USA: Luminosa Award Ceremony 2014
“The bible the world reads the most is the one they see in us.” With these words, the recipient of the Luminosa Award for Unity 2014, John Armstrong, challenged the audience at a panel discussion at Mariapolis Luminosa, Hyde Park, NY on June 21. How can the world read the bible lived out, if Christians are deeply divided and judging one another’s traditions, beliefs and forms of worship? If people can read in us Christians at least the core phrases of the Gospel’s message, such as “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34), they would get the essence of it. Rev. John Armstrong is the founder of the ACT3network, an acronym for Advancing the Christian Tradition in the 3rd Millennium. It is a ministry that began with a focus on spiritual renewal but then embraced the vision that he calls “missional ecumenism,” opening the door to ecumenical dialogue especially among evangelical Christians. In his acceptance speech for the Luminosa award, he quoted Focolare founder Chiara Lubich with her statement, “In Christianity, love is everything.” If Christians really believe that, they would believe in this pure love that is both the reason and the consequence of the presence of Jesus in their midst. In this vision, we can believe in the renewal not only of theology and ecumenism, but all the fields of human endeavor. Armstrong said, “Our business is to live the Gospel in community; it is to be the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” In the panel discussion, “How can we bear witness to the New Commandment?” the four speakers shared their personal ecumenism stories. Fr. John Crossin, director of the secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, invited everybody to focus on the mission that we have in common rather than looking at things where someone may think of lines that one cannot cross while being a Christian. “We need to call everyone away from fighting and to Christian love,” he said. Rev. Elizabeth Nordbeck, minister of the United Church of Christ and faculty member of Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts, shared four stories where she experienced ecumenism. What they all had in common: friendship and trust precede ecumenical dialogue; non-cognitive and non-verbal sharing matters; and very often it helps to “do some stuff together first.” Nordbeck encouraged everyone to have an open mind: “We all tend to engrave in stone the opposite of the things that we most fear. Instead, we need one another to learn from one another.” Rev. Bud Heckman, director of the El Hibri Foundation and former executive director of Religions for Peace USA, widened the view of the participants from ecumenism to interfaith relations and highlighting the need for Christians to know how to connect with those who do not identify with a particular church. Times have changed: “When I grew up in a small town in Ohio, we were all Christians,” he remembered. One boy from the other side of the street didn’t go to their church: “Are you a Christian?” he asked him. “No, I’m Catholic,” was the answer of the boy. Having a Catholic as a friend was already an exception. Later, he was dating a Jewish girl, “and only when I asked her the third time what she was doing for Christmas, she told me: ‘Look, here is the Menorah, we are Jews, we don’t celebrate Christmas.’” In 1990, 86% of the U.S. population identified themselves as Christians, in 2001, this number went down to 76%. By 2050, less than half of the population may be Christian. “The group of ‘none’s and none’s’, who might be spiritual, but not affiliated with a particular religion, is growing.” There is the need of the witness of mutual love even among religions. It should be bore with deeds, not words. He said, “We don’t remember facts, but experiences, we remember how we felt.” He cited the 2004 gathering of the Parliament of Religions for Peace in Spain, when the Sikh community fed all the members there present with vegetarian dishes. Everybody remembered the hospitality. “It was building relationships instead of talking,” he said. It was clear that there are still different opinions and convictions, but this isn’t a problem for dialogue: “I don’t want the other to agree with me — if so, it isn’t dialogue.” Dialogue cannot be argumentative, by nature, said Armstrong: “If they don’t want to hear what you want to say, there’s not much dialogue.” The other panelists agreed, because there are differences, but they don’t have to divide up. This commitment is about keeping the doors open to one another — and to the Spirit. With the Luminosa Award for Unity, the Focolare recognizes since 1988 persons or associations who have given a significant contribution to building bridges of mutual understanding and concern among the various Christian churches, major faith traditions and people of good will, in all aspects of social life. Past Luminosa Award recipients include Cardinal John O’Connor, Archbishop of New York, Norma Levitt, former president of WCRP and honorary president of Women of Reform Judaism, Rev. Nichiko Niwano, President of the Japanese lay Buddhist organization, Rissho Kosei-kai , His Royal Highness Lukas Njifua Fontem, King of the Bangwa People of Cameroon and Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, American Muslim leader. By Susanne Janssen – Living City Magazine
