Saint James Vicariate For Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel

Young Adults Group Meeting in Tiberias

The last meeting of the Young Adults Group in this pastoral year took place in Tiberias on Friday and Saturday (21-22.06).

The topic on the meeting was "Hope". Friday evening was marked by a very personal meeting with the members of Koinonia (Community of John the Baptist) that serve in Tiberias Casa Nova. After great pizza dinner we could listen to the testimonies of Fr. Andrzej, Daniel, Chiara, Sashka, Stefi and Witek. Each of them shortly described the way they found the Community. We could ask questions about the charism of the Koinonia, as well as personal questions. The day finished with the prayer and a short walk at the Tiberias Promenade. The activities of Saturday were connected to the main topic. Fr. Piotr gave a short lecture about "Hope" in the Greek mythology, philosophy and the Bible. He showed some important definitions of the "Christian Hope" and invited everyone to share in pairs about the passages from NT that bring us hope. The second part was dedicated to the difficulties to find the hope and bring it to the world that surrounds us. Fantastic gifts were the T-shirts with the graphics showing the Christian symbol of a fish "swimming" in the opposite direction. The title said: "Only the dead fish go with the flow". It should demonstrate how difficult it is in today's world to keep the joy, the optimism and the hope that come from the faith. There was also some time dedicated to a discussion about the future of the group. Dates for the next year were chosen: there will be 5 meetings during the ten months from September till June. we invite all not married young adults in the age of 25-35 to join to our weekends.

After lunch we visited the new public beach opened by the city of Tiberias where we could enter the water and spend some time of conversations in the sun and in the shadow.

The Holy Eucharist at the end of the retreat was celebrated together with the members of Tiberias parish. We prayed for the deceased father of one of the parishioners and after the Mass we shared meal with them.

There were two participants of the weekend who came for the first time (Alfred and Javier). We hope they felt good among us and will continue to meet

Here is the detailed program of our meeting:

FRIDAY

18:00 Arrival

18:30 Coffee

19:00 First Meeting

19:30 Evening Prayer

20:00 Dinner and meeting with KoGB

22:00 Night Prayer

22:15 Short walk on the Promenade (for those willing to walk)

SATURDAY

8:00 Meditation (for those willing to meditate)