Desert Flower at Saint Rachel Center – November 2016

This past weekend, November 25 and 26, a meeting of the youth group “Desert Flower” took place in the Saint Rachel Center in Jerusalem.

On Friday evening, the group met and within the framework of the meeting, we studied the episode of John the Baptist’s preaching “Repent”. WE looked at the three versions of this episode in Matthew 3, Mark 1 and Luke 3. We were asked to look at the three versions and take note of what was similar and what was different in the three versions, especially taking note of the episode in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew and what distinguishes it from the other versions. The youth studied the details and discussed them during this study session.

Following that, on the first day of the meeting, Rivka, a member of the Jerusalem kehilla, came with the aim of telling us the meaning of repenting and how faith and Christianity had affected her and her life.

In the later evening, after a walk on foot through town, we arrived at the Vicariate, Saints Simeon and Anne House, in order to pray night prayer there which included a short meditation animated by Benny, a seminarian of the Vicariate.

On the next day, we, the members of the group, met up again. Our day began with morning prayer, animated by Father Apolinary. Thereafter, Father Piotr initiated an interesting activity where each one had to write up the episode of John the Baptist in a contemporary, creative context. Each one then played out the idea that he or she had prepared, having turned the historical idea into a contemporary scenario.

The rest of the time was spent, led by Daniel and Lexie, two residents of the Vicariate community , who organized interesting and amusing social games.

After that, Rivka again came to us in order to talk to us about prayer and how to integrate prayer into our daily lives. She explained what prayer is and this stimulated an interesting discussion as each one contemplated how prayer could become a part of his or her life.

This concluded the meeting at the Center. We then walked from there to the Advent market that took place in the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City. WE had free time there to roam around among the booths. On the way back, we took a few moments to pray in the Church of the Resurrection (Holy Sepulcher). At the end of the day, the meeting came to an end when the beloved members of the group participated in a rousing mass in the Jerusalem kehilla and thus another meeting reached its conclusion.