This is what Fr. Cosimino wrote to his parishioners on the 25° anniversary of his priestly ordination, in 1988, when he was already tried by the illness that will bring him to the end of his earthly experience on July 5, 1989. «Jesus died at thrity three years old – he wrote – so why do I have to die at 49 or 50? Jesus was able to say: “Everything is done” while everything was revolving around him, nevertheless he says it. Why do I think of many big and small projects? For me too everything will be “Done” (brought perfectly to its conclusion) if I remain like Jesus in the design of the Father». Fr. Cosimino, was born in Gaeta (Italy) on September 5, 1939 and he entered the seminary in 1950. In this period of formation he was exemplary, both in his spiritual journey, lived with great committment, and also in his studies. A great desire was always strong in him: to understand how to live in order to become a saint. He was ordained a priest in Gaeta on July 14, 1963. A year after his ordination he participated in a meeting of the Focolare Movement at Ala di Stura (Northern Italy). Here, as he himself would often repeat, he found the answer to his desire for sanctity, he found the “IDEAL”, as it was called then. And so he immediately treasured, with committment, all that he received, striving not to lose even a single word and his committment was in understanding, but above all in living the 
In 1967 he was named the parish priest of St. Paul, in his native city. Here, with his typical style full of love and attention towards everyone, in a special way towards the least (teenage mothers, ex-prisoners, drug addicts, rthe homeless and the drifters), he organized his community by focusing simply, but with strength and decisiveness, on living the Gospel in all the situations and in the most diverse realities. Occasions were not lacking wherein he had to take a stand also with regards to social realities that were drifting far away from a truly human and Christian dimension. He worked a lot for the 
A significant aspect in order to understand his life is his relationship of unity with other priests, in a passage from an individualistic mentality to a life of communion. His only goal, to grow in charity, putting aside the talks on new techniques of the apostolate, of catechesis and on modern and attractive expressions of the liturgy, as was fashionable then, to give space to sharing, like in a family: goods, salary, friends, light or trials, health, clothes, ideas. He made his own with radicalness and conviction, the symbol of the priest movement of the Focolare: the washing of the feet. He wrote: «The consideration of the washing of the feet was fundamental for me. Because He did it, so too must I repeat it for the people of this generation. Sublime dignity! But Christ in his divine dignity lays down his clothes and washes the feet. I, a priest, will repeat Christ, by stripping away my false good reputation which I am attached to and I will come closer to the others to bring them the washing of the feet, the redemption. I will wash the feet in the confessional, in the hospital, while saying Mass, taking care of the poor, the elderly. But I must strip myself of everything. This is essential».
«I met 
At the conclusion of a year-long celebration of the 60th year of the Focolare Movement in 
Laurent Villemin, a professor of theology at the Catholic Institute of Paris, highlighted Chiara’s passion for dialogue among Christians: “which was very soon translated into practical ecumenism” and that “until the end of her life she did not give up the work for the visible unity the Church. ” Taking the concrete example of the dynamics of “
Mons Teissier, Archbishop Emeritus of Algiers, recalled how in Algeria many Muslims, particularly young people, “found in the Focolare Movement a response to their inner search” whilst remaining “faithful to their identity as Muslims.” The President of the 
«Thanks to my work as a diplomat, with my family we learned to recognize the treasures of an extended humanity, to love the country of the other as our own, to love God in the person whose nationality and culture is different from ours. Mnay ask me if it is possible to live as a Christian in an environment that brings you into contact with the riches, but also with the sufferings of the most varied humanity. This is my daily challenge. In my work I try to draw inspiration from the ideal of fraternity proposed by 
Sometimes work is transformed into a real battle. I remember when it was my Country’s turn to hold the presidency of the European Union, I was given the task of presiding one of the working groups wherein the adoption of “European Diplomatic Programme” was proposed. This meant a program of professional formation offered to young diplomatic officers working in the national diplomatic corps of member Countries. It was strongly supported by some countries and greatly contested by others. The program provides for the inclusion of a language to the detriment of other national languages, which, at that point, should have also been taekn into consideration. In such a situation it was up to me to find a solution. I talked to the representatives of each Country, listening fully to the reasons of each one: as president, I wanted to be at the service of everyone. But I went ahead, trying to convince them that it would be more advantageous for everyone to have a common formation program, and that it would be useful to go ahead with two official languages that would not create any difficulties in the realization of the program. I made my proposal which was approved by all and the European Diplomatic Program is today an established and well-known reality. I carry out my mission in a country that is torn apart. divided, with considerable problems from all points of view. I struggle, in these times, to love the persons concretely, to live the divisions and not to escape from them, to love the men and women without God and to bear witness to Him, there where he does not exist, to be, through my life, a bridge that unites. You don’t necessarily have to be an ambassador to become a “bridge”. When we love the other we can do everything; Saint Augustine reminds us this and the witness of Chiara Lubich and of all of us who want to live her same