![Vancouver: A Workshop of Unity]()
18 Jan 2014 | Non categorizzato
In Vancouver the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is prepared by Christian communities from different Churches, building relationships of mutual understanding and cooperation through concrete action and looking upon one another as brothers and sisters to be loved.
These are the ideas that have marked the work of Marjeta Bobnar who has been in charge of coordinating ecumenical and interreligious relations or the Archdiocese of Vancouver since 2012. The region where she works is scattered with many Churches: Anglican, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Mennonite and more.
She recounts: “The first step was to establish new relations with the different communities, as well as to sensitize Catholic environments to ecumenism.” Marjeta was supported in this effort by Archbishop J. Michael Miller and by the Focolare community to which she belongs.
This effort already produced many fruits during last year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Marjeta explains: “The majority of Catholic parishes didn’t have any contact with the other churches in their area, but expressed their desire of inviting the members of neighbouring Christian communities. This led, for example, to a contact with one Lutheran pastor who was very open to ecumenical dialogue.”
During the moments of prayer many testified to joy of being together, and to the desire of dialogue and knowing one another better. Many wanted to stay in touch and to involve more people in successive gatherings.
Together with the Anglican diocese we’ve scheduled several events for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that will allow Anglicans and Catholics to share experiences, but also questions. At the beginning of 2013 a mixed work group of 3 Anglicans and 3 Catholics was formed. It turned out to be a beautiful experience in preparation for this year’s events.
We are also in constant contact with leaders from Lutheran Churches and ecclesial communities, the United Church of Canada, Mennonites, Pentecostals and the Armenian Apostolic Church.
As we prepare the moments of sharing and prayer, we are met with an enthusiastic response and also much gratitude for the unity we already experience.”
![Vancouver: A Workshop of Unity]()
17 Jan 2014 | Non categorizzato
“Living together for something that can reinforce the good in the world is unifying and strengthening; it encourages us to keep pushing toward a more united world,” says Igor who is one of the Youth for a United World from the Northeast Region of Brazil.
What is Desafio?
St. Mary School
Igor explains: “Desafio (Challenge) is three days of encounter, celebrating and sharing many of the projects that we Youth for a United World in this region (with its seven states) have been bringing ahead in our cities. Every year around 350 young people meet at Mariapolis Santa Maria in Igrassu, Pernambuco. The programme includes discussions for delving deeper into topics of interest, reporting on the projects and other activities that have taken place in different cities, several workshops and forums. It was very helpful to learn more about some of the social projects that are carried out by the Focolare, and the concrete help that we were able to offer during those days, as a sign of love to the local people.”
It was quite a demanding schedule . . .
“Obviously,” says Igor “there were also evenings and other moments for games and recreation. One evening is dedicated to ecumenical prayer for peace. This is always one of the most well received moments in the programme. You feel that we are all connected and that it would be enough to pause and make room for prayer which immediately creates like a spiritual bridge that unites us to God and with one another.”
This year you held the 4th edition with the slogan: Go towards others. What were the results?
“What was most evidenced was the importance of relationships: in the family, in society, in the virtual world and in the various initiatives and social projects. The great novelty this year was a project that we launched some time ago. Everyone felt quite strongly about this particular project which we named First the least. It involved the groups in each city in discerning who the least were so we could start living for them. Many concrete initiatives in favour of those most in need were born from this effort in several places in the Northeast Region of Brazil. Igor concluded: “Desafio is the moment in which we engage the greatest possible number of young people in building a more united and fraternal world.”
![Vancouver: A Workshop of Unity]()
14 Jan 2014 | Non categorizzato
Three years ago I started a journey as a volunteer in a Community of Rome which takes care of addicts. The Centre, that started in 1978 as a support group for drug addicts, has today widened its scope of operation and is no longer limited only to drug addiction.
The journey of the clientele within the community includes not only those who have addiction problems but also their families or relatives who are involved in the situation which at times have reached the limits of human endurance. I do my volunteer work precisely for these least of our brothers, taking care of their basic needs, and also of their support or self-help groups.
In both these instances: welcome and self-help, I had the chance to concretely experience the importance and the validity of dialogue that is made up of communication and listening, that I bring ahead in the Focolare Movement among persons who have faith and others of different convictions just like me.
The welcome or reception is the most difficult moment for those who arrive feeling lost, confused and who, with great effort, try their best to open up and share their situation to a person that they have never met before. This is the most complicated step of the entire journey; if the person who tries with great effort to overcome the fear and the shame, does not feel listened to and welcome, then the work that follows could become useless.
Even in the diversity of situations, the dialogue allows – thanks to the reciprocity that arises from it – a union and an exchange from within that is truly profound. The positive points of one and the sufferings of the other confront each other in an enriching sharing. The burden in a person that in the beginning seemed to be unbearable, becomes lighter and the sufferings less heavy. There will be many difficult moments along the road, but knowing that one is not alone helps; when one falls there is a shoulder to lean on.
One morning, a lady arrived asking to talk with one of the staff. I was alone, so I offered to listen to her. Even before we sat down, she already set the conditions for our conversation: this meeting must remain secret (because if her son would come to know about it he would probably kill her); she would not tell me her name and even the name of her son; I cannot tell the police anything nor file a case.
My first reaction was surprise and then anger, many of her conditions irritated me. But when I was able to detach myslef from my role, I saw two people who were were definitely not trying to dialogue: one was weak and burdened with suffering and fear; the other was strong, but locked into his duty as saviour.
