Egypt. Bringing relief to Eritreans, Ethiopians and Sudaneses

24 Oct 2013 | Focolare Worldwide

Hearing of a jail for “special cases,” young people from the Focolare Movement decided to investigate. At the jail they found men, women and children, mostly Christians from Eritrea. Their story was one of incredible pain. In an attempt to escape the difficult situation in their own land and believing they were being brought to a better place, they discovered instead that they had fallen into the trap of human organ trafficking and would soon be among the anonymous dead. When they realized this, they fled over the border and took refuge in Egypt. Without documents they were arrested and jailed. This is where the Focolare’s young people met them waiting for a way back to Eritrea. Abdo who is a firsthand witness, recounts: “With the help of a missionary and the young people from the Focolare Movement we were able to go into the jail. We were enthusiastic about offering help, but we never imagined the suffering we would touch with our own hands. There was a scarcity of food and hygiene; and medical care was nonexistent inside the jail that had once been an army barracks. The young people were shocked to see children there, even small children. One child had been hit by a stray bullet as he was making his way across the border. “It’s impossible to express the deep pain we felt in the face of such great suffering,” Abdo continues. “With our eyes filled with tears, we asked what evil thing these people had done that merited them to be in such a situation.” But the young people didn’t lose heart. They split into groups, listened to people’s stories, tried to bring help and hope in God’s love. They provided material assistance for the most urgent needs. “Some needed medicine, others clothing or a telephone in order to contact their families and inform them where they had ended. But their first need was for someone to visit them, and show an interest in them.

Photo © 100viaggi.it

6th year of Sophia University Institute is inaugurated

22 Oct 2013 | Focolare Worldwide

To identify and follow the ways of the culture of unity in present day history, beside the men and women of our times. This is the vocation of the Sophia University Institute (IUS), which has inaugurated, at the auditorium of Loppiano (FI), the sixth academic year in the presence of Card. Giuseppe Betori, Grand Chancelor, Maria Voce, vice-Grand Chancelor of the SUI and President of the Focolare Movement, the Bishop of Fiesole Mons. Mario Meini, the Head Rabbi of the Jewish community of Florence and Siena Rav Yosef Levi, civil authorities and more than 600 people. Its aim echoes what Pope Francis affirmed recently in his speech to the Faculty of Theology of Sardinia in which he launched an invitation to make the universities a venue of discernment and of formation of wisdom, of a culture of proximity and of nearness, of formation to solidarity.

Maria Voce opened the proceedings in the morning recalling the goals that have been reached this year: the official approval of the Statutes on the part of the Congregation for  Catholic Education, the attainment of numerous masteral degrees and of the first doctorate on research in “Principles and perspectives of a culture of unity”, the many registrations for the first year of the course (45 new students from more than 25 Countries). “Sophia is always more characterized, explained Maria Voce, as a priviledged venue wherein the questions and the challenges that our times call out to us on a planetary scale are gathered, and to which we cannot but give a unanimous answer: an answer, authentic and convincing, that can come only from the real and daily sharing of thoughts and of life.

Then Annamaria Fejes, Hungarian, followed, who on behalf of about one hundred students that are attending the different courses, expressed the common motivations that many of them shared in choosing this academic center: “To find, through reflection and dialogue, alternative ways to the wars and conflicts that stain our planet with blood. We have the wish and the desire to meet young people, adults, associations, organizations, so as to build with them a more fraternal world”.

Archbishop Betori also reaffirmed the role that the Sophia University Institute has as an existential space of encounter, of the incarnation of divine wisdom and human knowledge: “The personal committment to live proximity and reciprocity in the various moments throughout the day, in many cultural activities, makes Sophia the place in  which divine ‘sophia’  and human search for knowledge become only one thing”.

The Dean, Mons. Piero Coda, outlined the challenges, opportunities for collaboration and the prospects of this cultural journey: after the first years of intense experimentation, he explained, “now is the time to focus on the formative project that animates the mission of Sophia, in the integrality of a proposal that seeks to harmoniously match life and study”. There are 23 protocols of understanding with University Institutions in Italy, Europe and in the world aside from the numerous courses held and animated by Sophia in different Countries. He further underlined the contribution of the students, “co-builders” of the academic life: “With you we too feel that we are protagonists of the new world that is being born. With you, he reaffirmed, citing Chiara Lubich, it is possible to find new mental structures on a world-class level”.

The first lesson was entrusted this year to Prof. Benedetto Gui, professor of Political Economics, entitled “Relational complexity and economics. Can the first be useful to the second?”. A thorough and lively exposition of the role of relationships in economics, that are more than ever important today.

