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On Thursday, October 24, about 300 people gathered at the Terra Santa College in Bethlehem for the official opening of “TogetherWEconnect,” a project aimed at forming young leaders in schools located in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and in the surrounding areas. The goal is to promote active citizenship and a culture of caring, inclusiveness, sharing and cooperation. The audience included more than 150 students, who are the key players in this project. Also in attendance was the mayor of Bethlehem, Mr. Anton Salman, principals from all the schools involved, and many others who support the project

It was a joyful hour of meeting together, almost an oasis within the context of the tension and conflicts experienced here every day. The program featured a presentation by the Focolare Movement, the main promoter of the project, and included a message from the current Focolare president, Margaret Karram, who encouraged each one present “to be a person who builds bridges, opens new paths, removes walls and opens people up to hope!” [Here is the full message]

The project was then presented by students from the 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th grades (the first year will start with 7th grade students). The program offers a pathway that develops gradually over three school years to ensure that each student will achieve a deep understanding of the concepts presented and internalize the content. Three themes will be addressed over the course of the year.

Each theme will be accompanied by “actions” featured on the “Cube of Peace”, a cube that features phrases on each side which suggest ways to build peaceful relationships. Here are the themes for this first year, 2024-2025 (and the associated Cube of Peace actions):

• Understanding oneself, self-esteem and personal development (“Treat others as you would like to be treated)
• Training in conflict management; working as a team (“Forgive those who hurt you”)
• Intergenerational and peer dialogue (“Discover the good in others”)

Gen Rosso and Gen Verde musical bands, which were prevented from being present due to the current situation, sent a video greeting, encouraging everyone to become leaders in promoting hope and fraternity. [Here is the video of their greeting].

The event was a real celebration thanks to each school’s artistic contributions, including presentations by a student band, a choir and a cultural dance. It was a mosaic of colors and sounds that made everyone experience a seed of a “united world,” a world of brotherhood and peace.

October 2024 – A three-year initiative that the Focolare Movement in the Holy Land launched on 25 October. At the theatre of the Terra Sancta College in Bethlehem: the ‘Together We Connect’ project, a new ray of hope in light of the challenges facing the region. The project brings together five schools in Jerusalem and Bethlehem to build bridges between students, promote common human values, cultivate peace and train young people as leaders for active citizenship.

In this context, Tamer Zakkak, project coordinator of Together We Connect, says that a drop announces rain:

TAMER ZAKAK
Project coordinator of the ‘Together we connect’ project
One of the most important topics we will be working on is self-understanding and self-esteem. Personal development, peer education and intergenerational dialogue: we are looking for new leaders for a more aware generation. In small steps, like a drop, but we would like to start with something. And we hope that this drop will expand to reach more generations in the future, and broaden the vision of the project through these students.

MARCO DESALVO
The Focolare Movement – Holy Land
We would like to make a difference together! Because we know that we cannot do it alone. We focus on different values, which young people can initiate in their own environment, to be agents of change, to spread a culture of care, fraternity and solidarity in the places where they live.

The Focolare Movement is developing this programme in collaboration with the association Children Without Borders – Bethlehem, the Permanent Conference of Historic Cities of the Mediterranean, the Institute for Mediterranean Studies and Programmes and the New Humanity NGO. The aim is to offer students an experience that enhances their participation in society, promoting responsibility, respect for differences, teamwork and mutual support.

Br GEORGE HADDAD, ofm
Director of Terra Sancta College in Bethlehem
With the arrival of the Franciscan friars in the Holy Land some 800 years ago, their goal was to preserve not only the shrines, but also the ‘living stones’, that is, every human being. Today, more than 400 years after the foundation of our institute, the Terra Sancta College in Bethlehem, we continue this mission. We work with our children and young people, to help them grow so that they can truly be the future to be proud of.
We are happy to join the project of the Focolare Movement in the Holy Land, with the intention that this initiative may become the seed for a prosperous future, rich in goodness and peace, as St. Francis of Assisi taught us.

EVA AZAR
Executive administrator of the office of education and instruction of the Lutheran Schools
We believe in young people and their ability to change with love and peace and to build bridges, not walls and barriers, and I believe that this beginning will build a great bridge and give light to young people and children who will in turn extend it to others, young people and adults.

‘Together We Connect’ represents a commitment to a future built by our young people, based on the values of peace and solidarity. The goal is to continue together to fan the flame of hope and change.

Original post published in cmc-terrasanta.org

More than 100 of us, mainly from Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, Beit Jala and Jerusalem, but also with a representation from Ramallah and Galilee, gathered at Talitha Kumi, in Beit Jala for a meeting entitled Mariapolis, “City of Mary,’ from July 6-7, 2024.  An annual meeting, but also the result of a desire to respond to Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa’s invitation to create spaces for spiritual and human formation for Christian communities in the Holy Land, opportunities to find tools for living as people rooted in God and consistently witnessing to their faith.

A similar meeting was held in Nazareth, two weeks earlier, with about 90 people in attendance.

The theme of the two days, “Witnesses of Faith,” included in-depth discussions on issues related to bearing witness to one’s faith in daily life, with moments of reflection and prayer, the Holy Mass, sharing on the life of the Word as lived, workshops, relaxing moments, and visits to sites with historical and religious significance.

In the initial experience of Chiara Lubich and all those who adhered to the spirituality of the Focolare, everything started from the discovery of the personal Love of God, what St. John Paul II identified as “’the inspirational spark’ of everything that has since grown and developed in the world under the name of ‘Focolare.’”

Our answer? What is our response to God’s personal love? The Gospel, “He who loves me will keep my Word” (Jn. 14:23), and especially the New Commandment, the heart of the Gospel, which generates community. And it is community that is the most beautiful witness to our Faith, “By this they will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:35).

