{"id":328422,"date":"2016-07-13T03:00:57","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T01:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/days-of-mercy-in-man-ivory-coast\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:04:38","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:04:38","slug":"days-of-mercy-in-man-ivory-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/days-of-mercy-in-man-ivory-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"Days of Mercy in Man, Ivory Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20160713_Man2\"<\/a>\u201cA blaze never starts from a large fire, but from a small flame.<\/strong> Today we\u2019re here to light this flame.\u201d These words from Bishop Gaspard B\u00e9by Gn\u00e9ba on the Day of Mercy and Fraternity Among the Peoples, tell what the living experience was like,\u201d write Vitoria Fransiscati and Bertin Lubundi from the permanent Mariapolis in Man, Mariapolis Victoria<\/a>, at the conclusi\u00f3n of the Day of Mercy organized by the Focolare upon the urging of the Bishop of Man, on June 24-26. The period of preparation allowed for a series of different kinds of encounters in a diocese where only\u00a0 6% of the members are baptized. So, there are many opportunities for dialogue! Fifteen traditional leaders and 18 imams from 33 of the city\u2019s quarters<\/strong> attended \u00a0the day on Fraternity in Politics on June 25th. Two of the topics discused were conflict resolution <\/strong>and thoughts and experiences on the \u201cpractice of authority\u201d which led to a lively debate. One of the most interesting testimonies was that of Imam Rev. Kon\u00e9 <\/strong>from the most important mosque in Man. He spoke of his relationship with the Catholic bishop: \u201cIt was he who first approached me; he first loved me. We came up with a plan of action, and now is the time to put the plan into practice. We need to help one another to respect and accept our differences and to know one another\u2019s faith.\u201d The event opened on the evening of June 24th with a concert called: \u201cMany People, One Family\u201d <\/strong>which included performances by several different ethnic artisitic groups. The Days of Mercy woke up the city of Man with a Peace March: <\/strong>Christians and Muslims marched together on a 7km walk from the centre of the city to the Focolare\u2019s permanent Mariapolis. Then, there was a series of visits and taking gifts to 32 needy families <\/strong>from practically all the quarters in Man. The protagonists were the bishop with his delegation and the families. \u201cThey were emotional and joyful moments for the people we visited, also the fact of seeing the bishop himself bringing gifts without expecting anything in return, as unfortunately happens often with some politicians who want to buy support.\u201d This was a start at fulfilling a dream, the Bishop said: \u201cIt was a training for people who hold responsiblities in society, adminstrators and those who work in interreligious dialogue, so\u00a0 they might continue to live mercy in civil society.\u201d RTI videonews (original language) https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yvsr0KwISTs&feature=player_embedded Maria Chiara De Lorenzo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traditional leaders, imams and bishop promote fraternity. Gifts for needy families and a meeting of hearts duing this Year of Mercy.\u00a0<\/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-328422","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\/328422","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=328422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}