Radicalism of Love – Focolare Open Day at Curryhills, Kildare

 
The Focolare Open Day at Curryhills on Saturday 27th June was a day of surprises. Surprising to hear from Mariella from Malta of how saying Yes to God lead her to spend sixteen years in a Moslem country. For her and the other members of Focolare there, whether you were Catholic or Protestant faded into insignificance. The important thing was to be a Christian and to witness, as a small minority, to the joy and truth of the Gospel based on love.

Focolare Centre CurryhillsMariella recalled the first time she talked to her Muslim students on spiritual things, the deep silence with which they listened. “I found a people with a great thirst for spiritual things. A people who understand the language of the heart more easily than that of words and theories,” she said.

Surprising to hear of the simple origins of Focolare in Ireland, begun by a middle aged woman and her handicapped son who somehow managed to radiate love to the people around them, drawing together the first small community even before the Focolare centre opened in Dublin in the early 1970s.

Surprising for each participant to be offered the opportunity to take a journey within, and experience prayer as the moment when “we return back home.”

“It is the moment when we leave behind all the worldly realities which make us weary and sad, in order to be in contact with Him, to find Him, to live in our home. This home is, for each one of us, in fact the Trinity: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and in them Mary and all the saints,” wrote Fr Pasquale Foresi, author of What it means to pray which was the basis for the moment of reflection.

Finding this inner silence and peace, is the root for a ‘radicalism of love’.

In the afternoon, the participants who had travelled from Antrim, Belfast, Newry, Galway, Dublin, Kilkenny, Meath and Kildare heard stories of the effects of this radical love when it is put into practise – in families – bringing serenity and wisdom in trying situations; in communities – bridging menacing conflicts, like the one in Northern Ireland; and in politics – bringing a new vision of the common good based on fraternity.

Participants from further afield – the Philippines, China, South Korea and South America introduced themselves. “I feel at home here. The reality of Focolare here is just as it is in Peru,” said Teresa from Lima.

Ensuring the day did not become heavy came artistic musical moments and recreational games that gave everyone a good laugh.

Emmaus Maria Voce at UNTo end, Maria Rosa summarised Focolare President, Maria Voce’s recent intervention at the United Nations where she proposed an ‘extremism of dialogue’. Maria Voce had taken part in a high level debate on Promoting Tolerance and Reconciliation: Fostering Peaceful, Inclusive Societies and Countering Violent Extremism at the United Nations in April this year.

Drawing on the movement’s experience of fostering dialogue in places like Algeria, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and the Philippines, Dr Voce said the response to violent extremism had to be “extremism in dialogue”.
“A dialogue which requires the highest level of engagement, which is risky, demanding, challenging and which aims to sever the roots of incomprehension, fear and bitterness.”

To end the Focolare Open Day, those who could stay on were invited for a ‘Pot Luck Meal’ to raise money for earthquake victims in Nepal. In typical ‘pot luck’ style people got to eat an ‘interesting’ combination of foods – but no-one complained. Happily there was enough for everyone and the meal raised over €400 for Nepal.

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