A thought that Margaret Karram, current president of the Focolare, originally from Haifa, gave to our communities in the Holy Land during a video conference a few months ago, inspired by Natalia, one of Chiara Lubich’s first companions, has also been of light in these days:

“In your opinion, which is stronger: iron, stone or water? It is water, because iron rusts, stone can also slowly crumble. But water is stronger than all things. However, water needs years to be able to excavate a rock…. Water is like love. It takes time. It does not work violently, as do iron and stone that use more violence; water works without violence, but it takes time. The important thing is that this water in our hearts – that it never dries up; rather, that it is always there because if it is lacking, everything turns into a desert. But if water is always there, if love is always in our hearts, it will be love that will win, not iron, not stone.”

The sharing of the participants, precisely in such a complex, delicate, painful and challenging situation, strengthened the awareness of one’s Christian identity, one’s ‘mission’ as means to build bridges between individuals, groups and peoples.

The final impressions of those who attended for the first time as well as of those who have known the Focolare for decades, reflected the renewed commitment to be witnesses of this Love that is His — wherever we are, generating His presence among us – like Mary… reflection of why the conference is called Mariapolis, “City of Mary” – so that Jesus can bring His Love everywhere….

Leaving Beit Jala we made this commitment together: to love, to weave relationships with everyone, even those who are more difficult, always strengthened by union with Him and with prayer.

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July 2024 – The Focolare Movement, a Catholic movement founded in Italy in the 1940s, organised the meeting of the Mariapolis, i.e. ‘City of Mary’. The aim was to meet and live the values of unity, love and peace, and responded to the appeal of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa. The theme of the meeting was ‘Witnesses of Faith’ and the creation of spaces for spiritual and human formation for local Christians. The meeting took place on 6 and 7 July at the Talita Qomi school in Beit Jala.

Marco Desalvo
Focolare Community – Holy Land
The primary mission of the Focolare is to be a witness to the presence of Jesus among those who love one another. Where two or three love one another and are united in my name, I will be in their midst. That is why the objective of the Focolare is to have this presence in society as Christians. That way Jesus himself is in the midst of people who want each other and are witnesses of love and hope, especially in these difficult times that everyone is going through.

Angelique Rock
Bethlehem
Let us meet here, in community, to live the word of the Gospel, to live the idea of unity and fraternity. The theme of our meeting this year is ‘Witnesses of Faith’. How we can bear witness to Christ and live the idea of loving one another, helping us to deepen our understanding of the Word of the Gospel and the Word of God. It helps us to live according to the teachings of our Master Jesus Christ and makes our lives easier in the difficult circumstances in which we live.

In its meetings, the Focolare Movement brings together hundreds and thousands of Christians from all over the world. The aim is to strengthen their awareness and belonging, and to strengthen their role as human beings, building bridges between individuals, groups and peoples, as witnesses of the love of Jesus Christ.

Anton Balout
Bethlehem
We come here to live the gospel in our lives. We live by the commandment that Jesus Christ taught us, the greatest commandment is to love one another. The Gospel is always present among us. When I cannot find a solution to my problem and listen to the experiences of others, a solution to that problem forms in my head. We are all family, our children meet new friends, and when we arrive and leave the Mariapolis we become different people.

St Paul the Apostle says: “Let it not come to me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”, and the psalmist says: “make known his works among the people”. How many people need this call, at a time when death has claimed so many victims and one wonders if there will be more.

Original post published in cmc-terrasanta.org

Mar. 2024 – “Called and Sent“: this was the theme that approximately 80 families, youth and children from Galilee wanted to deepen together on March 15-16 in Tiberias, on the shores of the Lake, that very Lake that had witnessed the calling and sending forth of the apostles and the public mission of Jesus.

This call is repeated to each one today: in the face of ever-growing challenges, God calls us to the radicality of the Gospel and to give our lives for peace, for dialogue. “What does dialogue mean?” shared Margaret Karram, born in Haifa and now president of the Focolare Movement. “Dialogue says I want to get closer to you, to know you, to be enriched by your diversity. The willingness to dialogue says I open… arms, heart, mind to go beyond fear.”

“Called and Sent”: on this theme several families had also met in Jerusalem on March 9^th, and in Bethlehem on March 14^th.

Intense meetings of spirituality, conversation with God and communion among all, which gave balm to wounds, opened souls to forgiveness, purified hearts to know how to welcome the others, their sufferings and their hopes.

Appointments filled with joy and cheerful games by the children, which helped them overcome any worries and better understand the the reality of Easter now approaching and the power of the Resurrection.

Occasions to strengthen mutual love among all participating, strengthening the conviction that this is the truest witness, that dialogue and unity among people and peoples is possible.

Precious moments to then start again with renewed commitment, to be together witnesses of this hope.

The words of Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop and South African activist, read during a reflection, well express the lived experience: “If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another’s, that we can be free only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family.”

Some impressions:

“Until the last moment I was in doubt whether to participate or not. But in the end I decided for yes: it was an act of love for my daughter who wanted it so much. I thank God that we went. It was beautiful. Both my family and I received the sacrament of reconciliation. It was a grace to be with everyone.”

“It was a very beautiful retreat! We needed to get away from the world. We really felt like family. The atmosphere was very beautiful. Thank you for all the work! It would be important to do it again and again: we need it.”

“It was important to retreat from the world in this hard time. To be together with Jesus in our midst, with peace among us. It was a meeting with so much love among everyone. There was a need to draw strength together to go out and face the challenges in life and in the world. We thank God for this opportunity.”