{"id":327438,"date":"2015-07-20T04:00:12","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T02:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/paraguay-our-thanks-to-pope-francis\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:00:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:00:57","slug":"paraguay-our-thanks-to-pope-francis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/paraguay-our-thanks-to-pope-francis\/","title":{"rendered":"Paraguay: our thanks to Pope Francis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"giovani_paraguay\"<\/a>Ore aguije Papa Francisco pe, ha peeme avei pe \u00f1embo\u2019ehaguere ore rehe<\/em>. In the Guaran\u00ed language<\/strong>: \u00abOur thanks to Pope Francis and to all of you for your prayers.\u00bb \u00abAs we had imagined, overflowing graces have fallen on the entire Paraguay people, ever since His Holiness was here among us,\u00bb Nelson Ben\u00edtes and Margarita \u00c1valos, heads of the Focolare<\/a> in Paraguay wrote, after the Pope\u2019s visit to their country. \u00abThe children, the sick and the youth were the main protagonists of the visit. Over 80,000 \u201cservidores\u201d (\u201cstewards\u201d – almost all young people) from all over the country worked day and night for three days. But the preparations started at least three months earlier, a concrete fact that gives true hope!\u00bb\u00a0 Nahuel Espinola recounts: \u00abI was a \u201dservidor\u201d of the Pope \u2013 It was simply fantastic! I\u2019m 15 and I don\u2019t know when I shall experience something like this again. I hope that his message will reach all the youth.\u00bb \u00abThere was \u00a0instant bond with the people,\u00bb <\/strong>and some scenes will never be deleted from my mind: the children of the choir of Luque running towards Pope Francis for a group embrace, the thousands of people who filled the streets, his car stopping in front of the women\u2019s jail. \u00abWhen they found out that the Pope was coming, the children afflicted with cancer in a hospital did not want to be discharged!\u00bb. Then there was the visit to \u201cBa\u00f1ado Norte,\u201d one of the poorest districts of the capital, where the Pope visited a sick woman at home. \u00abFor that event, she had prepared the \u201cchipa\u201d and \u201csopa paraguaya,\u201d typical dishes the Popes likes. This was followed by the surprise visit to the parish of Cristo Re, to pay homage to the still intact heart of the martyr and first Paraguayan saint: San Roque Gonz\u00e1lez de Santa Cruz.\u00bb In Caacup\u00e9, Pope Francis consecrated Paraguay entirely to Mary.<\/strong> Then came the meeting with civil society, one of the most striking moments when he launched a discourse on dialogue, inviting all to dialogue, by losing all in order to understand the other, and \u201center\u201d into the other. \u00abConcepts like the humane side of development, giving priority to the person, and not treating the poor like objects, impressed me deeply,\u00bb affirmed Julia Dominguez, a member of the Economy of Communion of Paraguay, \u00abFrom now on, we must not dwell on sentimentalism, but live this daily.\u00bb C\u00e9sar Romero, active in the association for families added: \u00abIn the dynamism and freshness of the programme, I saw a Church that was making a big effort to update itself in its methods and messages.\u00bb Silvano Malini, a journalist in Paraguay<\/strong> wrote: \u00abIn these three countries of the Latin American \u201cperiphery,\u201d Pope Francis decisively stood on the side of the \u201crejects\u201d of society and victims of injustice and inequality, but in doing so did not \u201cattack\u201d anyone but human miserliness – the only sources of the serious and dramatic problems of this country (corruption, egoism, low-quality democracy).\u00bb Malini went on to say: \u00abThe Pope\u2019s exhortations fell on soil tilled by the Church in Paraguay, as could be seen in the meeting with the representatives of over 1,500 civil society organizations. Pope Francis, with authority, gave an example of concrete dialogue which is not easy but does help to make small but sure steps towards a common project. \u00bb \"nu_guazu\"<\/a>\u00abAt campo \u00d1u Guas\u00fa, a million faithful awaited him. <\/strong>The sun shone on the crowd that had been waiting for 15 hours in the mud, because it had rained over the last few days. But nothing could stop the celebrations.\u00bb Esteban Echag\u00fce recounted: \u00abNeither the mud nor the weariness could deter the immense joy we all felt. I was so struck by the Pope\u2019s affirmation that the parishes should really be places of encounter with one\u2019s brethren, and a place of acceptance and fraternity, and if this is not so, we would not be true Christians.\u00bb \u00abAfter a brief but intense moment with the Paraguay bishops, the Pope \u201cmiraculously\u201d regained his strength to resume his pastoral journey! One could feel that he was tired as was natural for a 78 year old! But everyone was convinced that in front of the youth, Francis would be transformed.<\/strong>\u00bb In fact, more than 200,000 were waiting for him along the Paraguay River! He asked all to have a free heart and furthermore\u2026, \u00abcontinue to raise a \u201cruckus\u201d but an organized one.\u00bb Leonor Navaro confided: \u00abThe Pope aroused in the youth and in all, the desire to be better… because he saw us the way we should be \u2013 and through his eyes the world discovered us as such. From now on we want to reflect ourselves in his eyes!\u00bb Along the way back to the airport, <\/strong>he was moved upon blessing a place which is a really painful symbol for the country: the remains of a commercial center where ten years ago, around 400 people died in a fire. Nelson and Margarita continued: \u00abThrough Bishop Adalberto Mart\u00ednez, Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference of Paraguay, we wrote to the Pope that the Focolare Movement is praying for him. We had sent him a gift of a book on the Guaran\u00ec culture and on the development of Economy of Communion in the country. To conclude: \u00abThis visit, like that of Pope John Paul 27 years ago, will bring about vital and positive outcomes and spiritual effects also in the civil life of the country. Pope Francis was very clear in his words, but conveyed them with the tenderness of a Father! It is now up to them to make use of these moments of grace, \u201ca before and an after\u201d of the first visit of a Latin American Pope to Paraguay\u00bb. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The unforgettable pictures and gestures of these past days as related by those who personally witnessed these events. Nelson Ben\u00edtes and Margarita \u00c1valos wrote on behalf of the Focolare community in Paraguay.<\/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-327438","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\/327438","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=327438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}