On 30^th April 1982, 7,000 priests, religious and seminarians from all over the world, united by the spirituality of unity, gathered in Rome for the event “The Priest Today, the Religious Today”. Forty years later we look back at that day. Priests who feel called to be first and foremost witnesses of the Gospel and men of dialogue; religious who have found in the spirituality of the Focolare Movement an incentive to embody more fully the charism of their founders; seminarians who have understood that they want to choose God and to confirm their own calling. These are the experiences of many of the participants at the International Congress entitled “The Priest Today, the Religious Today”, held on 30^th April 1982 in the Nervi Hall, in the Vatican. 7,000 people took part in that Congress. Through testimonies from all over the globe, they highlighted the fruits of the encounter of the charism of unity with ministers of the Catholic Church and other Churches and the renewal brought to many religious communities. In her speech that day, Chiara Lubich stressed the two focal points of this experience: Jesus crucified and forsaken as the model of the priest and the religious; mutual love and unity as the style and purpose of their mission. To be men of “dialogue”. This is the mandate that, even then, contained the desire of an outgoing Church, as can be seen from the words of the foundress of the Focolare, more relevant than ever today: “Never as in today’s times, is the Church called to look beyond herself to all Christians, to those who have different beliefs or who do not believe at all. Never before is it so evident that what some call “the missionary mandate of the Fourth Gospel” comes to the fore. John expresses it in these terms: ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’. (…) Today Christians are called to evangelize in this way too: loving one another and offering the experience of their new life to others. This cannot fail to touch, to amaze and to provoke questions. And hence dialogue flourishes”. On that day the then Holy Father, John Paul II, presided over “the greatest concelebration since the institution of the Eucharist,” as the Roman Observer called it. It was a moment of joy and sharing, an opportunity to take stock, a starting point for new developments. Today, 40 years later, let’s hear the story of some of the participants.

Edited by Maria Grazia Berretta

  https://youtu.be/4Y-PNuJGN4A