Dear user,
Last Sunday we experienced something extraordinary and we would love to share with you.
Thousands of people gathered together with the Community of Sant’Egidio. Among them refugees, children, disable persons, elderly, with Andrea Riccardi and Marco Impagliazzo embracing with joy and excitement Pope Francis’ visit to the Community for its 50th anniversary.
In the large square of St Maria in Trastevere, under a ceaseless rain, Pope Francis thank each and everyone: “here lays generosity with an open heart: an heart open for everyone, everyone, everyone! This makes life going forth!”
Inside the Basilica, Pope Francis listened to the testimonies of all the generations making up Sant'Egidio: Giovanna for the elderly; Jafar, a Syrian boy here thanks to the humanitarian corridors; Laura for the Youth for Peace, Mauro Garofalo for the efforts of building peace and finally the greetings of Andrea Riccardi.
In his speech, Pope Francis offered to the Community a perspective for the future: “A mission to patiently weave together again the human fabric of the peripheries that violence and impoverishment have torn apart; a mission to communicate the Gospel through personal friendship; to show how life truly becomes human when it is lived beside the poor; a mission to create a society that considers no one a foreigner. Audaciousness is not the courage of a day, it is the patience of a daily mission in the city and in the world. Carry on this path, the poor are your treasure!”
And this is not it! The following day, Pope Francis invited to his house in St Marta a group of refugees and sick people with whom he could not stop on Sunday. HERE the report of the meeting.
Thousands of people from all over the world followed the event on-line through website and Facebook. Indeed, it has been a feats open to everyone. Happy 50th to all!
The Community of Sant'Egidio
