The participants from the different religious families were about 150, coming from all over Europe and  as well as from Lebanon, Peru and Brazil. This convention for the men religious, organized by the Focolare Movement, was held at the Mariapolis Center at Castelgandolfo at the same time as the convention for the priests and deacons who take part in the life of the Movement.

Giancarlo Faletti, co-president of the Focolare, who was travelling in those days with Maria Voce to Indonesia and Oceania, made his presence felt with a message, in which he highlighted the important role of the religious for the diffusion of the spirituality of unity in those nations: “Once again, I strongly felt a great and deep sense of gratitude towards our religious, who have brought the Ideal of Unity to these faraway lands, sowing the seed of what, with time, has become the family of the Focolare”.

The program was quite intense: the participants met with some representatives of the Focolare International Centre: with Msgr Piero Coda, Dean of the Sophia University Institute, and Marco Tecilla, the first focolarino. Besides, Father Fabio Ciardi from the Abba School (the Movement’s Studies Centre) and the journalist Paolo Loriga from Città Nuova gave their contribution to the program.

A particularly important moment was the exchange with the new generations. The Youth for a United World presented the United World Project, which was conceived and launched during the Genfest, and is now entering a very dynamic stage.

The project for the Meetings in 2014 generated great interest. Entitled “Yes we live the Gospel”, this global project for the new generations in the consecrated life will take place in various parts of the world. It has three objectives: to make known the charism of unity, to make visible the young face of the consecrated life, and to help experience the beauty of the communion among charisms.

Fr Theo Jansen explained the title, “Yes, we live the Gospel”, as follows: Yes, that is the Yes to the Ideal of unity; We, to emphasize that it is done together, not individually, and finally Gospel: the plurality of charisms that many religious families display by their very existence, charisms that flourish again in the garden of the Church when they are together. Maria Voce gave the participants of the congress a slogan, inspired by a well-known writing from Chiara Lubich, which was in tune with this program: “Look at all the flowers. The other is a flower from our garden.”