{"id":328462,"date":"2016-08-04T03:00:37","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T01:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/mariapolis-in-the-holy-land\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:04:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:04:47","slug":"mariapolis-in-the-holy-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/mariapolis-in-the-holy-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariapolis in the Holy Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mariapoli-2016-TS_02\"<\/strong> \u00abThese have been wonderful days, I found peace and security.<\/strong> The group dialogues were rich, especially those of the families.\u00bb \u00abI thank God for the grace we have received also as a couple. There were some issues between the two of us, but here, many things changed. Now we are happy and ready to commit ourselves to any type of activities.\u00bb \u00ab For the first time I helped out with the children: a very special experience. From them I learned simplicity and how to live love in daily life.\u00bb \u00abI felt that I had to accept the others as they are. I have refilled and am ready to go forward!\u00bb These are some impressions, among many that have come up during these months<\/strong> throughout the world where the Mariapolis<\/a> is being held, the typical summer gatherings of the Focolare. All as usual up to this point. Except for the fact that these impressions were gathered in the troubled Holy Land. \u00abOur Mariapolis \u2013 they wrote from Jerusalem \u2013\u00a0 was held from 30 June to 2 July, in Jenin, Palestine.<\/strong> A beautiful and welcoming place which helped us to relax, and deepen that golden thread of the programme which invited us to put into practise the mercy of God and with our brothers. 230 people from various localities participated. It was the first time for many of them \u00a0among whom were young people, kids and children. Also about 20 people from the Gaza Strip participated, and to do so were able to obtain the permit to leave.\u00bb \u00abAmong the illustrious guests was the Melkite Catholic Archbishop of Galilee , Bishop Georges Bacaouni, whose words \u2013 one of the participants said \u2013 were a great enlightenment since they encouraged all to live in such a way as to show all that we love Jesus.\u00bb \"Mariapoli-2016-TS_04\"<\/a>\u00abSince this is the Year of Mercy,<\/strong> also a moment of the programme was dedicated to what we called a \u201cface to face with God\u201d moment. After a deep examination of conscience, before Jesus in the Eucharist, each one of us wrote the steps we felt we could take to grow in love towards God and towards the others, and to then burn the piece of paper in a great fire, and symbol of the mercy of God. After this solemn moment, a lady from Gaza confided with great joy: \u201cI did it, I forgave all. Now I shall start anew.\u201d\u00bb \u201cThere were also those who reestablished relationships with the Focolare<\/a> after a long time: \u00abI have returned to the Mariapolis after15 years, but it is as if it is my first time. On listening to the themes of Chiara Lubich I understood that in every moment you can catch up with the others, \u00a0if you just start loving again in the present. I experienced once again that when we are together, there is a special strength which gives us the energy to go ahead. \u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The typical summer gatherings of the Focolare in various parts of the world focused on the theme of Mercy, also in countries that are undergoing difficult situations.<\/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":[893,894],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2","category-senza-categoria-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328462","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=328462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}