On 7 December 1943, Chiara Lubich consecrated her life to God. She personally told of that day while responding to Sandra Hoggett, an English journalist. (We thank Charisma Productions UK for kindly allowing us to use this video clip. Note that you may request the four interviews of “Face to face – Chiara Lubich and Sandra Hoggett” on DVD, in Italian and English, from Charisma Productions UK by writing to: charismauk@blueyonder.co.uk)
Callan, what is Claritas? 
“Claritas is an online English language journal that seeks to explore a culture of unity in an in-depth and academic fashion. The articles will be peer-reviewed to assure their quality, but above all, as in the Italian Nuova Umanità, they will seek to explore every field in light of that unity which can generate a new world. It does not seek to serve any particular cultural area in the world, but offers anyone who uses English the possibility of expressing their ideas in that language. In order to allow everyone to participate, particularly those who, in different parts of the world, have fewer economic advantages, it is free, although, in order to cover expenses we ask those who can to contribute as they would with any other professional journal they use.” How does peer review function? Why is that useful? “It’s really quite simple! Once the editor accepts an article for possible publication, it is sent to be reviewed by someone competent in the subject being treated. For the most part, these reviewers are members of the editorial board. This evaluation can be a real service to the author, as an article might have value, but might need some modifications before it can be published, so specifics improvements will be suggested. I should add that the editorial staff includes academics from institutions all over the world.” Claritas is a “trans-disciplinary” journal. Why does it take this approach? “Basically because one aspect of what we see as genuine unity is to respect, even to emphasize, the diversity of disciplines, and to recognize that one can enrich the other. Every discipline is autonomous, but none can stand completely on its own. Claritas addresses all those who wish to join in the conversation about what unity means and how it works. It aims to provide an intellectually respectable forum for promoting and spreading the culture that is born from the charism of unity.” How is it connected with the Focolare Movement? “The culture of unity that Claritas seeks to express is born from the charism within the Focolare Movement. Claritas, therefore, is a cultural expression of the Movement, but one does not necessarily have to be a member of the Movement to publish there or to find something useful or even enlightening in reading it.” Where did the idea of this journal originate? “Simply from the need to express the culture of unity in English. In practice behind this there were two parallel conversations. One was in Nuova Umanità which recognized the need to publish online in various languages, including, of course, in English. The other came about in the USA, where scholars connected with the Movement felt the necessity to express their ideas in a language that many in the world-wide academic community use. Fortunately, they also found the resources to bring this about. We shall see how things develop but the editorial line of the new journal is based on Nuova Umanità. Certainly it should be distinctive because of its rigorous nature, even as it strives, as much as possible, to be open to everyone.” On 12 March 2012 the first issue will be published. Can we have a preview? “We will publish a 1961 talk by Chiara Lubich, where she gives a summary of her experience of ‘Paradise.’ It is a highly significant text, full of cultural consequences or implications. There will be at least one article to contextualize it, and one that will examine the ideas of what it is to be human implicit in Chiara’s experience. In addition, there will be two articles on politics, one dealing with the limitations of political power and the other examining international relations. There will also be articles related to interreligious dialogue, particularly with Jews and Buddhists. Finally, demonstrating the breadth of interests in the journal, there will be reviews of various types of books–including some that go beyond the cultural contexts usually connected with the English language, such as a review examining the concept of ‘fraternity’ from a South American perspective.” Our best wishes to the journal Claritas!
“I come from a small town in the countryside and I just moved to Rome. My arrival in such a big city has also made me meet things that are very different from what I have been accustomed to. 
