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6 Aug 2011 | Senza categoria
Wednesday 3 August. On a limpidly clear day, Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti visited the historical center of Ljubljana and the Parliament Building, and greeted the Vice President Vasja Klavora, remembering the visit of Chiara Lubich in 1999. He welcomed them with exquisite hospitality , visiting with them the Halls of the Senate and of the Chamber. It gave them a glimpse into the past and present future of Slovenia. Then Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti visited with the Evangelical Pastor, Geza Filo. He expressed his gratitude for the contribution of the Focolare to the ecumenical cause in his land and, in the name of his bishop, he described Chiara Lubich as a person “sent by God”. 
A very significant moment was the gathering which took place in the Sports Stadium in Medvode, a few kilometres from the capital, with some 1200 people from different parts of the country, which demonstrates the spread and vitality of the many local communities of the Movement in this land. Many young married couples were there, and swarms of lively children. It was a composed and orderly assembly that welcomed Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti with songs and stories about the Focolare in Slovenia. It was a luminous story, not without its moments of suffering. Nothing was superfluous or overdone in the testimonies that were offered in representation of the different generations, within the warmth of a family feast that’s been long looked forward to. 
Then Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti were given an opportunity to have an open dialogue with those present, through a series of questions which were put to them by teenagers, children, priests, and married couples. Their answers were rich in wisdom and experience. “Courage!” exclaimed Maria Voce, using the Slovenian word. And the answers she offered were all permeated with this encouragement. Perhaps it will be the countries of Eastern Europe, she went on,“that have experienced a type of unity that contains certain values, but crumbled because it was not founded in God. . .” It is precisely these countries of the East, as they are now confronted by the aggressive materialism of the West who should “bring the others of Europe to discover that true unity cannot be constructed unless it rests on God.” Then she added: “You, with your experience, can say that the only positive and frutiful revolution is that of the Gospel.” Herein lies the need to “live and to speak”, “to improve” in witnessing with our life and with our word to the radicalness of the Gospel – without fear. It was a real consignment that Maria Voce was handing over to the people of Slovenia, in this land in which she encountered so much harmony. “This life of communion,” she concluded, “that we felt from the first moment we arrived here, and which has characterized this visit, a fruit of mutual love, must become total for all of us and for each one of us. And let us bring it to the whole world.” On the following day, 4 August, the Focolare president visited Archbishop Anton Stress of Ljublajna, President of the Slovenian Bishops Conference. Then she met with the priests of the Movement and the consecrated religious who live the spirituality of unity. Everything concluded with a Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Brezje, fifty kilometres from the capital. Goodbye Slovenia! This trip has taught us to “live the Gospel message with the radicalness of the early days of our Movement, and to make it known to all.” What an exciting mandate for this small but courageous people! By Mario Dal Bello
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6 Aug 2011 | Non categorizzato
[…] Crowds of young people today are joining together to recover the value of religion in their lives, and they draw from this collaboration new energies of renewal in the ordinary workings of society which are threatened by multiple abberations such as the use of nuclear energy, murder, the tyrannies of war, drugs, and pornographic sexual practices.
It could be said that the new consciousness of young people is attached to corpuscles that reduce faith to a reliquary decorously laden with violently charged ideologies, typical forms of externalized force, under the pressure of superficiality. But even from their tangle of politics and anarchism these unattached cells can learn the substance of the faith by looking at the attitude of bishops in countries where freedom is threatened, by looking at the life of believers that are causing a reaction based on convictions, after the lust and fear of violent and fearful rulers have offered a most powerful demonstration that, without faith in God, we do not live, we die. You die spiritually and often physically as we can sorrowfully observe in countries of the Third World.
The task of evangelization is therefore to implant God in the human soul […] If he is everything, then even our actions in this world, for others and for ourselves, are all influenced by his inspiration.
[…] Then the day is not only comprised of acts of labor and human relations and the cult of the human self, but it is enriched in an intimate higher life, a life of the spirit that imparts a dignity on a par with the freedom assured us as sons and daughters of the Almighty. The entire day is His intimate presence who gives us strength in trials, joys and weakness. It unfolds in a spontaneous evangelization, which so much of society is in need of, a society which is not atheistic, but ignoring the Gospel.Bottom of Form
[…] The existence of the Christian is also from God, just as it is for everyone else. Perhaps it is contemplated as something external, gaining, growing, learning, having fun and maybe even with a bit of effort to develop some inner virtue and draw near to God. But the Christian will live only to the degree in which he and she are attentive to their need to channel every action of the day toward the relationship with God, carrying out these actions with a view toward carrying on the Incarnation of Christ.
