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Dec 3, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
A considerable boost for the ecumenical movement was the impression of the Secretary General of the WCC, Rev. Pastor Olav Fykse Tveit at the conclusion of the 10th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches which is held every 7 years. The Assembly was attended by 2, 760 registered participants (Church delegates, councilors, partner organisations, visitors, journalists and guests). But more than 5000 people from Korea also showed up to take part in the unique ecumenical experience. Also among those present were Patriarch Karekin II Supreme Catholicos of all Armenians, Archbishop of Canterbury Welby, and Ecumenical Patricarch Bartholomew I who sent a video-taped message. Although the Catholic Church is not a member of the World Council of Churches, it collaborates actively through the Pontifical Council for the Unity of Christians which is represented in Busan by a delegation of qualified persons. Cardinal Kurt Koch read a message from Pope Francis. Joan Back from the Focolare’s Centro Uno secretariat for ecumenical dialogue represented the Focolare Movement with Reformed Pastor Peter Dettwiler from Switzerland, who is in charge of ecumenism for the Reformed Church in the Zurich canton. The Focolare has collaborated with the WWC since 1967. Chiara Lubich was invited three times to speak about the spirituality of unity at the headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. This time the important and continuing contribution of the Focolare was once again recognized by Rev. Tveit as he thanked Focolare president Maria Voce for the message she had sent. “There was such a beautiful fraternal atmosphere among the Churches,” says Joan Back. “Even though they don’t share identical positions concerning ecclesiology or morality, they are still able to meet, pray and even work together.” A very important document was presented: La Chiesa: verso una visione comune (Toward a common vision of the Church) which was produced by the Faith and Order Department, edited by theologians converging ideas about ecclesiologies that are very different from each other.
Joan Back and Peter Dettwiler (centre) together with a group of participants at the Assembly.
Nov 30, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide, Senza categoria
For several years now Dominga, a volunteer of the Focolare Movement of Valencia (Venezuela), has been managing an open canteen for the elderly in her neighbourhood. The iniziative was born to allow the elderly people living in poverty to have a balanced diet in a welcoming environment. The elderly already arrive in the morning and they can stay with people of their age, playing dominoes or watching television, but above all to be in an environment where they are looked after with care. Dominga is always attentive towards all the elderly who come to the canteen and, when one of them stops coming, she personally goes to visit him or her, often finding them in a pitiful situation and unable to move. Lately the foodstuffs to prepare the meals were no longer arriving regularly; so much so that the elderly wanted to organize themselves to go and complain to the regional government and to tell them that at the canteen they not only received food but were also listened to and loved personally. In the meantime, a new coordinator for the canteen was just appointed. As soon as she arrived, she removed some of the elderly from the list of those allowed to come to the canteen, saying that when she did her inspection they were not present and so money was being spent for people who were not making use of this service. Dominga, pushed by the love for these people, firmly explained that the elderly who were being removed from the list were precisely those who were the weakest and most in need, because of their serious health problems she would ask their relatives to bring the meals to their homes. The list of the coordinator would also have been used to include those in it in a new pension scheme of the national government, and so not being ont he list meant that a grave injustice would be committed. Once a destitute person came to the canteen hoping to receive some food. Naturally meals are given only to those who are registered, but Dominga felt that she couldn’t close the door in his face. In fact, she had learned, listening to the story of Chiara Lubich and her first companions, that in every poor person there is Jesus. So she invited this poor person to her house, where he was able to wash himself, she offered him some clean clothes and finally she gave him something to eat. Dominga shares: “One day two men were fighting among themselves, I tried to calm them down but I wasn’t able to do so. I remembered a sentence that I heard in Church: “Where there is peace and love, God is there”. I shared this with them and immediately they fell silent and calmed down”. In these past few weeks there have been some difficulty regarding the documents of the Declaration of Profits that the canteen, as a non-profit organization, must prepare. The procedure is quite complicated. Recently a sensitive person, who came to know that the elderly were well treated at the canteen, offered to help Dominga to deal with the complicated documents, each time she needed help.
