Desert Flower in Jaffa

At the beginning of the meeting, Father Apolinary reminded us that this year, 2012-2013, is the Year of Faith according to the declaration of the Pope and therefore we began our meeting with a discussion of faith. We asked: In what way is God present in our lives?

After we divided up into groups, each group discussed a variety of questions, like: “Why is there faith?”, “What can contradict or silence the faith there is within us?” and “What within us shows us that God exists?”

Thereafter, each group answered their own question and we gathered together so that each group could receive a question from another group. These questions we also discussed and answered in the smaller groups and then shared our answers with each other.

We broke for lunch, shared in great joy!

After lunch, we gathered in the chapel in order to begin a discussion about a planned trip as a group to Rome.

The project is to prepare for the summer trip by reading together the Book of the Acts of the Apostles from the New Testament. We are going on a pilgrimage in the direction to the one described in the book – from the Land of Israel to Rome. As people living in the Land of Israel, the Holy Land, where many people arrive on pilgrimage, we never actually live the pilgrimage experience.

We began our preparation by reading the first two chapters of the Book of Acts which include a description of Pentecost and the mission of the Church.

As usual, we ended the meeting by participating in the Saturday night mass of the Jaffa kehilla.