7 Mar 2022 | Non categorizzato
The Word of Life for March 2022 invites us to put into practice a phrase we recite every day in the Our Father: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. But how can we forgive? Forgive. Always forgive. Forgiveness is not forgetfulness, which often means reluctance to face a situation. Forgiveness is not a sign of weakness, whereby we ignore an injustice we have suffered out of fear of the stronger person who committed it. Forgiveness does not mean saying that something serious is just a trifle or that something evil is good. Forgiveness is not indifference. Forgiveness is a conscious act of will, and therefore, a free act. It consists in accepting our neighbours as they are, despite the wrong done to us, just as God accepts us sinners, despite our faults. Forgiveness consists in not responding to an injury with another injury, but in doing what Paul says: “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.”[1] Forgiveness consists in offering the person who has wronged you the opportunity of a new relationship with you. It makes it possible for both of you to start over again and to experience a future in which evil does not have the last word. … You should act this way, first of all, towards those who share your faith – in your family, at work, at school, or in your community, if you belong to one. And you know that even people who live in the same household often hurt one another because of differences in personality, nervous tension, or other causes. Therefore, you must remember that only a constantly renewed attitude of forgiveness can maintain peace and unity among everyone. You will always tend to think about other people’s faults, to remember their past, to wish they were different from the way they are. Instead, you should develop the habit of seeing them with new eyes, of seeing them as new people, accepting them always and immediately and just as they are, even if they do not repent or change. You may say: “But that’s hard!” And you are right. However, this is the beauty of Christianity. In fact, it is not by chance that are you following a God who, as he was dying on the cross, asked his Father to forgive those who had caused his death. Take heart! Start living like this. I assure you that you will experience peace and joy that you have never known before.
Chiara Lubich
(Chiara Lubich, in Parole di Vita, [Words of Life] Città Nuova, 2017, pp. 218-219) [1] Rom 12:21.
4 Mar 2022 | Non categorizzato
Living next door to one another and being strangers. This is what often happens. All it takes is courage and simple actions to begin to really get to know one another. This is what the Scariolo family did. “Meeting other people is mutually enriching – beyond cultures, religions and ideologies. When we do this, we discover that the other person was created as a gift of love for us and we for them.” These are the words used by Adriana and Francesco Scariolo, Swiss focolarini, who have been married for 42 years, to describe a particularly enriching experience they had a few months ago. “We live in Canton Ticino, in the Italian part of Switzerland, and for a year and a half we have been living in a building that consists of thirteen flats. In the days leading up to Christmas 2021, we thought we could go door-to-door to share Christmas greetings. The surprise and gratitude of all the neighbours was great: ‘I was the first tenant to come to live in this building and this has never happened before – it’s the first time someone has come to wish us well at Christmas,’ said one of them. ‘We are Muslims, but we want to wish you a Merry Christmas too,’ added another. We also distributed an invitation to everyone to celebrate the end of the year in our home and to wish them a Happy 2022. So on 29 December we held an aperitif-dinner with three families, one Muslim and two Christian, one Evangelical and one Catholic, respecting safety regulations and wearing masks. It was a nice occasion when everyone got to know one other quite spontaneously. ‘It’s good to know that there are neighbours to help out, to say hello to,’ said the husband of the Muslim woman. ‘It makes us feel less alone.’” Is this something you have done before? “Yes, it’s not the first time we’ve tried to create relationships with other people in apartment blocks. It all started many years ago when we heard about the ‘neighbours’ party’, an initiative proposed to give people a chance to meet each other. We realised that we also needed a bit of courage and imagination to do our part, so we tried. The first thing we did was to take advantage of the new year and put a greeting card in the letter boxes, then, depending on people’s reaction and by making more friends, we organised a lunch in the garden all together before the summer. Then we left that block of flats for a 7-year volunteer programme working abroad. When we came back, since we are in this new building, we wanted to keep up the tradition.” What surprised you about their reactions? “Seeing their smiling faces. They didn’t expect it, especially in such a sensitive period because of the pandemic. It also seemed like a gift to be able to end the last days of 2021 with a moment of socialising after so much isolation, a sign that gives hope and does not dampen the desire to love others and build fraternal relationships. On 2 January 2022, we were waiting for other families who had said they would like to come to us. Due to the social distancing, it was not possible to host them at the same time as the others. Some were affected by covid and therefore could not come, but the dinner with them is only postponed until better times.” What does it mean for you to meet your brother or sister? “It means reaching out to today’s humanity through simple, everyday gestures of love. For example, helping the neighbour who sometimes has problems with the TV, listening to the couple who have just had a baby, breaking down the walls of indifference and anonymity that the pandemic has increased because they are obstacles to relationships. Jesus’ phrase “Whatever you do to one of my least brothers, you do to me” challenges us. So every neighbour is really the person God puts next to us to be welcomed and loved. And who is closer than our neighbours?”