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Nov 29, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
The narrative flows like a family story with a touch of the divine whose clarity and simplicity both edifies and arouses wonder. These are stories of the “early days” of the Focolare Movement from the lips of Vittoria Salizzoni, one of the first companions of Chiara Lubich. They are a testimony to the beginning of the adventure of believing in Love and leaving everything for Him in the full midst of the Second World War. More commonly known as Aletta, Vittoria, third in a family of eight children recounts:
“On her way to work every day my sister Agnes would pass by the friars hole, an air-raid shelter in Piazza Cappuccini (Capuchins Square) where Chiara Lubich would sometimes take refuge and read the Gospel with her friends. Agnes was totally taken by their new way of talking, by their contagious joy, and would share with me how it made her feel. But I don’t ever remember her telling me anything about their ideals. Therefore, knowing hardly anything about them really, I wasn’t very drawn to the idea of meeting the girls.
It was the persistence of a friend that led me to go and meet those young people, “but only because I was being polite.” And so on January 7, 1945 I was at Number 2 Piazza Cappucini in Trent. The first thing I noticed as I entered into that small house was a young woman standing by the kitchen sink. She was kneading some bread. She seemed like an angel standing in that room. They introduced her to me: ‘That’s Natalia, she’s making white bread with refined flour for one of us who has stomach problems.’ I was struck by the scene before me. I found it so pleasing. I felt love.
That was a decisive moment in my life. I’m not a person who decides things right away and am blunt and outspoken at times, but on that day I was totally changed. I was left speechless by the atmosphere in that place. I was enchanted by the way they introduced themselves, by their way of acting and moving about. In the adjoining room, a very modest bedroom with only two mattresses on the floor but appearing quite beautiful to me, I found Chiara intent on fixing Graziella’s hair. She was making a thick braid which she then wrapped around her head like a crown.
As I observed these peers of mine, I intuited that they had “grasped” God on an impulse. Their choice had nothing heavy or burdensome about it, nothing solemn or austere. Their life was animated by a strong momentum of enthusiasm and, being young, everything played out like a game. It was – if it can say it in this way – God as a youth. It all seemed grand and new and divine. Here there was Love. God was there and I felt Him.
One day Chiara explained to me how radical their choice really was: ‘See? Life is short, short as a flash. Bombs falling from one moment to the next and we can die. Therefore we’ve made the pact of giving everything to God, because we have only one life and when we stand before Him we want to already be all His. For this reason we’ve married God.”
This sentence went straight to the depths of my heart. I was certain that God was calling me to marry Him. It gave me wings, changed my life: I had also been called to such a beautiful adventure and to bring it to everyone.
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Nov 28, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
For the first time the Focolare’s Youth for a United World and their United World Project take part in the 8th UNESCO Youth Forum held in Paris, France on October 29-31, 2013. Five hundred young people from 150 countries took part in a workshop by and for young people, which has been meeting biyearly since 1999. The forum, which is an integral part of the UNESCO General Conference, aims at creating synergies among United Nations organizations and other organizations and public institutions that work in the youth sector.
Main topics of the 8th forum: “Young people and social inclusion: civil involvement; dialogue and skills development,” which were chosen through an online survey of the 2500 young people. In line with the UNESCO operating strategy for young people 2014-2021, recommendations were presented to the 195 member states at the 37th UNESCO General Conference which met on November 5-20, 2013. Moreover, this year the young people chose 15 action projects – IED from the five UNESCO “regions” – that were given the label Youth Forum UNESCO.
Contatti attraverso lo United World Project con l’UNESCO c’erano già stati presso 11 commissioni nazionali negli scorsi mesi. Tutti passi di un cammino di conoscenza reciproca che continua.Stella from Hong Kong, Anne Cecile from France and Joaquin from Argentina were members of the Youth for a United World delegation (youth section of the New Humanity NGO), whose attendance had been propelled by the work that is being carried out with the United World Project, launched last year at the Genfest in Hungary, promoting universal brotherhood in various environments.
