Young people from around the world are coming to Međjugorje for this global gathering. As Fr. Gianni said, each place that Our Lady has appeared is a blessing, yet more blessed is Međjugorje, since Our Mother is still appearing to the visionaries. A sign from each country is required at the festival, so the first evening we set up the Finnish flag and registered at the local parish for participation in the festival. It is quite possible that we are the first Finnish group to have taken part in this festival. We are about 25 people from the Finnish youth group. |
A group of around 60 people from Finland and Verona, Italy, arrived in Međjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 30, 2017. Our pilgrimage was arranged by Father Gianni Sgeva CP. One of the main reasons for the pilgrimage was the World Youth Festival, which takes place at Međjugorje on August 1-6. This year the theme of the Festival is That your love may grow more and more.
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Is there any way to hide a mountain under a cloth or an elephant into a fridge? Of course, there are cases, if the cloth or the fridge is big enough or the mountain or the elephant is small enough. But these situations would not have happened without conditions.
In my observation, in our modern days, we are trying to hide a mountain every day. Which mountain am I talking about? The Love of God. Happy Pentecost! I took part in the vigil at Stella Maris on Saturday, on the Eve of Pentecost Sunday, and the first reading drew my attention:
It has been said that human communication is not very efficient, that listeners only get few per cent of the original message transmitted by the talker. But languages are also tools to proclaim and unite people.
On the Feast of the Good Shepherd our brother Andreas Bucksrucker received his Admission to the Holy Orders at Stella Maris. Bishop Teemu Sippo SCJ celebrated the Holy Mass and blessed him. Last weekend it was the May Youth Weekend at Stella Maris, Andreas shared his testimony with us as the theme for the weekend was the Priesthood. What did I conclude from Andi’s story? That the Plan of God is always much better than ours.
One day we had an interesting conversation during our lunch time at University, it was about something romantic. Before reading the rest of this post, please think about the most romantic thing that ever happened to you.
I am quoting from the lyrics of a song that we usually sing in Stella Maris during the youth weekends. I was inspired by today’s Gospel (Matt. 5:43-48): “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you”.
Pope Francis invited us to pray for persecuted Christians recently, but I should really say that I also feel persecuted in my daily life in Finland (or Spain/Europe/everywhere!). We are not persecuted physically, but always, psychologically and spiritually. Did you understand what I mean? I am so disheartened that there are women who are pondering abortion as a right and an opportunity; I am so disappointed that people are creating genders; I am so frustrated I defend the Truth, but people avoid accepting it. This is my second Lent as a Catholic, at the beginning of my conversion, I don't really understand why Catholics are “looking for” sufferings. But in the past few days, I have just come to realise a new meaning of Lent. The True Meaning of Freedom
By now we have had 4 Youth Weekends at Stella Maris. If you have taken part in more than one of those weekends, you will have noticed that we changed the poster after the November weekend. At first we had no idea about what the name or the theme for the weekends we were going to have together. Then one day in October Andi wrote to us about this inspiration: One Body in Christ. That’s why later on in November, that name started appearing on the posters for that month's weekend gathering.
This is my first post in the New Year, as I was in Spain with my family for my Christmas holidays. I would like to share with you some differences in being Catholic in Spain and in Finland. Religious Education
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5&2This is a blog about being young and Catholic in Finland.
BloggersYiran ChenYiran, or Maria Micaela. Born in China but baptised in Spain (2015), student in Turku. Participant of the Youth Weekends at Stella Maris. Cooking, running and photography are my hobbies.
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