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5 Apr 2014 | Non categorizzato
Lidia and Loris have 3 children who are 11, 9 and 6 years old. Each of them was born in a different city from the other because after their parents married, the family moved to Veneto, then to Alto Adige and then aruond Trentino. When her husband suggested moving back to the city of their origins in Crotone, Lidia reacted: “My first thought was the children and the wider range of opportunities they would have up north, but in the end I was convinced. Our city on the sea is truly beautiful, we know some very gifted people there and our children once adults, would choose their own futures for themselves. We wanted to do something to improve our country, because we love it! But we immediately realized that we were never going to begin a revolution, but at least we could begin with something small. So we began with the world of schooling; me with the classmates of my children and Loris with his students. He teaches German, but his first job in Crotone was as a substitute teacher. To begin with, he contacted the teacher of the boy who had been entrusted to him, to better understand his academic problems and built a relationship of trust with him. Several times, his intervention helped to resolve serious communication problems between school and parents. 
For almost 3 years we have been running a youth centre in our centre.. When we moved, Loris began the Associazione Amici del tedesco (Friends of German Association) that won a contract with the “With the South Foundation”. We offer children between the ages of 11 and 16 games and recreation, but also tutoring in Literature, Mathematics, as well as Italian and English for foreign students. Recently the Association won a competition connected to redevelopment of property confiscated from the mafia at San Leonardo of Cutro on the Ionian Sea, Calabria. Lidia explained: “We will use it as a hostel for young people and families who are unable to pay for holidays. We have been classified as a youth training project for youths and teenagers who have dropped out of school. We are supported by the Ministry of Youth Politics. We feel that all of this has come from God’s love, perhaps a plan that we don’t yet fully understand, but based on mutual love, because it’s actually not easy to work together. We are so different from each other and this is positive, but at times also difficult because we see things in such different ways. But then the discussions and misunderstandings pass and we begin again. 
The positive results are also the result of our sons’ love for us. They put up with it all with so much patience, all our organizing and moving around. It often happens that their love is what helps us to face the challenges of the forgotten on the fringes of society. And for them it’s a source of reflection and growth. Source: http://www.famiglienuove.org/
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1 Apr 2014 | Focolare Worldwide
Located in an area where there are evident signs of both poverty and development, the Mariapolis has a distinctive social feel that is highlighted by the school for children and teenagers, and a business park inspired by the Economy of Communion.
Since the 1960s Chiara Lubich saw the permanent Mariapolises as miniature “cities” that would show that a better and more united world is possible. Mariapolis Santa Maria is one of these twenty little cities spread around the world. Chiara Lubich had visited this site during her third visit to Brazil in 1965.
The school, named Santa Maria, has been operating for nearly 50 years. Ten of its current teachers and workers are ex-students. Others have entered into professions and some hold positions of responsibility in society. The values transmitted to them have remained with them: the culture of sharing, the art of loving and an education to peace. Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti were warmly welcomed at the school by the smallest members of the school orchestra performing Talents at the Service of Peace.
The majority of families have low incomes. The school is economically supported with national and international solidarity through the Focolare’s New Families projects and AMU. The first classes of reading and writing were offered to the workers at the Mariapolis, then to their children by request. Now the educational approach of this school is spreading to other schools of the region and in other educational environments.
Ginetta Business Park is located just a few kilometres away. There Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti were welcomed by administrators of the park, business people, shareholders and researchers of the Economy of Communion in Pernambuco. They described their successes and challenges. Giancarlo Faletti recalled that Chiara’s initial inspiration took place in Brazil in 1991. Maria Voce expressed gratitude for the commitment that was undertaken in a spirit of complete generosity. Then there was a visit to the buildings that house two of the businesses; the first dedicated to the manufacturing of bags and accessories, the other to the manufacturing of furniture.
The Mayor of Igarassu, who called the Mariapolis a “landmark” of his city because of the school and business park, gave the keys of the city to Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti, on behalf of the citizens, as a sign of gratitude and desire for an even closer bond.
