Israel. The Rosaries of Bethlehem

I thank this companionship that gives us the strength to be ever present on this road, which is Jesus Christ

by SOBHY MAKHOUL

The road: this word, heard more than once in these days, made me understand what, for the past two to three months, I have been living in the Holy Land, ie, that we can meet Muslims, Jews, and all races and religions, because we are on the road, because there is Jesus Christ. This is our only strength. In the Holy Land, too, our experience is addressed to man as such; it does not exclude anybody, and this, I repeat, is our strength. Coming across our Muslim and Jewish friends attending the Meeting in Rimini, speaking with them, I saw that it is precisely this that has impressed them: they did not think there was anything like this in the world. One of them even said to me, “So will you help us take the Meeting to Jerusalem?” I answered him, “My friend, it’s not that easy!”

Secondly, our experience has greatly helped me to make a judgment on our current situation of conflict, bad as it is. We have had the courage–we who are a minority of a Christian minority–to give a judgment on what is happening in the Holy Land (Traces reported it). For me, it is a great grace to know that I am not alone.

This has set in motion also our capacity for initiative with regard to the daily needs of the people. Thus, we decided to help a group of artisans in Bethlehem. But we did it going against the current, because our people have always been accustomed to receiving aid. We said to ourselves: we have to do something serious and worthy, worthy of Christian people who belong to Jesus Christ. We can receive money from abroad and distribute it, but this is not acting in accordance with an educative method. The right way is that you work and we, together with our friends, try to sell your products abroad. This is what we did, with the help of the Company of Works at the Meeting, which launched this initiative.

This gesture of solidarity had an impact also on the people of Bethlehem, especially after the Fraternity ordered 30,000 rosaries for the Pilgrimage to Loreto. Wherever you go in Bethlehem, if you say “rosary,” everyone replies “Communion and Liberation,” because everyone knows where the rosaries are going that have kept 80 families occupied for four months. And soon the number of poor Christian families who will have work for the next six months will be 110.

What we are doing for the Holy Land is not negligible; not even the local churches have managed to do it. This is why I thank this companionship that gives us the strength to be ever present on this road, which is Jesus Christ.