 1970s, \u00abJesus<\/a> the Master,\u00bb their choice of God emerged. \u00abWe even sang, danced and played in the evenings, and it made us all feel like a true family,\u00bb Murad and Lina wrote. Upon leaving, some said: \u00abI thank Jesus for all the moments of joy and pain.\u00bb Haashim said \u00abI experienced God\u2019s caress once again \u2013 I feel the responsibility of bringing this grace to all around us.\u00bb Unforgettable days<\/strong>. \u00abDuring the week-end – Samir\u00a0 wrote – \u00abwe made our fill of peace and serenity that have given us the strength to return to living in this dramatic situation.\u00bb And Nahda concluded – \u00abDespite the absurdity of the war, I no longer feel alone.\u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo full of life despite the absurdity of the war.\u201d This is what Murad and Lina of the focolare in Damascus wrote, after a week-end event with 67 young people from all over the country. Unending prayers for the gift of peace.<\/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-327324","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\/327324","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=327324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}