Follow the journey on the Mariapolis Journal– Login required
Website: www.focolares.org.br/sitenacional
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31 Mar 2014 | Senza categoria
No longer in need of running after game or scaling cliffs in order to gain the high ground, we now turn to sport and recreation to measure ourselves against one another. Competition is the ultimate aim of that common human activity called sport, and now more than ever it is a metaphor of life. This is why Sportmeet, the Focolare’s expression of dialogue with the world of sport, decided to point the spotlight on its international convention being held in Pisa this April 3-6, 2014. The event is called Live Your Challenge. But does healthy competition still exist? President of Sportmeet, Paolo Cipolli, explains: “With the help of international experts and live testimonies, we want to reflect on the value of competition. Competition in sport is regulated and healthy. Although it is often intense, it can be engaging and team-building. We each have our daily challenges in life, and the prize is not a medal but the satisfaction of having given our best. This is the meaning of the logo that was chosen for this convention, it represents an obstacle made to the measure of each one’s ability.” Interviews with experts directly involved in the event gave an idea of the interesting programme of reflection and live experiences. Bart Vanreusel from the University of Lovanio explained: “Competitiveness in sport is a great concern, but also an opportunity; it’s both idealized and despised, but it is certainly an extremely interesting expression of human life today.” Football is probably the sport that shows both the good and the worst side of competition,” said Michel D’Hooghe who is a member of the FIFA Executive Committee. 
Benedetto Gui, political economics researcher at the University of Padua, drew a parallel between sport and economics: “Competition is an indispensable social mechanism, both for economics and human growth, but, as the saying goes, too much can be bad for you. In sport, you learn to measure yourself against others, but also to share with them. If too much emphasis is placed on the result, you forfeit your opportunity to experience those ‘relational goods’ that are at the very heart of sport.” Social sport trainer, Roberto Nicolis, offered an original idea: “The word competition is rooted in the Latin phrase cum petere, which means to want the same thing together, and cum petizio means to call one another to the same goal. Cum petere is what a child means when he asks: “Can I play with you?” and is prepared to enter into the game, to accept its rules and regulate himself against the others and with nature. He knows and accepts that he can either win or lose.” Information: sportmeet.org Program of the Congress Enrol
30 Mar 2014 | Non categorizzato, Word of
‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’
Jesus was about to die and what he said was affected by this. His imminent departure demanded an answer to one problem above all. How could he stay with his people and help the Church grow?
You may know, for example, that Jesus is present in sacramental acts: he makes himself present in the Eucharist.
But Jesus is also present wherever there is mutual love. Indeed, he said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Mt. 18:20).
In a community whose deep life is mutual love, therefore, he can remain actively present. And through the community he can continue to show himself to the world and continue to influence the world.
Isn’t this wonderful? Doesn’t it make you want to start right away living this love together with your fellow Christians?
John, who tells us of these words, saw mutual love as the Church’s supreme commandment. The Church’s vocation is precisely this: to be communion, to be unity.
‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’
Jesus said immediately afterwards, ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ (Jn 13:35)
So if you want to discover the true mark of authenticity for Christ’s disciples, if you want to see their badge, you have to look for it in mutual love.
Christians are to be recognized by this sign. And, if it’s missing, the world will no longer find Jesus in the Church.
‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’
Mutual love creates unity. But what does unity do? Jesus prayed, ‘May they be one … that the world may believe’ (Jn 17:21). Unity, by revealing Christ’s presence, draws the world to follow him. When the world is faced with unity, with mutual love, it believes in him.
‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’
In the same farewell discourse, Jesus called this commandment ‘his’.
It is his and so is particularly dear to him.
You ought not take it as simply a rule, a precept or a commandment alongside others. Here Jesus wants to reveal to you a way of living, to tell you how to set up your life. Indeed, the first Christians made this commandment the basis of their lives. As Peter said, ‘Above all, maintain constant love for one another’ (1 Pt 4:8).
Before starting work, before studying, before going to church, before any activity, make sure that mutual love reigns between you and whoever lives it with you. If it is so, then on this basis everything has value. Without this foundation, nothing is pleasing to God.
‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’
Jesus also tells you that this commandment is ‘new’. ‘I give you a new commandment’.
What does he mean? Perhaps that the commandment was unknown before?
No. ‘New’ means that it is made for the ‘new age’.
But what’s this about?
It’s like this. Jesus died for us. Therefore he loved us to the utmost extreme. But what kind of love was his? It certainly wasn’t like ours. His was and is a ‘divine’ love. He said, ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you’ (Jn 15:9). He loved us, therefore, with the very same love with which he and the Father love one another.
And it is with this same love that we must love one another in order to carry out the ‘new’ command¬ment.
But you, as a man or a woman, don’t have a love like this. Yet you can be happy because, as a Christian, you receive it. And who gives it to you? The Holy Spirit pours it into your heart, and into the hearts of all believers.
There is, then, an affinity between the Father, the Son and us Christians because of the one divine love that we possess. It is this love that introduces us into the Trinity. It is this love that makes us children of God.
It’s through this love that heaven and earth are linked as by a great current. Through this love the Christian community is brought into the sphere of God and the divine reality dwells on earth where believers love one another.
Doesn’t all this seem to you divinely beautiful, and isn’t the Christian life utterly fascinating?
Chiara Lubich
First published in May 1980
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30 Mar 2014 | Focolare Worldwide
Journalist and art critic Mario Dal Bello used an interesting approach to explain the major points of the Focolare Spirituality and the thought of its founder, Chiara Lubich. In his Dialogue on Art & Beauty he examines a series of European masterpieces to describe the ideal of unity, since “there is a very strong common link between this art and this spirituality,” claims Dal Bello, “and it wasn’t by chance that while admiring Michelangelo’s Pieta, Chiara Lubich prayed God to send artists into the world who were saints. Because what is sanctity if not the perfection of love, and transmission of the beauty of God who is Love? ” The event was offered by the city of Udine in honour of Chiara Lubich in the 70th year since her birth and the 6th anniversary of her Heavenly birth. It was a reflection on her words: “Beauty is harmony, and harmony is highest unity.” “Many seek to explain art, but that is an impossible feat,” admitted Dal Bello who explains art for a living. “It is ineffable, like the Spirit. It draws us for no reason, like falling in love.” Therefore Dal Bello began with a Christ by El Greco, “from the gaze that one feels for a beloved with which one is bale to grasp the face of God.” This is seeing God in the other and grasping the love there which is one of the key points of the spirituality of Chiara Lubich. And if the Good Shepherd, indeed the “beautiful shepherd,” as Dal Bello points out, “loves his sheep, then we must also love our neighbour. And this was illustrated in the magnificent mosaic of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna. Here Christ is shown surrounded by the flock. He is Risen and clothed in light. He points to the jeweled cross he is holding, which is a symbol of the Resurrection.” By virtue of this mutual love Jesus is present wherever two or more are gathered in his name. This is shown in Rembrandt’s Supper at Emmaus, in which “Jesus enters into our everyday life, to the point that the others don’t even realize it, not even that he breaks the bread.” And this is a presence that makes a change in the community; it makes a difference as can be seen in Raphael’s Transfiguration, in which there is a strong contrast between “the superior level, with Jesus, Moses and Elijah clothed in clear colours and an inferior level where the Apostles are left confused, where darkness prevails.” 
To illustrate love for Jesus forsaken on the Cross, which is another aspect of Chiara’s spirituality, Dal Bello examines The Crucifixion by Dali: “Christ is seen from above. He seems to bend over humanity and draw everyone to himself. It is significant that we don’t see his face: because we are all in his face.” Another central figure emerges – but only to the eye of the expert – from the Final Judgment by Michelangelo: “If you look carefully,” Dal Bello points out, “Mary watches an angel who is raising the souls of the saved, with a Rosary. Mary appears as the one who takes Christians to Heaven and, indeed, the Focolare Movement is also called the Work of Mary.” Finally there is the Ghent altarpiece by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck, where the Heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation with the entire Church gathered around it, is represented by a contemporary city. This recalls the commitment that focolares are called to bring to the local communities in which they live.
