Young people meet in Tabgha

On Thursday, October 6, we met up once again, the members of the “Desert Flower” group (three new members joined – Alberto, a Franciscan from Italy, and two members from Jaffa – and we were delighted to receive them in the group!) in order to spend three days together in the area of Tiberias, in a place called Tabgha. The main theme of the meeting was repentance – a subject connected to the period of our meeting: Yom Kippur.

On Thursday, we got organized, arranged the place where we would sleep and Benny explained the program to us for the coming two days.

On Friday, after we got up, we had morning prayer in the area of the monastery and then we returned to the place where we slept for breakfast.

Then we went out to get to know the area in which we were…

First, we went to the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, a church built by the Benedictines. What is special in the church is that the story of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes is told in mosaics. On the floor where mass is celebrated there is a mosaic of the basket of loaves with two fish on either side. The unique feature is that the artist put only four loaves in the basket because the fifth loaf is on the altar of the mass, the loaf we receive each Sunday at mass.

After the trip, we went back to the place where we slept in order to prepare lunch.

After lunch, we had a break and so went to swim in the Sea of Galilee.

Then we passed over to the more spiritual part of our gathering at the Seven Springs, a wonderful and tranquil place. This part focused on the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). At first we read the story and after that Benny helped us meditate on it – we sat in two rows so that each one would feel comfortable and we would not see one another. We shut our eyes and Benny read the parable again slowly, deriving some lessons from the story. After this incredible time, which I think calmed us all down, we had a break.

After the break there was mass which was not compulsory – only for those who wanted, but almost everybody participated in the church in the monastery.

After mass, we prepared dinner and after dinner we lit a bonfire and spent time together as a group. After this wonderful, very full day, spiritual and full of fun too, we went to sleep – getting some rest for the following day.

On Saturday, the day began like on Friday, we had morning prayer and then breakfast. After breakfast, we got ready to set off for a trip to Capernaum.

There, Father Apolinary explained a bit about the meaning of the place and its connection to Jesus – Capernaum was the major center of his activity. In this place there is a synagogue and church under which one can see the remains of houses.

We visited the incredible church whose building is round. Inside are huge transparent windows from which the view all around can be seen. In the church there are terracotta representations of some of the cures Jesus worked in this place.

After the trip we returned once again to the place where we slept in order to prepare lunch. After lunch we got organized, packed everything up, took down the tents and after we had finished we went for a last swim in the Sea of Galilee.

After that we had another meeting on the theme of the parable of the Prodigal Son – this time we divided into three groups, each group having a particular task with regard to the parable.

Group 1: they had to read the parable once again and imagine it as taking place today, how would it play out.

Group 2: they had a table and they had to imagine the parable from the perspective of the three main characters: the older son, the younger son and the father as well as in three different periods, before the son left, after he had left and when he returned.

Group 3: as the story has no end, they had to propose an ending to the story.

After this, the three groups came together to share their findings.

Then we celebrated the concluding mass.

After mass we took our leave of one another and each one went home.

This was an amazing meeting – a meeting in which we came together, which strengthened us as a group. It was great to see that although we had had an incredible experience in Madrid together, we could have left it at that and broken up as a group but instead we decided to continue and to come to the meetings. Almost everyone came to this meeting except for one guy. In addition two new girls joined us.

My hope for the “Desert Flower” group is that we will continue to meet and grow more and more!!!