{"id":329364,"date":"2017-07-26T00:10:37","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T22:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/living-the-gospel-helping-those-in-need\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:07:56","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:07:56","slug":"living-the-gospel-helping-those-in-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/living-the-gospel-helping-those-in-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Living the Gospel: Helping those in need"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Classroom\"At preschool <\/strong>Sonia is 5 years old. One day she says to her mother, \u201cI don\u2019t want to go to school anymore; no one there is my friend.\u201d After a day or two her attitude changes and she goes to preschool voluntarily. \u201cWhat changed?\u201d her mother asks. \u201cI saw that there was a girl who was always quiet and by herself. No one wanted to play with her, so I went to her and told her I loved her. She smiled and then started playing with me. You know, Mum, love really warms the heart.\u201d (Sonia – Slovakia<\/a>) My poorest friend <\/strong>\u201cAs I left Rome, I left Nicu, the poorest of my friends, who is forced to beg as he waits to get a liver transplant. We stay in touch by phone. Often I\u2019d wonder how I could continue helping him, seeing that I could only come up with a small monthly \u201cincome\u201d of 20 Euros. Remembering the story of Zacchaeus, who gave half of his goods to the poor, I started each day to set aside 10 Euros for Nico. After I had collected 70, I sent the money to him via a friend. I heard that he was quite happy \u2013 more about the fact that I had remembered him than the amount he received. (Angiolino – Italy<\/a>) A generosity competition <\/strong>The economy has not been doing well for some time. In a meeting at our condominium, after two hours of complaints, I proposed that we start a \u201ccommunion of goods\u201d in our building. One lady who lived alone offered her apartment to collect the food and clothing. We contribute whatever we feel is superfluous or even give away some things we need. A true competition of generosity began and an atmosphere of optimism came into our homes. (L.D. C. – Argentina<\/a>) Work and home <\/strong>My wife and I met a family of immigrants. The husband lost his job, then found another, but it was not a secure position. They needed to be helped with food and money. Three months ago, I had the opportunity to find him better work. After a while this family called me back; their sister\u2019s house had been flooded after torrential rain. I went over to give some immediate aid and see what they needed. The owners of the house had made them pay two months\u2019 rent in advance and a month deposit. On my own I could not help them, but with the Focolare community we were able to collect the money they needed in just three days. (Juan Ignacio – Spain<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLove is not just sentiment,\u201d Chiara Lubich reminds us, \u201cbut it translates into concrete living, in the service of others \u2013 especially those next to us \u2013 starting with the small things, from the humblest of services.\u201d Here is some brief witness from various parts of the world.<\/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-329364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329364","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=329364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}