{"id":340342,"date":"2011-11-30T14:56:10","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T13:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/the-laity-a-cascade-of-light\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:04:16","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:04:16","slug":"the-laity-a-cascade-of-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/the-laity-a-cascade-of-light\/","title":{"rendered":"The Laity: A Cascade of Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/strong>

Maria Voce greets the Holy Father. Photo: Vatican Photographic Service<\/p><\/div> \u201cIt was a good dose of optimism, because it makes you realize that God is at work in the Church.\u201d <\/em>This was the recent impression left by the president of the Focolare Movement, Maria Voce<\/strong><\/a>, at the conclusion of the annual Assembly of the Pontifical Council of the Laity, which she attended. The Vatican office that supports the activity of the lay faithful and of the movements and associations in diverse settings around the world, this year focused the attention of its meeting on \u201cThe question of God today.\u201d <\/em>The three-day meeting, from November 24-26 included debates and concrete personal testimonies \u2013 an unusual thing \u2013 of some lay people concerning how their lives changed after their encounter with God. \u201cIt seemed to me,\u201d<\/em> comments Maria Voce, \u201cthat a new style of communion has entered the Church, one that gives priority to the recounting of \u00a0life experiences.\u201d<\/em> The need to speak of God was a point raised in every presentation that given during the Assembly.<\/strong> \u201cNot doing so,\u201d <\/em>Maria Voce pointed out, \u201cwould mean giving up the search for the truth, which is manifested in the desperate thirst for happiness and anguish at the thought of death. But for this to happen, there needs to be a further step, that of a deep relationship with the other, a true relationship, in which each one must die to him and herself in order to welcome the other completely. This is a death for love,\u00a0 a gift.\u201d<\/em> These annual Assemblies of the Pontifical Council of the Laity are also precious opportunities to meet the members of other Movements and Associations.<\/strong> \u201cOn these occasions,\u201d <\/em>recounts the president, \u201cyou see the relationship that the movements have with each other. You sense that this relationship has been built in the different parts of the world,\u201d <\/em>Africa, Europe, America, Asia, and the Middle East. Maria Voce recalled: \u201cA new presence of martyrdom emerged, and the movements are quite engaged in this form of testimony: witnessing to God even in these situations, living the faith in all its fullness. And while in some parts of the world there is a martyrdom of blood, in Europe, instead, there is the problem of secularism and Christians give a strong witness that often takes the form of martyrdom.\u201d<\/em> \"\"The World Youth Day in Madrid <\/strong>was also discussed during the Assembly. \u201cAn extraordinary cascade of light, joy and hope,\u201d <\/em>said Pope Benedict XVI when he met with the participants, \u201chas illuminated Madrid, but also old Europe and the entire world, clearly reproposing the relevancy of the search for God today. No one was able to remain indifferent, no one was able to think that the question of God was irrelevant to the person of today.\u201d<\/em> The president of the Focolare Movement personally greeted Benedict XVI<\/strong>, who said to her: \u201cThe focolarini cannot be missing.\u201d <\/em>And Maria Voce: \u201cHoly Father, this year the entire Movement is committed to living the Word of God, and so we are preparing for the Synod.\u201d <\/em>And the Holy Father replied: \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/em> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The question of God today\u201d was the title of the 25th Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council of the Laity which was attended by the president of the Focolare Movement.<\/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-340342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340342","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=340342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}