"We want a new church to be a meeting place for all the entities of the neighborhood, where we can celebrate the faith and extend charity to the most needy in society. With the collaboration of all the parishioners of the parishes of San Rafael and San Mateo we want to move forward with this project that aims to recover the historical, cultural and faith heritage of the neighborhood," says the parish of San Rafael. San Rafaelwhose owner is Mn. Ferrán Lorda.
A parish priest whom we asked a few days ago, in an impromptu telephone conversation, about the walk from Barcelona to the World Youth Day in Lisbon last year, which was reported by Omnes and numerous media.
In fact, almost a hundred young people from the Barcelona parishes of Sant Mateu and San Rafael de la Guineueta made the Barcelona-Lisbon journey on foot, during 40 days, because they intended, "in some way, to reproduce the great pilgrimage of the people of Israel recounted in the Exodus, which traveled for forty years through the desert to enter the promised land. It is "1,276 kilometers on foot!", they said.
Barcelona-WYD Lisbon, "a great loudspeaker".
In addition, the parishioners set the goal that "the pilgrimage would be a 'great loudspeaker' where we can announce that the young people of our parishes want a new temple for St. Raphael. A temple where we can gather to celebrate the faith, our encounter with Christ," Ferrán Lorda explained to Omnes.
They sought sponsors to donate one euro for each kilometer of the Barcelona-Lisbon route for the restoration project. And they raised 130,000 euros, which have been added to the million euros already raised by the parish. At present, approximately another million euros is needed to complete the 2.2 million euros of the total planned cost of the works, including the restoration work on the interior of the chapel and the construction of the new parish center.
The project: two temples, one of Perpetual Adoration
La Guineueta is one of the thirteen neighborhoods that make up the district of Nou Barris of Barcelona. It has an area of 0.61 km² and a population of over 15,000 inhabitants. Within its area is the Guineueta park and the Central Park of Nou Barris, south of which is the headquarters of the district of Nou Barris and the Fòrum Nord de la Tecnologia.
Iñaki Lejarcegui, volunteer and parishioner of the parish, comments on the recent solidarity concert of the Barcelona Youth Symphony Orchestra organized by San Rafael: "Spectacular. This is one of the most deteriorated neighborhoods in Barcelona, with many economic and social problems, with a lot of immigration, school dropouts, very dysfunctional families, a complicated neighborhood. In this context, to organize a cultural activity in which the string group of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra comes to perform Vivaldi or Handel is light years away from the knowledge that people may have. Our expectation was to reach two hundred and fifty people, maybe three hundred, and we reached almost five hundred people".
The parish of San Rafael is now in two kind of barracks or warehouses, united, where the chapel is, and two more rooms, one for Caritas and another multipurpose room, for catechesis and other activities for the parish of San Rafael. And many years ago, around fifty years ago, the idea of having our own parish for the neighborhood came up. This is what has been in the making, Lejarcegui adds.
When the dismantling of the Mental Hospital was completed, a part of the structure remained standing, which is where the headquarters of the Nou Barris district is located, and the chapel of the Mental Hospital, which was totally destroyed. The chapel, with a capacity for 80 or 90 people, has already been restored on the outside, and the entire interior is missing. Behind the chapel, in the esplanade that is being recovered from the mountain, the new temple will be built there.
Once the chapel has been restored, the goal is to make it a chapel of Perpetual Adoration in Barcelona. It has a neoclassical structure, very beautiful, the oldest of the whole neighborhood that is still standing. The truth is that there are few chapels of Perpetual Adoration in Barcelona, he says. For the first phase of the project the parish already has the funds, with contributions from the neighborhood, benefactors, etc. About half of the funds are missing, the second part.
Social action: Luke project, Nazareth, Simon, Lazarus...
"Since there are few priests, the diocese is grouping parishes," explains this volunteer, who has worked for many years as a salesman in different cities. "St. Matthew and St. Raphael parishes are grouped together, and they generated the Ginesta Associationwith the aim of bringing together the social action of care for families and people in the neighborhood in a single entity".
That is why there is the Lucas project, of which Lejarcegui is a volunteer, which is a project to support students, children, tutoring and follow-up classes, and also help for families, family support for parents and couples. There is also the Nazareth project, a food bank for needy families, evaluated with Caritas and the social services of the City Council.
Ginesta also has the Simon project for the formation of immigrants, and Lazaro, the newest one, for disabled children and their families, autistic, with Down's syndrome, etc. All of them are integrated with the Youth Center and other groups, and every Saturday at 8 o'clock, at the end of the activities, they have a Mass. "We are a family," says Iñaki, who is with Mn. Ferrán "for whatever he needs".
"Welcomed by the Lord".
When asked what lies behind his dedication as a volunteer, Iñaki Lejarcegui replies. "We are volunteers and nobody gets paid here, and I am talking about almost 425 people who make up the team of volunteers in the two parishes. The big word is that here you enter and you feel welcomed by the Lord. We do everything for the Lord. We are crazy, yes, as we are sometimes told, we are crazy for the Lord. That's our thing. And we have the support of the bishopric, of Cardinal Omella, of the auxiliary bishops, of everyone".
