![focolare.org – ‘A place of welcome for everyone’]()
Aug 5, 2012 | Cultura, Focolari nel Mondo, Non categorizzato
In the first four months of this year focolare.org had 477,687 hits, with 1,422,450 pages visited for an average of 1.54 minutes per page. The typical visitor to focolare.org was between 35 and 54 years of age and tended to visit it on week days, especially Mondays, and do so from the workplace. Younger people, however, were reached by means of social networks (Facebook, Twitter and Google+), with a weekly average of more than 30,000 persons.
This is what is shown by the data collected by three students from the Faculty of Institutional Social Communication of the Santa Croce University, Rome, who chose the official site of the Focolare Movement for their research. Their names are Oleksii Fedorovych, Fr Rastislav Hamráček and Fr Tiago José Síbula da Silva. Introducing their research they say that www.focolare.org was set up in 1998, updated in 2006 and had a complete overhaul in 2011. It then received the WeCa Prize 2011 * in the Institutional Websites category. They say, ‘The general mission of www.focolare.org is to be a place of welcome for everyone and, at the same time, it has the task of giving expression, in dialogue with the world, to the unity and the diversity of those who make up the Focolare family and to typical Focolare events.’
Our visitors. The vast majority of visitors, 44%, are Italian speakers. On average on each visit they looked at 2.98 pages, spending 3.45 minutes. Navigations to the site were more by men than women. But this larger amount of men is a reflection of the fact that in general many more men use the internet. If the fact that people navigate to the site from work rather than from home is linked to GoogleAnalytics’s data on loyalty, it indicates that the site is visited especially during weekdays. Indeed, in the period from the 1 January to 30 March, according to GoogleAnalytics, the day with the largest amount of hits is generally, as we have said, a Monday.
Internet traffic. About half the visitors (48.5% in the period between 1 January and 30 March) came to it via search engines. Of these visits 44.2% came from Google with search terms such as focolare.org, Focolare Movement, www.focolare.org and Focolare. 4 % of the visits originated from media such as mobile phones, iPads or iPhones. A large amount (37.4%) came via Facebook.
Who is behind the site? The study analysed the composition of the editors of focolare.org and spoke of a real workforce with a broad range of editors made up of representatives from various Focolare centres, correspondents in every nation, technical experts, news editors, translators and a fixed team of four people together with a part-time worker for social networking.
Contents and the site’s best page. Looking at the site’s contents and observing its ‘informative and formative character’, the researchers emphasize the site’s ‘consistency’ with ‘the values of the Movement’. Appreciation was expressed because it publishes not only news about the Roman Catholic Church but about all of the Churches, world religions, people of convictions not based on religion and about issues of a social nature that offer insights into life in various parts of the world. In conclusion the page of the ‘Word of Life’ is said to be done well, with its Bible quotation and commentary. ‘This page,’ write the researches, ‘has great formative value and is among the best of the site’s contents, gaining many hits and comments from users.’
* Italian Association of Catholic Webmasters
![focolare.org – ‘A place of welcome for everyone’]()
Aug 3, 2012 | Cultura
Chiara Lubich is now being called a great Catholic mystic of our times. In these letters we encounter this mystical side of Chiara who is also the bearer of a charism, a gift from the Holy Spirit in response to the special needs of the Church and of the world. Chiara’s charism is unity, the unity that Jesus asked for us from his Father: “May they all be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity” (Jn 17: 22-23). Chiara saw God’s love in everyone and everything. The light of this discovery enveloped her, and she felt like she was at the center of the Father’s love. This discovery is at the foundation of Chiara’s spirituality which emerges from these early letters. They were written to the young women and others who were drawn by the way she presented the Christian life as a response to God’s love, which was shown to her in Jesus, most especially in his abandonment and death on the Cross. In these letters, the God that Chiara invites us to believe in is Love. The conversion she asks of us is a conversion to Love. Often using the language and style of the saints and mystics of other ages (like Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Francis of Assisi), Chiara communicates her burning desire that “Love be loved,” that “all the world be set ablaze by the fire of Love.” Her words are full of fervor, but also simplicity and practical common sense. For additional information and orders: (New York) www.newcitypress.com ¦ (London) newcity.co.uk (more…)
![focolare.org – ‘A place of welcome for everyone’]()
Aug 3, 2012 | Cultura
Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, Joan Mueller challenges readers to evangelize the modern world by the way they live. As St. Francis said, “Preach at all times. When necessary, use words.” Guided by Benedict XVI’s anniversary letter, Door of Faith, Dr. Mueller offers scriptural reflections on the gift of faith, faith conversion, Mary as a model of faith, and living evangelization. Each daily scripture reading is accompanied by a short reflection and spiritual practice intended to fortify our choice of faith in each moment and circumstance of our lives. This small book is a perfect tool for parishes and individuals who wish to respond to the church’s call to rediscover God as Love, to cultivate a taste for feeding ourselves on the Word of God, and to be the joy that transforms the world.