Maria Grazia Berretta
3 Mar 2022 | Non categorizzato
From 25 to 27 February 2022 over 3000 young people witnessed universal fraternity developing active citizenship through local and global actions, committing to the great challenges facing the planet, from peace to environment and the fight against hunger and poverty. 
The desire to be together, meeting to build peace, live universal fraternity, take action for the environment and the weakest in society. In the three days from 25 to 27 February the Gen3 who are the adolescents of the Focolare Movement experienced the planetary workshop known as Hombre Mundo. More than 3,000 young people from more than 600 locations around the world took part in concrete actions and were connected through an online videoconference to bear witness to a united world. They were also able to share videos and photos of their experiences through teens4unity social networks. There were numerous messages of peace and solidarity including one from the Gen3 of Siberia, from the city of Krasnojarsk in Russia who sent a message during their Hombre Mundo to say: “we are living for Peace”. A message filled with hope, especially during these days of conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The programme of the planetary workshop was divided into three stages. 
25 February: Our way of life is the art of loving: how have we lived this and can we live it during the pandemic? How can we carrying on loving in the virtual world of social media? “We have understood,” said Samira from Congo, “that we have to accept one another despite our differences, which are of enormous richness. It’s a way of promoting values whilst simultaneously banishing anti-values.” And Élise from France: “in one meeting we were really struck by certain statistics concerning infant mortality around the world, mainly due to the lack of drinking water. So we organised a concert to raise funds to drill a well in Cambodia that would provide clean water for a dozen families for life”. On 26 February, the young people strengthened their commitment to integral ecology and the “Zero Hunger” Objective, to improve protection of the planet in an effective way and drastically reduce hunger and poverty until they disappear. One of the experiences shared was from the Gen3 in Austria for a reforestation project. “The money invested in the tree project was raised during the Fair Play tournament held in Vienna,” they explained. The theme was ‘Fair Play against Climate Change’. About 120 players and 100 helpers took part that day. With the money we raised, we were able to buy around 1,500 trees”. The 27 February was dedicated to the beauty of the encounter between peoples and the common commitment to build a world of peace and unity. A worldwide live videoconference connection enabled over 3,000 young people from 600 different connection points to meet and pray for peace. Then many experiences of peace and unity despite the many difficulties were shared. Like that of a girl in Myanmar, which is going through a very difficult political situation with many families having to leave their homes and take refuge in reception centres. She really wanted to be able to do something for them. “So I made myself available to help the refugees who had been taken in by the church. Even though I was tired, I believed that God was with me, looking at me and giving me the strength to carry on and help others. Now I can say that it was a wonderful and beautiful time for me. It was unforgettable.” In Lebanon, Maria Sfeir, Ambassador of Peace from the Middle East, together with Fouad Sfeir, told how they had “incorporated the culture of peace, educating our children and raising them with good values such as love and giving to build a better society, in an environment of non-violence and justice”. Among the many talks there was also Gen Rosso who were connected from the Italian island of Lampedusa, famous for welcoming migrants: “We are here in Lampedusa to support the wonderful people who welcome those forced to leave their land because of war, hunger and violence. Lampedusa is an island of fraternity, an open port, with people who look towards the horizon and jump into the sea to reach and save those at the mercy of the waves. Lampedusa: lamp, luminous beacon that signals land. Land that means home. From here we want to say: let us always keep the doors of our hearts wide open”. Margaret Karram, president of the Focolare Movement, then gave a message: “You have built the building site with your testimony of life”. (…) Don’t feel alone, know that the Movement throughout the world is with you and supports you. (…) I too often feel powerless in the face of the evil in the world: wars, injustice, the destruction of nature. In these moments it helps me to talk to God. It gives me strength and courage to know that He is with us. The certainty of his love warms my heart, makes me able to love, to forgive, to hold out my hand to build unity with those I meet every day. I feel that only in this way can I be a little artisan of peace”.
