To live in love so as to die in love

Vincenzo (the 4th of 8 children of the Folonari family) was a very lively child, but on the day of his First Holy Communion, something radically changed him. At first, he used to tease his schoolmates, chat in class instead of listening, which got him into trouble with his teacher at times. Then all of a sudden he changed completely; he became like a person fully taken by God. One day, at dinner Vincenzo asked his brothers and sisters, “How old do you want to be when you die?” One answered, “While I’m still young …”, and another, “When I’m 100 years old …”. But Vincenzo said, “I want to die when I’m 33, like Jesus.”

An Ideal to live for

Some years later, in the summer of 1951 at the end of the school year, Vincenzo and two of his sisters went to Dolomite Mountains for vacation. At that time, Chiara Lubich was in the nearby little town of Tonadico. The meetings for adherents of the emerging Focolare Movement was then becoming a regular appointment in the mountains of that side; they were called ‘Mariapolis’ (“city of Mary”). The young Folonaris, who had already met the Movement in Brescia, their home town, got their parents’ permission to have their vacation at San Martino di Castrozza, and they too went everyday to nearby Tonadico. They were placed in different groups and did not see each other all day. In the evening of the first day, as they returned to San Martino by bus, Vincenzo was deeply moved and happy. “Beautiful, very beautiful,” he said. It was as though he had found something which deeply satisfied him, an Ideal to live for.

“You haven’t chosen God, God has chosen you!”

Some months later, Vincenzo moved to Rome to attend university. He immediately got in touch with the Focolare. On the Eve of Pentecost, he made a pilgrimage on foot to the shrine of Our Lady of Divine Love to ask her for a sign that would help him understand his vocation. The next day, when Chiara saw him, she reminded him of a sentence of Jesus: “You haven’t chosen God, God has chosen you!” From then on, everybody called him “Eletto,” which in Italian means “Chosen”.

In a letter to Chiara he wrote: “I have chosen God, nothing else but Him alone.” He also told her that he wanted to give his inheritance to the Focolare Movement (which included 80 hectares of land where years later, the little town of Loppiano came to life) adding, “although I have no merit because I received it for free.”

A life spent giving the Ideal of unity to young people

One of Eletto’s characteristics was his special relationship with the children of the Movement. Chiara had entrusted the boys to him. In fact, during the Mariapolis of Fiera di Primiero, they were always all around him. He would go hiking with them or they would put on skits together.

Whenever Eletto talked with Virgo, his sister, who was entrusted with the girls, he used to say: “Can you imagine what would happen if the Ideal would conquer all boys and girls, all the young people?”

That smile among the waves

July 12th, 1964 was a Sunday. Gabriele, a boy who knew Eletto, went to the focolare. Eletto invited him to go on an outing, and since it was a very hot day, they decided to go on a boat ride at Bracciano Lake (Rome). About 200 meters from the shore, Eletto who loved sports, especially swimming, jumped into the water and held onto the boat with both hands. “The water’s very cold,” he told Gabriele. Then Eletto suddenly turned very pale. The waves started getting bigger and suddenly one of them pulled the boat away from Eletto’s grasp, first one hand and then the other. The boat slid several meters away. “Come here, come here, come closer!” Eletto cried out to Gabriele, but Gabriele did not know how to swim nor row a boat. The powerful waves kept pushing the boat farther away. “Soon I could hardly see his face among the waves. I called out to him, I cried for help, I told him I could not move the boat any closer.” Gabriele recalled. “’I’m going to shore, I’m going to shore,’ Eletto shouted. Then he turned. I saw him for a few seconds more: his face was lit up by a bright smile,” Gabriele said. Then Eletto disappeared, swallowed up by the lake. His body has never been found; Bracciano Lake had become his “blue” tomb.

To live in love so as to die in love

On July 19,1964, Chiara wrote: “Eletto was so good, so alone, so humble that he belonged much more to God than to us. Maybe it was for this that God called him to himself. Now he is with Jesus whom he loved, and with Mary and all our friends who are in Paradise. He considered himself the least, but he has become the first.

My God, what an abyss this life and this death are that each one of us has to face. Give us the grace to live in love so as to be able to die in love.

Eletto’s last act was an act of love. That means he was used to loving, because otherwise in those moments one cannot but think of oneself.

‘Eletto, pray for us in heaven now, we who are praying for you. We are certain that God, in his love for you, has taken you at the right time. You loved him in your life; you had nothing else but him and Mary.

You have arrived where we too must come. Pave the way for us, Eletto, and prepare us a place (…). Now that you see what really counts, as you were used to doing while you were here on earth, help us not to stray from the road and help us to live in charity as you have done.’”

The GEN Movement

Not only the adults were dumbfounded by his sudden death, but also the children and the youth he had been following. Chiara wrote, “They, too, have gone through a trial, a tremendous and irremediable one. Let us hope that from this trial something will come to life in the Movement for them, too, for God’s glory and for the Church’s greater beauty. Eletto would have desired nothing more.” A few years later, the Gen Movement was born, which now counts thousands of young people and children from all over the world.

Commemoration at Trevignano

On July 12th, 2004, 40 years after Eletto left us for Heaven, a day long meeting will be held at Trevignano, a town along the Bracciano Lake. It will start with Mass at 11 a.m. at the Church of Santa Maria Assunta which towers above the little town. The meeting is expected to end at 5 p.m.

For further information call: tel. 06/94315300; 06/9412419

e-mail address; gen2m@focolare.org; centrogen2f@focolare.org