- “This book invites you to face the faith question in your life in a new and refreshing way. With every reflection, Sister Joan draws you into a deeper understanding of the demands of living your faith authentically. Her insightful reflections and disarming questions are a must-read for all who are sincere of faith, searching in faith, struggling with faith, or enthusiastic about sharing their faith.”
Father Harry Buse, Pastor, St. Leo the Great Parish, Omaha, NE
Additional information and orders: (New York) www.newcitypress.com
(more…)
![focolare.org – ‘A place of welcome for everyone’]()
Aug 3, 2012 | Cultura
Chiara Amirante’s story is the stuff of high adventure. It tells of a soul completely given to God and to the service of those most in need in our society. If you didn’t know it was true, you simply wouldn’t believe it!
Available from New City Press (UK): newcity.co.uk
(more…)
![focolare.org – ‘A place of welcome for everyone’]()
Jul 30, 2012 | Cultura
Cultural Research. These elements are always found in the Economy of Communion (EoC): “When the youth aren’t engaged, there’s nothing, because without them, there’s no enthusiasm, creativity, optimism, gratuity. The youths need to be the protagonists.” These are the words of economist Luigino Bruni, international coordinator of the EoC, and one of the faculty members at the course inRecife. The “EoC schools” have been going on for years in various parts of the world, and they are multiplying:Italy,France,Argentina,Brazil, in 2011 a Pan-African school inKenyaand an upcoming one inPortugal. This week it wasChileandBrazil. A new road was opened inSantiago. There was enthusiasm over the consolidation of a project inRecife. But the DNA is this idealism and action. “At the conclusion of this school, we now imagine that it marks the moment for beginning of EoC businesses in Chile,” affirms Prof. Benedetto Gui, representing the Sophia University Institute, partner school of the EoC in Chile, the first in the land of the Andes. Students at the Silva Henriquez Catholic University of Santiago of Chileand from the University Santisima Conception of Conception were hearing of the EoC for the first time as they gathered on 5-8 July 2012. The initial scepticism gave way to participation in the project, as the youths fromRecife express: “We invite you to live an experience in which values play an important role. This economy isn’t something foolish. It is something beautiful that can be put into practice, something that breaks traditional business schemes and consumerism.”
What most convinced these future commercial engineers, more than anything else, were the testimonies offered by business people, like that of Bernardo Ramirez, industry director and president of the Foco Society, which began as a savings coop, the only business of the EoC in Chile. And there was the testimony of Bettina Gonzalez, owner of a travel agency of the EoC inBuenos Aires. Drawing on her own experience, she explained an approach to doing business which went against the current: suggesting that clients postpone their travel to a more peaceful time for their family; lucrative weekend travel packages to the waterfalls that they refused because they had heard there would be an excessive number of tourists that would frighten away the fauna, and so on. 
At the course in Recife they spoke of a “new springtime” for the EoC, where most of the 200 attendees were young people. And there were novelties: the creation of a free consulting group for the planning of new EoC businesses; the opening of a carpentry shop, for the formation of young people at risk, which is to be added on to the three EoC businesses already present at Mariapolis Ginetta in Igarassu, in the metropolitan area ofRecife. The theme of “business parks” of the Economy of Communion was the object of discussion for an entire day at the course, also fighting poverty which is an objective of the EoC. “What makes the EoC different from other economic proposals,” explains one young person, “is that the business person places himself on the same level as the worker, who is his brother and sister. He gives up many things. It’s a radical decision. I foresee a wide horizon ahead of us, hard work, but this isn’t a problem for me.” What Bruni called economy by vocation. (more…)