Every person, even the smallest, ailing, miserable and powerless human beings can yeild holiness, enrich humanity, and strengthen their brothers and sisters. And so nothing is a waste: every thought, every word, every action, within this vision of life created by God, serves to provide us with raw material for the construction of His Kingdom. And the day assumes a priestly value, as an association brought about by man between the life of Heaven and the needs of the earth.
The internalization of Christianity in the modern soul, therefore, is not so much a question of institutional reforms […] as it is a matter of “metanoia”, a continual daily rebirth in entering more deeply into the mystery of God, where the soul is immersed in His strength which is love.”
Città Nuova, n.13, 10/07/1977, p.29.
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5 Aug 2011 | Focolare Worldwide
The course was held at the impressive Vallombrosa Abbey in Italy, during July 17-30 and it concluded the second part of the course for educators which began last year. It involved seminary educators from thirteen countries (Pakistan, India, Korea, China, Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, and Italy). The open forum surprised the attendants with its daily motivational richness and its content. The guiding theme of the interactive course was “Prayer, Life, Thought”. Faced with the profound changes that affect a person’s life in the modern world – influenced by the digital revolution – it has become necessary to constantly update educators both on this subject and on educational approaches which can be used with candidates for the ordained ministry. 
In Novo millennio ineunte (n. 43), John Paul II had already invited the Church to become a “home and school of communion”, also in “places where ministers of the altar are formed”. The priests of the Focolare Movement have responded to this expectation by offering this Pastoral Theology Course for Educators in Seminaries, and the Congregation for Catholic Education (office of the Holy See which serves seminaries around the world) has expressed its support and appreciation ever since this course began. The undersecretary of the Congregation, Archbishop Vincenzo Zani, himself, launched this year’s course by attending and making a presentation entitled: “The Communitarian Dimension of Formation”. 
The course is structured around four residential weeks in two years. The first year presents the foundations of the paradigm of communion applied to the delicate task of training future priests. The second year moves into the practical and more complex aspects of formation, dividing it into seven main areas of concern: the gift of self and communion, dialogue and witness, prayer life and life in the “Mystical Body”, entertainment in community, study and, finally, communication at the service of communion. It is in their intertwining that these areas become a valuable approach to the formation of seminarians: one which is not fragmented but unitary, integral and harmonious. Individual participants are invited to enter into a relationship of openness; to attend group workshops exploring specific topics that relate to the main theme; to come up with concrete formation practices; and to make group presentations at a plenary session. 
The support from experts in the fields of theology, pedagogy and other human sciences was also invaluable, together with the personal contributions of the educators themselves who are experts in the field of formation. The interest shown and the need to give formation to educators suggest that this course will continue to be offered in future years. Beginning this year, the course will be held at the Sophia University Institute of Loppiano. Course members will be expected to present a dissertation and will receive academic credit. Links Priests of the Focolare Movement Vallombrosa Abbey Sophia University Institute
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4 Aug 2011 | Focolare Worldwide
“We were halfway through the school year, in the middle of the school’s afternoon extracurricular activities. But since I’m in athletics, it was also the middle of sport preps for the season of competitions which was about to begin. Our Italian teacher had arranged for us to meet the author of a book which we had read. A few days before my trainer suggested that I take part in some competitions that were to be held on the same day as our appointment with the author. The dilemma began as to whether I should choose what I wanted to do or choose to do what would be most correct. I tried to focus my attention not only on feelings, but also on them, on the consequences of my actions for these two people. 
