“Love never fails”. Our commitment to the places where Charity was born
Charity in the Holy Land is the last campaign launched by our Association to raise the necessary funds to distribute food and water to people in need and give sanitary assistance to hill ones living in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, places currently on their knees because of the crisis and the war but also the places where the concept itself of “charity” “agape” in ancient Greek or, as usually translated “love”, was born.
Saint Paul started his evangelization journey in the Holy Land and from the Holy Land he sailed to bring Christ message to the world. He was the first to recognize the liaison between the two theological virtues of Charity and Faith: the Grace of Christ is becoming poor for us so “ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor 8, 9). If the Faith is to abandon ourselves to the infinite love of God, Charity, or Love, is the crowning of Faith: it is to act in love and for the love Christ taught us.
Solidarity and humanitarian help are, with evangelization, manifestations of Charity. Pro Terra Sancta, supporting and coordinating humanitarian projects , encourages everyone to show their love for others with donations, to maintain and feed the Hope of the many people walking on the path followed by Christ and, doing so, forever bonding to the Holy Land.
It is in these special places that Bible and Gospel events took place. Therefore Jerusalem corresponds to a Heavenly Jerusalem. Between the two “a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” (Gen 28, 10). What the Patriarch Jacob described was a bridge between the realm we live in everyday and the divine realm, that travel point none of us, nor men nor women, can afford not to pass by. That’s why going to Jerusalem in pilgrimage equals to spiritually train to cross over that bridge.
As the Church suggested for centuries, it is easy to find someone that, not being able to physically travel to Jerusalem, choses to gift something to the holy places and to poor ones, wanting to be present in those places through various forms of help. Here, once again, the words of Saint Paul: “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. (…) And now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is Love!” (1 Cor 13). The Holy Land therefore is the cradle of Charity and our campaign wants to recall it by inserting in this multi-secular tradition. To help us raising Hope in the places where Christianity was born, follow with is the path of Jesus and Saint Paul in Charity.
Here some examples:
On the island of Rhodes in Greece, we host and support the refugees that had to flee from their country because of the war and the poverty. We also host Syrian refugees in Lebanon and we help all the Lebanese people struck by economic crisis and the explosion of Beirut harbor. In Syria we are supporting kids and families impoverished by 10 years of war whist in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho we are on kids, families and elders side with educational and assistance programs plus we help younglings with development and professional education programs.
With these small fragment we want to offer to everybody the chance to bond with the Land where we all belong to and, doing so, remember that we are all children of the same Father.