2 Jan 2018 | Non categorizzato
Pisa is known all over the world for its Square of Miracles, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, where the Leaning Tower of Pizza is located. Every year since 2003 the Pisa Book Festival is held in that Tuscan city at the national book show which gathers publishers, writers, translators, illustrators, Italian and foreign artists. It is an ideal setting for sharing ideas, innovative proposals, quality books and magazines, but also writing workshops, seminars, readings and shows. Città Nuova was there again this year with the support of the local Focolare community. “This is fifth year that we have taken part in Pisabook, a truly special edition because of the variety of presentations and the people involved,” explain Rita and Francesco. “For the first time we got to run the workshop in the Junior section where we worked and played with ‘BIG’ and ‘feelings’.” 
BIG is an Italian monthly children magazine published by Città Nuova. Among the new offerings was a kit that would help teachers discuss the topic of feelings, such as fear, disgust, anger, sadness and happines with children up to ten years old. “During the festival we visited a school on the outskirts of the city where it would be possible to accompany the children in Pisabook’s main office. They were all invited to help promote BIG and now the teachers want to subscribe to the magazine.” Among Città Nuova’s offerings in the Hall was an autobiography of Salvatore Striano, a story of redemption and transformation – from a drug dealer in a suburban criminal district of southern Italy to a writer and actor. In between, ten years of jail time in Madrid and Rome. It is story of salvation through books and the theatre, but mostly through meeting the right people at the right time. In his autobiographic novel, Giù le maschere, (Città Nuova, 2017), a group of disadvantaged and rebellious teenagers from a halfway home discovers a love for theatre and finds on the stage, a road to salvation and redemption. It is a deep story that teaches to look at life, every life, especially the lives of vulnerable youth, with eyes of hope. “During the three presentations of the book and the breaks,” Rita and Francesco explain, “a feeling was created among everyone: Striano opened up and talked about his troubled life. He was particularly impressed by the young people who were there, whom he invited as personal guests to his show in Naples. At the end he remarked: If my friends in prison could see your eyes, your smiles … they would change their lives.” The author had a deep discussion with the teens from the school who had prepared for the event by reading his book. The discussion seemed to have “removed the distances, making everyone feel like they were at home in their living-room.” Now the students are involved in a school project inside several prisons. “Seeing so many people moving to the booth and not going away made Salvatore say that he had never had a similar experience before and that he wants to write more books with Città Nuova. “Lucia Della Porta, creator and director of Pisabook, couldn’t stop thanking us for our contribution to the success of the event! But we thanked her for putting so much trust in us. Many people passed by our booth, we made many contacts and tried to give our testimony. It was also a financial success.” The local Focolare community concluded: Città Nuova is even more ours.
1 Jan 2018 | Non categorizzato
The title BEYOND ALL BORDERS intends to highlight the boundaries that need to be overcome at personal and social levels. It was chosen with the purpose of opening the minds and hearts of the participants in the Genfest. This eleventh edition aims to inspire participants to feel capable of building a happier and a united world. To breathe, love, work and live with concern for everyone. This is why the Genfest values artistic manifestations, music, dances, expositions, forums, etc., to enable everyone to think differently and to transform life into something more beautiful.
1 Jan 2018 | Non categorizzato
“Men and women, children, young people and the elderly seek a place where they can live in peace. To find it, many of them are willing to risk their lives on a journey that in most cases is long and dangerous, to undergo suffering and hardship, to come face to face with barbed wire and walls that are raised to keep them far from their goal.” On the first day of the New Year, Pope Francis’s greetings are extended especially to the 250 million immigrants, 22 and a half million of whom are refugees. His message is filled with proposals, which are offered to the international community for its analysis and study. Why are there so many refugees and immigrants in the world? Francis recalls: “Saint John Paul II pointed to the growing number of refugees among the consequences of the interminable and horrendous series of conflicts, genocide and “ethnic cleansing” that marked the twentieth century. The new century wasn’t a real turning point. Armed conflicts and other forms of organized violence continue to provoke movements of populations within national confines and beyond. But people migrate for other reasons as well; primarily for a better life.” Those who foment fear in the face of global migrations – perhaps for political reasons rather than building peace – sow violence. “Instead,” the Pope says, “I invite you to see them as opportunities for building a future of peace.” Migrants and refugees never come empty-handed. They “come loaded with courage, abilities, energy and aspirations besides the treasures of their own cultures. In this way they enrich the life of the nations that receive them.” In his usual style, Francis doesn’t limit himself to a list of generic “guidelines,” but presents a complex strategy, comprised of four actions: receive, protect, promote and integrate. Accept primarily means “expand ways of legal entry, do not turn them back to places where persecution and violence awaits them, and balance concern for national security with the protection of basic human fundamental rights.” Regarding protection, Francis recommends that, in respect for the dignity of the person, migrants and refugees should be allowed freedom of movement, opportunities for employment and, in particular, the prevention of exploitation of women and children, “the ones who are most exposed to the risks and abuses.” Promotion stands for the promotion and support of “integral human development.” Among the many tools, he underscores “the importance of ensuring access to education for children and young people at every level of instruction. In that way they will not only cultivate and bring to fruition their own skills, but will also be better able to reach out to others and cultivate a spirit of dialogue instead of evasiveness or confrontation.” Integration is not