At the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the Youth for a United World reported a “revolution” in putting up the organisation of the forum with an invasion of young volunteers. The work carried out in the work groups and in the plenary session was characterized by an exchange of experiences and good practices. Among the recommendations that were accepted was one from the Youth for a United World: “the promotion of intergenerational opportunities, as a fruit of living for fraternity,” reported Joaquin.
The conference concluded with the speech by the president of the Katalin Bogyay General Conference who spoke at the Genfest in Budapest about a traditional African teaching called Ubuntu (I am because we are). The next phase of the United World Project will be held on May 1st in Nairobi and be called: Sharing With Africa. Stella went on to say: “These words had particular resonance for us,” because “such occasions allow us to see that there is a path toward a united world here as well. Different, yes, but so involved in solving problems together, like one big family.”
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Nov 27, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide, Senza categoria
At the opening of the Academic Year of the “San Roberto Bellarmino” Religious Science College on November 25 in Capua City, near Naples, Maria Voce held a Lecture on one of the main points of the spirituality of unity, “Jesus Forsaken, A Light for Theology”. There were Bishops of the different dioceses of the Campania region present. The president of the Focolare Movement outlined “the salient aspects”, since – as she affirmed herself – “we cannot present briefly all the wealth of the doctrine of Jesus Forsaken in the spirituality of Chiara Lubich.” Here is an excerpt of her Lecture:
«I would like to begin with a quotation of a letter that Chiara wrote to a friend way back in 1946. An emblematic quote, which says:
“Look …, I am a soul passing through this world.
I have seen many beautiful and good things and I have always been attracted only by them. One day (one indescribable day) I saw a light. It appeared to me as more beautiful than the other beautiful things, and I followed it. I realized it was the Truth.”
Jesus on the cross. He came on earth to bring back people (who had distanced themselves from God because of sin) to a full communion with Him. He took upon himself every negative aspect of their life: sufferings, distress, desperation, pains, sins…, making Himself, the Innocent One, similar to human sinners. “In order to bring the human person back to the Father’s face, Jesus not only had to take on the face of a human being, but he had to burden himself with the ‘face’ of sin”[i], said Pope John Paul II.
Let’s go back to the beginning of the Movement, in 1944, in the midst of the World War. On one particular circumstance a priest told Chiara that, for him, Jesus’ greatest suffering was when he cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). Right away Chiara concluded: if that was the peak of his suffering, it was certainly also the apex of his love for us. Since then, together with her first companions, and later with all those who would have followed her Ideal, she felt called to become the “answer of love” to that cry.
Jesus Forsaken was therefore revealed to her as “the living proof of God’s love here on earth.”
This is well stressed in a famous “song” of praise and thanksgiving dedicated precisely to Jesus Forsaken and that spontaneously sprung forth from her heart:
“So that we might possess the light, you lost your sight.
To acquire union for us, you experienced separation from the Father.
So that we might have wisdom, you made yourself ‘ignorance’.
To clothe us in innocence, you became sin.
So that we might hope, you almost despaired…
So that God might be present in us, you felt him far away from you.
So that heaven might be ours, you felt hell.
To make our time on earth happy, among hundreds of brothers and sisters and more, you were expelled from heaven and earth, from human beings and nature.
You are God, you are my God, our God of infinite love.”
This infinite love that Jesus crucified and forsaken had for every human being on earth transformed all sufferings, filled up every emptiness and redeemed every sin. Our separation from God was annulled in the re-established communion with Him and among us.
Thus, Jesus Forsaken contains the key to penetrate and give an answer to the deepest mystery that envelops the life of the human being and the whole of humanity: the mystery of pain, of suffering.