It was difficult for me to see children begging for some money or people immersed in dumpsters searching for something to eat. Not that this is anything new. These things can be seen on many streets and on the TV. But when you come face to face with it, something changes and you find yourself presented with your own personal measure for living the Gospel. Returning home a few nights ago, I stopped to talk with a guy. He was 23 years old, more or less my own age. He told me about his children, one of whom was about to have surgery and there wasn’t enough money. He told me about the 150 euro he had to pay each month so that he and his wife wouldn’t have to sleep in the back seat of a car. Then there were the difficulties finding employment. Just the same old stories, just the same old excuses to scrape up a few pennies, I thought. But something pushed me to continue. Therefore I told him that I’d help him to find a job, that he could come to supper with me, and that I’d put him up at my house if his landlord threw him out of his home. I hardly knew what I was saying, but the words were flowing from my heart. I said to myself: What can someone like me do? I’ve just arrived in Rome! When I returned home I prayed for help from the Father. Two days later I received an email that told of a meeting for foreign students who were seeking employment. Here was an answer, a clear sign! I immediately sent a message to the guy, informing him of this opportunity. More than once it happened that I got home late due of similar delays. And I would be interrogated by my housemates: ‘But why do you stop to talk with these people? What do you care? It doesn’t do any good anyway…’. Perhaps my answer to them was a superficial one, but what I gathered from it all was revolutionary. I changed my way of acting because ‘everything is for Jesus.’ If you allow Jesus to work on you and change you, if you choose Him as the basis for your life, especially the Jesus who suffered on the Cross for all of us, then it’s Jesus Himself who makes you another Jesus in the dark corners and sufferings of society.” (E.P. – Italy)
One day in the 1940s, at the dawn of the Movement, a bishop sent for the young girls from Trent (Northern Italy). Unaware of the reason for the invitation Chiara Lubich was pensive. The girls prayed at length before arriving at the bishop’s residence, in Piazza Fiore. They described the real revolution that was happening in their city as a result of their actions almost without being aware. They explained frankly that they were ready to destroy everything that had been built over the months if the bishop asked them to. Their thought was ‘God speaks in the bishop’. The only thing that interested them was God. Bishop Carlo De Ferrari, who belonged to the Order of the Stigmatines, listened to Chiara and her companions and smiled at them pronouncing a simple phrase which remains to this day, ‘Here is the finger of God’. His approval for and benediction of the Movement accompanied them up to his death; an example of his support was shown when the numbers of young men and women wishing to enter the Focolare leaving their homes and possessions was growing, the bishop said that this could only happen if they had the approval of their parents. This act silenced many rumours. For Chiara and her first companions the existence and importance of the Church was the only certain reality. In time the spirituality of unity saw the Church essentially and fundamentally as communion. Chiara wrote in 2000: ‘There is a phrase that Jesus says in the gospel which moves me deeply “Whoever listens to you (the apostles), listens to me” (Lk 10,16) (…) The charism brought us in a completely new way into the mystery of the Church, we were living as a little Church. Anticipating by many years the definition from the council of Church as Communion, the spirituality of unity made us experience and understand what being Church meant and how to live with greater awareness. We understood it was logical for this to happen, through the presence of Christ among us. ‘If we stay with the fire we become fire, and if we have Jesus in our midst we become other Jesus. St Bonaventure said “Where two or three are united in Christ’s name, there is the Church”, and Tertullian: “Where three (are gathered), even if they are lay people, there is the Church”. Through Christ in our midst, we are made Church, and so a real passion for it is born within us. From love a new understanding of the Church was born where we all found life: we understood the sacraments in a new way. The dogmas of the Church were illuminated for us. We felt in our element being Church, through the strength of communion of love that united us and grafted us onto the institutional reality, and we experienced Her maternal love even in the most difficult moments.’
The Political Movement for Unity (MPPU) has been active for several years in Argentina in order to disseminate the fraternity dimension in the heart of the life of political parties, as is done in other countries where the movement is present. Juan José Pfeifauf (of the “Frente Para la Victoria” Party) and Pilar Goldmann (of the “GEN/Generacion para un Encuentro Nacional” Party), are two youths who arrived on a visit to Rio Grande (Tierra del Fuego, Argentina), the most southern capital in the world. Militant in two different political parties, they wanted to put on record that to inspire oneself by fraternity means “putting this idea in concrete action amongst the different political sides, by exercising empathy towards the other, with humility, knowing that nobody possesses the absolute truth about any project, and starting to recognise in the other a valid and necessary interlocutor.” Their visit forms part of the follow up of the local School of political formation that holds its lessons regularly every Saturday. They themselves have followed the MPPU training at La Plata (Buenos Aires). Now Pilar is a tutor at a centre at San Miguel del Monte, in the province of Buenos Aires, where she has been encouraged to contest as candidate for the commune council in the last political elections. About participation in active politics by youths, Pilar’s impression is that “from the years in the nineties up to today, in Argentina, we have seen a growth in political commitment, even if we cannot yet say that 100% of youths are interested in it.” But youths should not be considered only as subjects to whom to refer some occasional projects: “youths must become the main actors in the public realm. The renewal of politics passes through here.” The Mppu/Argentina, that draws its inspiration from the principles of fraternity inherent in the proposal of the spirituality of Chiara Lubich, is 10 years old in 2011. It was formed on the occasion of the grave economic crisis that gripped the region in that unforgettable year, causing an increase in poverty in society. It was a moment which saw a real divorce between the people and the political class, a divorce that only recently seems to be recomposing. Pilar relates that, on the premise of that crisis, some persons animated with the spirituality of unity, took on the commitment to give birth to the Centres of social and political formation, “to seek to give an answer, to imprint a reversal of route, aware of the necessity to reconstruct the basis of the rapport between society and the institutions; not only, but also to diffuse seeds of dialogue and trace a common way.” Today we can say that we have come a long way and hundreds of young Argentinians have been to these centres. A “capital” now mature, ready to contribute to the development of the South American country: the commitment which they feel to bring about fraternity in politics, understood as service. Presented by Daniela Ropelato (from extracts published in the Diario El Sureno, 16th November 2011- our translation)
