meeting 2003

Closing press release for the 24th edition

This year, the Meeting doubled its space and became more “home,” a place where we were able to live its proposal of friendship and encounter with greater intensity and continuity. There was an increase in participation, just as there was an increase in the number and dedication of the volunteers who put it together and who, once again, showed themselves to be the real hosts.
The edition of the Meeting that has just ended focused on the concept of man who is called and on happiness as the consequence of the discovery of a meaning and purpose in life, a purpose that–in our Christian experience–exists only if bound to the infinite Mystery that makes all things.
Man cannot help desiring to be happy, in his private and public life. Thus, the many sessions on political and social topics served to document the fact that we cannot avoid answering “I do” to the question, “Is there a man who desires life and longs for happy days?”
Because of the many descriptions that can be given of it, “happiness” is one of the words considered most debatable and subjective. The Meeting tried to explicate its true origin, testified by the sessions of “witness” and those with religious content, which were heavily attended.
Ours is a cultural work on everything, to affirm and discover more and more the bond between what we have (affection and work, to synthesize to the utmost) and the Mystery that entrusted it to us. And then, to discover happiness, or peace, as the existential outcome of a life that, in the finite and within its own limitation and the limits of things, recognizes itself to be embraced by the Infinite.
The 25th edition of the Meeting will be held in Rimini, Italy, August 22-28, 2004, 50 years after the birth of Communion and Liberation. The title will be:

Meeting 2004
“Our Progress Does Not Consist in Presuming We Have Arrived, but
in Striving Constantly Towards the Goal.”
(Rimini, August 22-28, 2004)