I perceived the impossibility of working and the incapacity of concretizing the theories that I had learned in the three years of my service in this community. The technical instruments are useless in this situation, the methods used by me in the past are fruitless, I had to change my strategy.
The moment had come to apply the dialogue that I usually carry out with my friends of the focolare! Only I can change the situation. The tone of my voice, my attitude changed; I invited the lady to sit down and I put all my technical knowledge at her disposition, but above all I lent my humanity, forgetting the many usual bureaucratic procedures.
There was a simultaneous explosion of tears and of joy; she sat down and begging forgiveness for her tears, she started to share with me her story. The need to share the drama that she was going through, finally found a space where it could be shared freely without shame or fear of being judged.
My opening finally became a listening that was able to welcome her suffering, process it, make it mine and give back to her my contribution in a mutual enrichment. (Piero Nuzzo)
![Vancouver: A Workshop of Unity]()
28 Dec 2013 | Non categorizzato
Pope Francis had just recently recognized, on December 18, 2013, the exemplarity of the life of Jerzy Ciesielski (12.02.1929 – 9.10.1970), who was among the first to welcome and spread the spirituality of the Focolare in Poland. Born on February 12, 1929 in Krakow, Jerzy Ciesielski finishes his degree in Civil Engineering and, in 1957, he marries Danuta Plebaczyk. The marriage was blessed by Cardnal Karol Wojtyla who accompanied them in their spiritual growth. Three children are born, Maria, Caterina and Pietro. Jerzy met Wojtyla while he was still a student at the Polytechnic of Krakow, and then after gaining his doctorate and a teaching position as a university professor, he joins a group of intellectuals who, together with the Cardinal goes ahead with a cultural and spiritual formation. In 1968, Jerzy comes into contact with the Focolare Movement. Impressed by the evangelical life saw beng lived among the members of the first community, he embraced the spirituality and, together with Dr. Giuseppe Santanché, an Italian focolarino who came from the GDR, they go to Card. Wojtyla with the request for his blessings on the growing Movement. «He feels the call to give himself to God as a married focolarino in the summer of 1969, after a ‘week long vacation’ in Zakopane, a tourist spot in the Tatra mountains»: recalled Anna Fratta, a focolarina doctor who was a direct witness of some of the human and spiritual events in the life of Jerzy. The “week long holiday” was a clandestine Mariapolis…… An incident at the river Nile in Sudan, on the 9th of October 1970, took Jerzy and his children Caterina and Pietro away. Karol Wojtyla presided at the funerals; becoming the Pope, in the book entitled “Going beyond the threshold of peace”, he described Jerzy as a young man who decisively hoped for sanctity. «This was the programme of his life – wrote John Paul II. He knew that he was “created for great things”, but, at the same time, he did not have any doubts that his vocation was not the priesthood or the religious life». Wojtyla, in his writing, particularly highlights how matrimony and family life were considered by the young man as the answer to a call of God; and so were his professional committment, lived as service.
![Vancouver: A Workshop of Unity]()
22 Dec 2013 | Non categorizzato
In the Focolare Movement dialogue is not a matter of personal opinion.Even a brief glimpse at the stages of its development (see timeline) would show that the Movement was not born at a planning table but by an inspiration, through a charism that the Holy Spirit had bestowed on a young woman from Trent, Italy. Since the earliest days of the Movement numerous incidents concerning Chiara Lubich and her first companions show a total acceptance of others, and acceptance is the first step in dialogue. The spreading of the Movement throughout the world, the rapid growth of the spirit of unity cannot only be attributed to words that were spoken by few a people into a microphone, but to the love that was based on the art of loving, which Chiara had always proposed as the “method” for spreading the Gospel: “making yourself one”. This term is borrowed from Saint Paul who writes: “I have become all things to all people”. For the Movement, this has always been the main method of evangelization. Observing the vast spreading of the Movement, it seems obvious that the spirituality of unity conquered hearts and souls of people of every social category, due to its uncompromising openness to the human family; openness expressed primarily through an attitude of dialogue in all fields, times and places. In the Focolare dialogue is meant to be understood in its strongest sense, in its Gospel sense. We do not sacrifice our own identity for the sake of any sort of compromise, but precisely because of our identity, we are able to reach out to another who is “different” from us. On January 24, 2002 Chiara and Andrea Riccardi (founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio) were invited to Assisi. They were to speak on behalf of the Catholic Church in front of the pope and other religious leaders of the world, following the collapse of the Twin Towers. Chiara emphasised that dialogue is the main attitude of the Church. She recalled the Church’s four dialogues: dialogue within the Church; ecumenical dialogue; dialogue with the faithful of other religions; and the dialogue with people who have any religious affiliation. These are the four dialogues identified by the Church during the Second Vatican Council in the Encyclical Letter Ecclesium Suam. 
In 1991 Chiara had written: “Jesus considers as allies and friends all those who battle against evil. Without being aware of it they work for the coming of God’s Reign. Jesus asks for a love from us that is capable of becoming dialogue; that is, a love which, far from closing us proudly within the safe boundaries of our own little worlds, is capable of openness towards everyone, and capable of working with other people of good will for the building of peace and unity in our world. Therefore, may we try to open our eyes to the people we meet, may we admire the good they do no matter what their beliefs may be. May we support them and encourage one another along the path of love and justice.”