This is a great mystery that deeply touches Chiara’s heart:
“Jesus on earth… – she wrote with feelings – Jesus our brother… Jesus who dies between thieves for us: he, the Son of God, sharing a common life with others. ‘… if you came among us, it was because our weakness attracted you, our wretchedness moved you to compassion.’ Certainly, no earthly mother or father waiting for their lost children or doing everything to bring them back could equal our Father in heaven.”
From the mystery that Jesus lived on the cross, Chiara saw a light emanate, able to illuminate and to give meaning to every experience of pain and abandonment that a human person may live. She speaks of this with simplicity, confiding that, since Jesus Forsaken manifested himself to her, she seemed to discover him everywhere:
“He himself, his face and his mysterious cry seemed to colour every painful moment of our life.”
“Darkness, the sense of failure and aridity disappeared – wrote Chiara. – And we started to understand how dynamically divine is Christian life that knows no boredom, cross, suffering, only those that pass, and makes one enjoy the fullness of life, which means resurrection, light and hope even in the midst of tribulations.”»
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Nov 26, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
“It is suggestive that a city which recognizes a woman of such deep faith as Chiara Lubich, as a symbol of peace, finds itself ten years later with an administration of such diverse political leanings taking up her legacy.” With these words Archbishop Salvatore Visco welcomed the people who had gathered at the Garibaldi Theatre in Santa Maria Capua Vetere for a conference entitled Chiara Lubich, Woman of Dialogue.
“You can change the world beginning from your own city, because the facts that you have recounted here demonstrate the change that has taken place in many of you,” said Focolare president Maria Voce as she addressed the young people regarding their concrete commitment against illegality and other social ills; for their efforts in favour of the environment; for becoming directly involved in improving their cities. “This is not an abstract dialogue among people or religions,” Maria Voce pointed out, “but a lifestyle of dialogue; not an activity, but a way of being that needs to be nourished by love, mercy and an ability to forgive: because we are all brothers and sisters and children of the same God.”
A very keen reflection was given by philosopher Aldo Masullo who defined dialogue as: “the way for overcoming the desperation of solitude, for war is born of desperation; whereas peace is founded on faith that is rooted in authenticity.”
Nasser Hidouri, Imam of the Mosque in the municipality of San Marcellino, testified to the life that comes from “not fearing our differences” and from “not being conditioned by the problems that are created by a violent minority,” mindful that “the questions that remain unanswered for us today, will be inherited by our children tomorrow.”
Alberta Levi Temin of Jewish-Christian Friendship and survivor of the Nazi round-up in the ghetto of Rome when she was a child shared her vision of humanity: “a pyramid with three sides at its base comprised of religions, peoples and cultures all leading to the top where God is equally distant from each one of them.”
Then there was the testimonial of Antonio Casale, Director of the Centro Fernandes [Fernandes Centre] for welcoming immigrants, especially from the African Sub-Sahara: “More important than the beds, meals or medicine we provide is the human dignity that we try to restore to each individual.”
In the problematic economic and social situation of the region, the voice of anti-racket entrepreneur Antonio Diana, whose father had been murdered by the Camorra, had a positive message: “You can do business without adapting to the customs of corruption and without falling into compromise,” being willing to pay the price.
An evening event that showed the fruits of 360° dialogue helped to convey hope to the participants for a better future that is based on what each one accomplishes in the present.
On November 24, 2013, two thousand people from Focolare communities gathered in Naples. They came from Campania, Puglia and Basilicata, with some people from Albania. First there were some opening words from the Mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris. Then there was an open dialogue with Maria Voce and co-president Giancarlo Falleti. Some of the topics of discussion included: involvement in politics and civil life; making decisions in crucial moments when you are young; launching and prospective for the Movement as it reaches out in service to humanity and in contributing to the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer: that all may be one.
On November 25, 2013, Maria Voce presented the keynote address on Jesus Forsaken, A Light for Theology for the opening of the academic year at the St. Robert Bellarmine Institute of Religious Sciences. Bishops from several diocese of Campania also attended.
