Wish for communion

There were only a hundred or so among the 400,000 gathered at St. Peter’s for the Pentecost meeting with the Pope. They were few, but they were determined to make heard the fact that the Catholic movements of England, Scotland and Wales were also present there. They included some fifty neo-catechumenals, five members of “Youth 2000”, a movement founded a few years ago to evangelise the young, at least ten members of the charismatic movement, 47 Focolarini and a few exponents of Communion and Liberation. The group as a whole was the Anglo-Saxon part of the movement inspired by the Holy Spirit, the part that every day faces the challenge of bearing witness to the Gospel in an often atheist society. For them, the meeting with the Pope at Pentecost represented a powerful expression of unity with the rest of the Church, an occasion to discover that they are part of a greater international and multicultural reality of which they were not conscious in their everyday life. LIVING THE GOSPEL. “It was a moment of great emotion that does not even seem real to me now”, explains Geraldine Carpenter , 47-year-old member of the Focolare who went to Rome together with her 13-year-old daughter Miriam. “I was deeply struck by how the various movements, with great humility, underlined the idea of unity and I felt myself really privileged when the Pope told us that we are channels of the Holy Spirit and that it is the Holy Spirit that is the power and the voice that animates the various groups and enables them to be what they are”. The Focolare movement has existed in the UK since 1963 and now comprises some 800 members; 1300 copies of the pamphlet “Words of Life” are distributed throughout the country; communities of Focolarini exist in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Leeds, while the movement’s headquarters are at Welwyn Garden City near London. Geraldine has belonged to the Focolarini for some four years. “I’ve always been concerned about the spiritual life of my daughter”, explains Mrs Carpenter, “We live in a little town of 50,000 inhabitants in the Midlands, Loughborough. Miriam did not have a group of youngsters of her own age to which to belong, and on which she could count. But I was keen her growth in the faith should continue, once she had completed her parish preparation for First Communion and Confirmation”. The “Gen”, the group of the Focolarini devised especially for younger members, offered Miriam this chance. “Miriam is very happy to belong to it”, explains Geraldine, “And her life of prayer was revived by this experience. She now prays on her own initiative, without me having to encourage her”. “What has impressed me about the Focolarini is the warmth, the sense of community they foster, in this society where it’s difficult to feel a sense of belonging or of unity. They form a family, a dimension that completes the life of the parish because – says Geraldine referring to the English situation – they put the Gospel into practice”. SOMETHING GREAT. Also f or Noel Murphy, 28 years’ old, a barrister in London, the Pentecost meeting in Rome was an occasion to discover a wider reality transcending the frontiers of the British Isles. “I was waving an enormous Union Jack”, he explains, “and many came up to ask me to what movement I belonged. I felt it was important for me to be there as an Englishman, to bear witness to the reality of my country and at the same time to be part of something greater”. Noel, together with four other friends, represented “Youth 2000”, a movement founded in 1991 by Ernest Williams which aims at evangelising through the Sacraments and the Eucharist. Some 3,000 youth aged between 15 and 35 participate each year in weekends and meetings organized by “Youth 2000”, all of them organized round Confession, Eucharist and Adoration, the essential nucleus of the Gospel message. Many of the participants have not attended Mass for years and the group is a way of returning to the Church. “The Pope impressed me – continues Noel Murphy, – the things he said, the way he spoke, convinced me he is a real teacher and I admire his courage in assuming so challenging a task as that of being Pope at his age”, continues Noel, “The meeting in Rome gave me a lot of strength, a new energy in my everyday life. It’s the same energy and strength I derive from the movement “Youth 2000″. I’m convinced it’s impossible to live the Gospel without the support of a community to which to belong”. Liverpool: appeal for the Holy Land The Archbishop of Liverpool, the Most Rev. Patrick Kelly, has written a letter to priests and people of the archdiocese to urge them to pray for the Holy Land. Archbishop Kelly forms part of the coordination of European bishops for the Holy Land and has only recently returned after leading a pilgrimage there. “It is the current worsening situation which has prompted the call to pray for the Holy Land”, he says in his letter. “It is clear that many people in the area within the Palestinian Authority are experiencing severe financial problems affecting the lives especially of the most vulnerable. Almost daily there are reports of conflict within the Palestinian Territories and we are told of the plans of Israel to go ahead towards a final decision to establish the borders without the full engagement of the Palestinian people whose lives will be influenced by such decisions”. Archbishop Kelly ends his letter with a plea: “Please encourage in every way you can prayer for the people of the Lord’s own land, a peace based on justice for all its peoples”.