27 Dec 2021 | Non categorizzato
In this Christmas season, December’s Word of Life invites us to live words that refer to Mary: “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord. (Lk 1:45). The following text is also dedicated to the mother of God. In it Chiara Lubich invites us to live like Mary in her complete readiness to believe and put into practice what the Lord had announced. There is a close link in Mary between faith and motherhood, as a fruit of listening to the Word. Here, Luke suggests something that also concerns us, because later in his Gospel Jesus says: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and put it into practice” (Lk 8:21). By almost anticipating Jesus’ words, Elizabeth, moved by the Holy Spirit, announces to us that every disciple can become the “mother” of the Lord. The condition is that we believe in the Word of God and live it. (…) After Jesus himself, Mary is the one who knew how to say “yes” to God best and most perfectly. Her holiness and greatness are found there, above all. And if Jesus is the Word, the Incarnate Word, Mary, by her faith in the Word, is the Word lived, while being a person like us, equal to us. Mary’s role as Mother of God is sublime and great. But God does not only call the Virgin to generate Christ in herself. In a different way, every Christian has a similar task: that of incarnating Christ to the point of saying, like Saint Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”(Gal 2:20). How can this come about? By having Mary’s attitude towards the Word of God, which is one of complete availability. To believe, therefore, with Mary, that all the promises contained in the Word of Jesus will be fulfilled and to face, if necessary, as Mary did, the risk of encountering the absurd that his Word sometimes entails. Wonderful things, that are both great and small, happen to those who believe in the Word of God.
Chiara Lubich
(Chiara Lubich, in Parole di Vita, edited by Fabio Ciardi, Opere di Chiara Lubich, Città Nuova, 2017, p. 610-612)
25 Dec 2021 | Non categorizzato
Igino Giordani summed up Christmas in a few significant words: “Our welcoming the child Jesus into the cold grotto of our hearts; giving hospitality to that Light which had found no place elsewhere and decided to shine on us, making all things new. “Jesus was born in a stable, to show us that he can be born in our hearts too, which are not unlike a stable. And when he is born in our heart, as in the grotto, the angels sing, the light shines in the night, and peace rains down on earth. Jesus, with his Birth, began a Revolution: he took humanity from the stable and raised it to the stars. He made even those strong men who enslaved him become his brothers, his equals. Christmas cannot be reduced to carols and candles. God is not to be made fun of. Our Father in heaven calls for our bread on earth. It is clear: those who want to make us slaves again, to take back our freedom, remain active. And this is done with various kinds of pressure (…). We lose our freedom, we lose our charity: and so we live according to the flesh. Instead of being willing servants of our sisters and brothers, we exploit them. And yet the law, justice, is this: treat others as you would have them treat you. Mutual service, where justice and charity are one. It is God who lives in us: the Word – Reason – who becomes flesh among us and makes the stars shine on the stables.
Igino Giordani, “La Via”, [The Way] 24.12.1949.
22 Dec 2021 | Non categorizzato
When the Focolare president met the gen, the younger members of the Movement, she shared greetings for the Christmas season
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBadtgrCDwg
22 Dec 2021 | Non categorizzato
Lorna Gold, president of the Laudato Si’ Movement, and Martin Palmer, founder and president of Faith Invest explain how the world’s great religions can be a driving force in civil society on climate change. During the COP26 conference, the religious leaders present took part in various events, that were opportunities for mutual knowledge and dialogue. These included one event held at the Mosque and one hosted by the Focolare Movement. Martin Palmer (England) has spent his entire working life engaging with major religions around the world on environmental issues. This began in 1986, when Prince Philip (the Duke of Edinburgh), who was international president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), asked him to bring together representatives of five of the world’s major religions to look at ways in which those faiths understood their place in nature. They set up a comprehensive program on bringing faiths into partnership with major environmental groups, the UN, the World Bank, and other bodies. Lorna Gold is the Vice-Chair of the Global Catholic Climate Movement Board and President of the Laudato Si’ Movement. She coordinates their work on climate action within faith communities and has been leading work to get the Catholic Church in Ireland and globally to disinvest from fossil fuels. In our interviews, we talked about many subjects regarding COP26, the climate crisis and the current situation… Understandably, it was not possible to include everything in the report broadcast during the Link Up. For example, Martin Palmer told us about the particular period we are going through and said: “I think we are on the cusp of a very great change. And the very great change is that instead of waiting for governments to give the lead, it is civil society, it is the young and the old. I’ve been at this work for 40 years. I think it’s the rise of women’s organizations, which were simply not there in 1997. I think of the whole role of indigenous people, I think of the whole role of faith communities, of the NGO world, of the educational world. I see that, now, we’re at that moment where we tip. There are still many people who think that if we protest, we can influence governments… I have to say, I don’t believe that”. “The faiths are getting together with the financial world, with the educational world and saying, how can we create partnerships? Where we have the money, we have the influence. We have the structures. We have the means to make a change…”. And afterwards we had a very interesting exchange with Lorna Gold about what she defined as “climate anxiety”, where she said: “I think it’s something that all of us, to one degree or another, will face because once you accept that there is a climate crisis and that everything isn’t as ‘rosy’ in the future, as maybe we would have wanted, the prospect of a united world is quite distant if climate change can’t be resolved.. “(…) I try to manage that anxiety. One way is through spending time in nature. Nature is a great healer. Being outdoors, meditating in nature, finding God in creation. It makes you realize that nature is quite resilient. We see generation all around us.”. “I truly believe that this moment we’re living through is a crisis, but it can also be a kairos. A kairos, as Pope Francis says, is an opportunity, a moment, an opportune moment to rethink, to convert ourselves, to undergo that deep ecological conversion and to start moving in a different direction.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfX3QEj07Ns&t=133s
20 Dec 2021 | Non categorizzato
In this passage, Chiara Lubich invites us to share with our neighbours whatever they may lack in order to have a dignified life. This is the best way to prepare ourselves for Christmas, which we will celebrate in a few days’ time. The conversion of heart needed to prepare for Jesus ‘coming does not consist in beautiful words and an outpouring of feelings. Rather, it lies in doing the will of God, above all in loving others, concretely expressing our solidarity and sharing what we have with those who lack essentials, whether that be food, clothing, lodging, help, and so on. It is what Jesus himself teaches us. The Christian life, in fact, does not primarily consist in long prayers and exhausting penances; it does not ask us to change our profession or occupation (provided they are good in themselves) but rather that we live love of neighbour in our life circumstances and activities. ” Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” (Lc 3:11). We are in the month of December, in which we celebrate Christmas. For the Church, Christmas is not simply the commemoration of a past event. It is the celebration of an ever-present and ever-new mystery: the birth of Jesus among us and in us. So how can we prepare ourselves for Christmas? What should we do so that Jesus can be born or reborn in us and among us? We should love concretely. Let’s make sure that our love of neighbour does not stop at words, but is translated into action, into deeds, whether great or small.
Chiara Lubich
(Chiara Lubich, in Parole di Vita, [Words of Life] a cura di Fabio Ciardi, Opere di Chiara Lubich, Città Nuova, 2017, pp. 422-423)
