Another day for the youth preparing for Madrid

Today, on February 5, 2011, we, the members of the youth from around the country, met again in the Monastery of Saint Peter in Jaffa together with Father Apolinary and Benedetto in order to prepare for the trip to Spain, together with the other young people from around the world. This was the second meeting of the young people's group to take place in Jaffa and we began with a prayer of praise to God and with games that touched upon the main theme of the meeting: trust in others, trust in God.

In the first game, "The Trust Game", we stood in a circle and one person had to stand in the middle of the circle with closed eyes and had to let himself fall down with the sense of trust that each one of his friends in the circle would reach out and catch him so that he would not fall. We saw that not everyone was willing to stand in the middle because they did not have sufficient trust in those they did not know. Father Apolinary was the first to go but he did indeed fall even though he had trust but he tried again, keeping trust, and this time he did not fall.

After this, we played "Leading and Being Lead" and we had to divide up into couples and one of the couple had to have his eyes bound while the second led him around the room without bumping into the others.

At lunch time we took a break and prepared the food together, a barbecue and during the meal we talked together. After lunch we went out for a walk along the sea shore and enjoyed that very much.

When we returned from the walk, we entered into a more spiritual atmosphere and we discussed the subject of trust between people and particularly trust in God.

Again, like during the last meeting, each one had about twenty minutes alone with himself in order to think about the meaning of trusting and there were Biblical texts and songs that were handed out by Father Apolinary and Benedetto to help in this reflection. When we came back to the chapel we talked about all of this.

Father Apolinary explained to us that God has limitless trust in us expressed in the fact that he handed over to us His only Son – Jesus – who was crucified for us in order to show his faith in us. From this we concluded that in order to have faith in others we must first be sure that God has faith in us and that we trust Him with an undivided heart. Thus we radiate trust and others can trust us.

"On what or on whom do you build your house?' – this was one of the questions we dealt with in connection with the reading from the Gospel of Matthew. In this Gospel reading, there is a parable Jesus tells about a man who builds his house on a rock and another who builds on sand. A rock is solid and strong whereas sand shifts and disperses. The rock represents God, who always trust in the human person in a stable and unchanging way. We saw that in order to build our house on a rock we need to do say step by step.

"Thus each one who hears my words and carries them out is like a man who builds his house on a rock". This means that in order to get to the point where we build our house on a rock it is not enough to say "Lord, Lord" and think that we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven but rather that we must show our words in our acts, thus not only saying that we believe in God and in His words but also fulfilling them.

Through this meeting, we came to understand that in order to rely on God we must listen, to trust in Him, and do His will so that we indeed rely on Him and we know that He relies on us and thus we can also trust others.

"Before You I bow down on my knees,
I give You dominion over all my days,
I praise You for ever because You are my Lord,
You alone are Jesus, joy of my life,
Holy, holy, holy are You,
Holy, Holy are You."

Article written by the two Danieles from the group