synonymous with assimilation, the complete sacrifice of one roots and loss of identity; on the contrary, it represents “allowing the refugee and immigrant to take full share in the life of the society that receives them, in a dynamic of mutual enrichment and fruitful collaboration in the promotion of the integral human development of the local communities.” The message contains a clear call to the leaders of States of the whole world. Pope Francis looks forward in 2018, to the global double accord in favour of secure, orderly and lawful migrations that ensure the protection of refugees, inspired “by compassion, long=sightedness and courage, in order to seize every opportunity to advance the construction of peace. Only in this way will the necessary realism of international politics not become surrender to cynicism and global indifference.” Recalling the words of St John Paul II, Pope Francis intends to entrust a message of new hope to the world, even in difficult times: “If the ‘dream’ of a world at peace is shared by many, and the contribution of migrants and refugees is acknowledged, the human race can more and more become a common home.” Read message
30 Dec 2017 | Non categorizzato
It seems to me that in order to give back to the family its true countenance, in order to restore its splendour, instead of focusing on discussions and directives (…) it’s worth pondering on that luminous and universal example that Eternal Wisdom devised: the family of Nazareth. All present and future families the world over can look to it as a model. And not just families: the individual components of this model can inspire us to know what behaviours and attitudes we should adopt, the relationships and virtues we should cultivate. Every man on earth who is husband and father can always find in Joseph, the Spouse of Mary, the considered father of Jesus, a light, an encouragement, a source of inspiration. In him, one can emulate the same faithfulness in all trials, heroic chastity, strength, silent activity, respect, veneration, protection for the mother of his children, participation in family concerns … And every woman, who is wife and mother, can discover in Mary her own potential, equality with man and her own identity. She can see fulfilled in the Bride of Joseph the desire to also be a protagonist; she can understand how to go beyond the family circle to spread, for the good of many, the riches that are her own: self-sacrifice, the inner strength that gives her confidence, the religious life that distinguishes her from others, the innate need to rise above her situation and to elevate others, radiating light, purity and beauty. Similarly the children will find in Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, who together compose a marvellous unity, the two troubling challenges: the need to establish themselves as a generation which can launch a new chapter in history, and the desire to find refuge in their loved ones through love and in obedience. Yes, may the Holy Family, the jewel of humanity it is associated with, which reflects the life of the Trinity, where love generates one God, be before us today, may it stay with us all (…) for the good of the family in the world, of the family in the Church and for the glory of God. From: Chiara Lubich – Messagge to FamilyFest 1981
29 Dec 2017 | Focolare Worldwide
“If it hadn’t been for a group of friends – teachers at a school for street children – I would never have known about this side of my city: the poor. And yet, Saigon – or as they now call it – Ho Chi Minh City, also has it: poverty, disadvantage and suffering. On Christmas and all the big holidays some people like to go out for walks, perhaps around some of the famous breweries, to look for some poor, or better, very poor families who live in stinking rat-infested slums. I thought I had seen all the poverty in Thailand among the Karen refugees and migrants from the mountains in the North, as well as along the dirty canals of Bangkok. But what I saw today in Saigon, in the ‘Milan of Vietnam,’ I had never even imagined. Small rooms with twelve people living inside them, along with three dogs perhaps. I become so nauseous in such places that I could hardly force myself to stay there. But then, the faces of the children lit up, the intense gazes of the mothers looked at us and seemed to say ‘thank you’ when we placed in front of them a sack with 5kg of rice in it. That gaze was all the thanks we needed, along with a will to live and the joy to dry ourselves off after such a drenching rain. And then there are Nativity Scenes in Saigon and Christmas stars over the homes of many families. Some alleyways are lit up, which gives a bit of warmth to the city which is by no means cold, impersonal and indifferent – nor even atheist. You notice the stars and Nativity Scenes, because they’re everywhere and appear on many street corners: they take you by surprise. The ones I found most striking were the ones in the public markets, at night, almost covered under the day’s trash; or else, the ones that were lost along the outskirts of the market, but illuminated by two huge Manger Scenes set up right on the road. Then, on the tops of the houses, at night, there are the fluorescent stars that blink off and on. Returning home tonight, after the visit to the poor, I looked at this scene that had filled me with such a feeling of gratitude: even though far from home, I wasn’t at all missing the real sense of Christmas. Last year Pope Francis said that ‘Christmas is the feast day of weakness, because it celebrates a child, the symbol of fragility, smallness, humility and love.’ Today I understood those words a little more. This night that I now leave behind because it’s already morning, was illumined by the love that I saw among the people that went to help, to lift up, to show their closeness with those who suffer. Once again, the cultural darkness in which we live is illuminated by these living Nativity Scenes, by people who have made that Boy the reason for their lives. And I realized that the real message of Christmas hasn’t died. It’s message of love, tenderness and understanding is alive and I saw it. It was all there in that gesture of taking a small disabled three-year-old and hugging him as close as possible. And that little boy let himself be raised up by that face that unknown face. All the technology of present and future robots, the commercial frontier that everyone is talking about in Asia, will never be able do this miracle: love. Because love is free. Love is never a duty, and nobody can program it or order it. It’s a gift that comes from inside. I saw faces brighten and believe that life, tomorrow morning, will go forward and be more beautiful than yesterday. I don’t miss my Europe this Christmas. Because wherever there is love, there is also my home. Saigon is also my home.”