Since I didn’t have any active role to play in the appointment with the author, except to be a listener, I decided to attend the competition. It was in telling my teacher of my absence that my ‘trying to love’ would be put to the test. I was fearful, in fact, that she would be displeased because she was so looking forward to this appointment. And so, upon the advice of some friends, I decided to invent an excuse, a doctor’s appointment or some illness that would excuse me from attending the event and avoid any such risk. But, perhaps because of the way I had set out to do things from the beginning, aside from feeling that this choice would clearly be wrong, I found the courage to face this small challenge of telling the truth. To my great surprise and that of the entire class, the teacher didn’t react negatively in the least. On the contrary, she told of how she had been involved in sport in her younger years, and she encouraged me to attend the sport event. The sport events turned out to be the best I had ever attended, because of the joy I felt and because my previous dilemma had shown how important each tiny choice of love can be, a choice that God welcomes and multiplies in the happiness He gives us. A small attention to respect a neighbour and a small lie never spoken that allowed sincerity to triumph, and fair play made me feel that on that day, I was a real Gen3!” Who are the Gen3 according to Elena? “They’re teenagers who try to live the Gospel and to bring unity through their actions. Gen3 life is normal everyday life, but and everyday life that plants each moment in eternity, a normality in which each gesture is made exceptional because it is addressed to God, and aimed at winning Heaven.”
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3 Aug 2011 | Focolare Worldwide
A surprising welcome for Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti in Slovenia where a group of smiling Friulians and Slovenians waited for them with flowers. It was an unusual sight, given that these two peoples have had mutual disagreements since 1918 due to the world wars. The Focolare’s Gospel Ideal has helped them in overcoming the past, and for this reason the atmosphere is warm and festive as the Slovenian people are.
This is a community that has been strengthened by long years of fidelity even through great suffering. A community which Maria Voce noted presented itself “mature” and rooted “in mutual love, that love which links one to the other.”
It is a small people in terms of its territorial expansion, but decisive and concrete in its Gospel experience. The lively youth of this land gathered together 600 of their countrymen, and presented to them the life of Chiara Luce Badano, a Gen who was recently beatified. Another original experience has been the constructive contact with other Catholic movements without which “the Church cannot go forward,” as the recent Archbishiop of Ljubljana pointed out. And it is for the contact with the faithful of other churches and religions.
Faced with a growing secular trend, on the 20th of June major representatives of the religions in Slovenia signed and launched a public appeal for religious freedom. Thousands of people had previously held public manifestations in defence of family values and against legislation that opposed them. These were projects that involved the community of the Movement in standing up for that “quality in relationships that creates the family, to that Gospel spirit which is a family spirit,” as Maria Voce stated on the last day of her stay in Slovenia.
Skofja Loka
Another significant moment was the August 2 visit of Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti to a noteworthy educational project at the “Sunray” Pre-school in the historic city of Skofja Loka, twenty-five kilometres from the capital. The whole is immersed in green and overlooked by a castle – one of the two-thousands castles to be found in the whole state – the summer residence of the ancient patriarchs of Aquileia.
Twenty-eight teachers – including twenty from the Focolare – have been bringing ahead this educational project since 2003. It involves 120 children between the ages of six months and six years, and is founded upon the spirituality of communion of Chiara Lubich. It is amazing to witness how such a pilot-project, which is born from a Gospel experience, provides a life education based on relationships of mutual love and respect, and of listening and it engages teachers, parents and the children themselves.
Although they do not teach the catechism in the traditional sense, they do present Jesus to the children as someone who was born into the simplicity of a family and as someone who accompanies their growth.
The project has been a large success and more requests are arriving to open similar pre-schools based on the same pedagogical model. Few know the suffering that lies beneath it all, due to the State’s reluctance to support such projects. Maria Voce exhorted the teachers to “write of their extraordinary experience” as she continued to hold up the value of a work that strives to educate children at a relational dimension which is based on the new commandment of Jesus: “This is my command: Love each other as I have loved you.” It was an historical moment for Sunray Pre-school whose very name expresses the sensation one has while visiting there. To the joy of everyone, Maria Voce suggested two “protectors” for the project: two focolarini who showed great love for the youth: Camilla and Vincenzo Folonari.
By our correspondent Mario Dal Bello
A very significant moment was the gathering which took place in the Sports Stadium in Medvode, a few kilometres from the capital, with some 1200 people from different parts of the country, which demonstrates the spread and vitality of the many local communities of the Movement in this land. Many young married couples were there, and swarms of lively children. It was a composed and orderly assembly that welcomed Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti with songs and stories about the Focolare in Slovenia. It was a luminous story, not without its moments of suffering. Nothing was superfluous or overdone in the testimonies that were offered in representation of the different generations, within the warmth of a family feast that’s been long looked forward to. 
