{"id":327648,"date":"2015-10-16T07:45:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T05:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/from-colombia-to-the-synod-on-the-family\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:01:41","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:01:41","slug":"from-colombia-to-the-synod-on-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/from-colombia-to-the-synod-on-the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"From Colombia to the Synod on the Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FamigliaRojas_PapaFrancesco<\/a>They have been married for 23 years and have two teenage sons. <\/strong>Raised in Catholic families, they met in the Focolare Movement<\/a> to which they still belong. \u201cWe had worked in the past with a group of other young people in a marginalised quarter on the periphery of Bogota,\u201d they recounted in their testimony at the Synod assembly. \u201cWe played with the children, taught the adults how to read, and offered free medical and dental assistance. They were talking about the Los Chircales <\/em>quarter where the Centro Sociale Unidad<\/a> is headquartered: \u201cObstacles were not lacking,\u201d the Colombian couple who spoke<\/span> at the Synod<\/span> \u00a0the family,\u00a0said<\/span><\/span>, \u201cbeginning from our concern for our personal well-being, and the fear of going into those rundown neighbourhoods and slums. But the desire to serve those brothers and sisters was more powerful than our fragility.\u201d \"FamigliaRojas_PapaFrancesco_b\"<\/a>\u201cWe married and the grace of the sacrament soon began to manifest itself.\u201d They are very different from one another: Luis, \u201cthe calm type\u201d, Maria Ang\u00e9lica \u201ca volcano\u201d. \u201cWe knew that human love easily vanishes. The years go by and the initial enchantment diminishes. For this reason it was important for us to bulk up on God\u2019s love, which taught us to love in the small things of everyday life.\u201d Luis admitted: \u201cFor me that means not waiting to be waited on, but rather to help out washing the dishes, or to listen more attentively when she wants to tell me something. On her part, M. Ang\u00e9lica watches the Formula 1 with me..\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> By nourishing ourselves on the Eucharist, approaching the sacrament of Confession and remaining in this relationship of mutual love, we experience that Jesus becomes present in our midst, and then we have the light to raise our sons, and the strength to face the inevitable difficulties that come our way.\u201d \u201cA short time ago we had a rather strong conversation and the unity between us was shattered. <\/strong>That night, we went to bed without apologising to each other\u201d (one of the three things that Pope Francis says should never be done in the life of a couple): \u201cI telephoned Lucho,\u201d M. Ang\u00e9lica recounts, \u201cand told him I was sorry for having answered him so awfully. Then it turned into an opportunity to begin again loving every time we fail.\u201d Together with bishops and priests from several cities in Colombia, and with other families and young people, they organized a series of visits to several poor communities; \u201cThe idea was to share our experiences and offer some formation as a family. Some of the couples confided their desire to receive the sacrament of matrimony.\u201d

\"20151016-01\"<\/a>

Interview with Rome Reports<\/p><\/div> With the engaged couples <\/strong>we find that, thanks to our nearness to them, several young people have made the courageous decision to choose God as the centre of their lives, of living things like chastity in their relationship as a couple, dedicating time and energy in reaching out and living for others.\u201d They concluded:<\/strong> \u201cOur experience seems to confirm that \u2018as the family goes, so goes society\u2019. We know that families are called to greatness, and that\u2019s why we pray to the Holy Family every day for the grace to remain faithful to love, so that we can be builders of a more human and at the same time more divine society. Our dream is that with the contribution of everyone, the human family may really become family.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maria Ang\u00e9lica and Luis, from Bogota, are two of the 18 couples taking part in the Synod on the Family at the Vatican (October 4-25, 2015). They share their family\u2019s experience of working in a marginalised quarter of their city where they assist and accompany other couples.<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327648","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=327648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}