Lorenzo Russo
1 Mar 2022 | Non categorizzato
The 2021-2023 Synod convened by Pope Francis is an opportunity to listen to and dialogue with others; a moment to rediscover the true identity of the Church, the “universality” from the beginning. The pathway involves all the dioceses of the world, including the Holy Land. “As we set out on this journey, we are more aware than ever that together, as disciples of Christ on this earth which is his home, we are all called to be his witnesses. Let us remember that his greatest desire is that we are one.” (cf. Jn 17). This is what we read in the letter of 26 January 2022 sent by the Catholic Ordinaries to the heads of the Christian Churches in the Holy Land regarding the 2021-23 Synod which has been convened by Pope Francis and is entitled “For a Synodal Church: communion, participation, mission”. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, signed the letter which had the explicit aim of informing and involving brothers and sisters in various local ecclesial communities about the synodal journey that has begun in the Holy Land. He underlined the importance of listening to each other in order to grow closer together on this fraternal journey. Reference was made to the missionary nature of a “universal” Church, in Jerusalem, in particular. During a meeting held on 9 November 2021 after the opening of the Synodal Pathway, the Patriarch had spoken about this with the ecclesial movements and new communities present in the Holy Land. “Our Church, the Church of Jerusalem, began life in the Upper Room at Pentecost, and, even then, it was both local and universal (…) especially in recent years, it has been enriched by many more charisms. For this reason, your presence here is not only a gift and a sign of God’s providence (…), but it is also a contribution to the fulfilment of what God, the Lord, desires.” The participants all listened to each other and spoke of their own experiences. The valuable help of the Patriarch enabled them to better understand how to approach the Synod at a local level. Answering various questions, Mgr Pizzaballa shared his thoughts on synodality which “is a style – he said – a way of being, in the Church, but also outside the Church. It is an attitude. Listening and dialogue are expressions of this (…)”. The movements and new communities – says the Patriarch- need to work in “cross platforms”, going to the heart of the experience of “communion” of the universal Church, the experience that, more than others, seems really difficult to live in the Holy Land. “By communion I mean the awareness of belonging, of having freely received this gift, of having a life that is ‘inserted’ into other lives (…). All this stems from the experience of the encounter with Jesus. (…) after having met the Lord and experienced salvation, you understand that this experience becomes complete and profound, when it is shared in a community (…). This letter sent by the Catholic Ordinaries to the heads of the various Christian Churches in the Holy Land renewed a deep longing in many people and opened up new horizons by underlining the desire to grow in fraternity and be enriched by the wisdom of others. The hope of the Synodal Journey is that we should all experience ‘being together’ in the atmosphere similar to a shared meal where the group not only embraces suffering together but wants to immediately speak of the joys that life offers. It would be like the disciples’ journey to Emmaus. Although they were disappointed and sad, they walked together and, in communion, supported each other until the Risen Lord came to them. An opportunity not to be missed, to recognise him in our midst.
Maria Grazia Berretta
28 Feb 2022 | Non categorizzato
Encountering the Gospel today means finding the living Word of God. Chiara Lubich, through her experience with the first community of the Movement in Trent, makes us appreciate the effects of putting the Gospel into practice. If God speaks to us, how can we not welcome his Word? In the Bible there are 1,153 instances when God repeats the invitation to listen to him. It is the same invitation that the Father extended to the disciples when the Word, his Son, came to live among us. He said: “Listen to him.”[1] The listening that the Bible speaks about, however, is done more with our hearts than with our ears. It means adhering completely to what God tells us, making it our own, obeying him with the same trust as children who abandon themselves into their mother’s arms, letting her carry them. … In this, we hear an echo of Jesus’ teaching when he calls blessed those who hear the Word of God and obey it, [2] and also when he acknowledges as his mother, his brothers and sisters, all those who hear his Word and put it into practice.[3] Jesus said that a person who listens well to the Word is the one who puts it into practice, thus giving a firm foundation to their life, like building a house on rock.[4] In every one of his Words, Jesus expresses all his love for us. Let’s incarnate his Word in our lives and make it our own. If we put it into practice, we will experience the enormous potential for life it brings forth both within in and around us. Let’s fall in love with the Gospel to the point of allowing it to transform us and overflow onto others. This is our way to love Jesus in return. It will no longer be we who live, but Christ will be formed in us. We will experience first-hand what it means to be freed from ourselves, from our limitations and all the things that tie us down. Moreover, we will see the revolution of love that Jesus, now free to live within us, will bring about in society around us. This was our experience at the beginning of the Movement in Trent, during World War II, when we often had to run to the air-raid shelters, taking with us only a small copy of the Gospels. We opened it and read it and, due to a particular grace of God, I believe, those words, which we had heard so many times before, shone out for us with a totally new light. These were Words of life, words that could be transformed into life. … We witnessed the growth of a living community around us, which after only a few months numbered some five hundred people. All this was the fruit of our living contact with the Word, which was constant, dynamic, moment by moment. We were “inebriated” with the Word; we could say that the Word lived us. We would ask one another: “Are you living the Word?” “Are you a living Word?” And that would be enough to increase our swiftness in living it. We should go back to living as we did then. The Gospel is always relevant. It’s up to us to believe in it and experience it.
Chiara Lubich
(Chiara Lubich, in Parole di Vita, [Words of Life] Città Nuova, 2017, pp. 789-791) [1] Mt 17:5. [2] See Lk 11:28. [3] See Lk 8:20-21. [4] See Mt 7:24.