Stefania Tanesini

Padua: Childcare Centre dedicated to Chiara Lubich

21 Oct 2013 | Focolare Worldwide

Saturday, October 12, the “Chiara Lubich” childcare centre was inaugurated in Padua (Italy). It was a big celebration that involved the whole community of the district of Altichiero a few minutes away from the historic centre of Padua. More than three hundred people were present at the ribbon-cutting ceremony to get to know this new educative reality. “We would like to continue to form and to raise the younger generations,” Ivo Rossi, vice-mayor of Padua underlined, “Today there is a strong need to be present in every district of the city with the principals of communication and relations. We live in a moment of economic difficulty which we as administrators feel first hand, but in these difficulties lie our duty to continue to create the conditions that will make our children free.” A city that is united in remembering Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement and recipient of the UNESCO Prize for Education to Peace and Human Rights. “Honest, credible and authentic  young people will be able to change the world,” explained Claudio Piron, councillor in charge of scholastic and youth policies at Padua’s local council, and supporter of the initiative. Among the guests there was also Omar Ettahiri, secretary of the Moroccan association of the city of Padua who placed at the centre of his speech the charism of Chiara Lubich as a teacher of interreligious dialogue and a woman of peace who “is surely smiling in heaven”, he affirmed. It was an occasion also to remember the educative and scholastic background of the founder of the Focolare who in the beginning of the forties, just as she turned twenty, taught in the elementary schools of the province of Trent with a teaching method that was “capable of understanding, embracing and motivating her students”. “Chiara’s life,” underlined Professor Milan, professor of pedagogy at the University of Padua,” (…) has truly set the example”. At the conclusion of the ceremony the same Councillor Piron, quoting the words of the French writer Marguerite Yourcenar, reaffirmed the importance and the value of the project for the whole community because “to found libraries and nurseries is like building once again public granaries in order to accumulate reserves against the winter of the spirit”.    

Focolare Movement in Brazil: meeting for social organizations

20 Oct 2013 | Focolare Worldwide

35 organizations coming from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Messico, Paraguay  and Uruguay will be represented in this meeting, which will be held  from 21 to 24 October 2013 in the small town “Ginetta” in São Paulo, Brazil.

It is the first Latin American meeting  for leaders of social organizations inspired by the charism of unity of Chiara Lubich.  The theme will be  “Fraternity in action: the foundation of social cohesion in the XXI century”.

Gilvan David de Sousa, one of the promoters of this initiative, said: “Our aim is to identify  the main elements of the charism of unity that contribute towards  a social change  so as to be able to offer answers to  the important questions  posed  by our continent” .

At a time when the current global crisis  demands the research  for new ways  leading to an integral human development, for Sousa “this meeting  should be  a new stage in the  process    started  to  create  a network  among the different organizations, whose aim is to promote mutual enrichment through the exchange of ideas, experiences, difficulties and  to produce a greater social impact”.

An opportunity to go deeper into the theme of fraternity will be offered through  the  sharing of experiences and reports,   group work and  the topics of the four plenary sessions, namely “The social question  in the light of the Social Doctrine of the Church”; “The Charism of Unity and social issues in Latin America and the Caribbean”; “ The charism of unity and its implementation in organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean” and  “How  social projects inspired by the charism of unity can proceed together in the Latin American continent”.

Fr. Vilson Groh, Vera Araújo  and Susana Nuin will be among the main speakers.  Fr. Vilson Groh ( known in Brazil  because he has received the Parliamentary Award Darcy Ribeiro 2013),  has been working  for 30 years in the outskirts of Florianópolis , Brazil   for persons deprived of their rights;  the sociologist Vera Araújo  is  a member of the Focolare  Movement entrusted   with the responsibility  at international level   of Dialogue with Culture; Susana Nuin is the executive secretary of  the Department of Communication of CELAM and Consultant to the Pontifical Council for social communication.

Re-opening of the Centre of Spirituality “Vinea Mea”

19 Oct 2013 | Focolare Worldwide

Situated near Loppiano (in the vicinity of Florence), Vinea Mea is a school of communion and of dialogue at which, during its more than 30 years of existence, has been a centre of formation to more than 4,000 priests, deacons and seminarians (Catholics and members of other churches) from more than 60 countries. “Vinea Mea,” as Fr Imre Kiss, responsible for the Centre, explains, “offers a permanent formation in the light of the spirituality of communion of the Focolare Movement. The school, which lasts for a year, foresees courses on spirituality, theology, anthropology, ecclesiology, aside from workshops on current issues (youth, family, communications, dialogue with cultures and religions). Through the sharing of life in small communities, it aims to answer to the needs expressed by many priests to concretely experience a spirituality based on communion so as to transmit it to the men and women of our times.” The Centre works in synergy with similar structures in as many little cities of the Focolare: in Poland, Kenya, Brazil, in the Philippines, in Argentina. For 5 years now it has promoted, among other things, annual courses and workshops for seminary educators to support and spread a priestly lifestyle based on communion. A school centred on the formation to a spirituality of communion, as evidenced by the Second Vatican Council, so as to be “ministers capable of warming the hearts of the people, of walking in the darkness with them, of starting a dialogue with their illusions and delusions, of recomposing their disintegration” (Pope Francis to the bishops of Brazil, July 27, 2013). A unified formation for priests and seminarians that places at the centre the fraternity lived in the Church and among the people. These are some of the themes in the convention to be held on October 22, with which the 2013/14 course of the Center is to be inaugurated, in the antique Franciscan convent of the XVI century that houses it, and which was recently restored and renovated by the Centro Ave Arte, so as to better serve the experience of a communitarian life. At the Convention among those who will speak are, Maria Voce, president of the Focolare Movement, Msgr. Mario Meini, bishop of Fiesole and Fr Imre Kiss, the Director of the Centre. Live streaming of the event: 22 October, from 4.00 to 7.00pm (Italian time). For more information: accoglienza.vineamea@gmail.com

Euthanasia issue: an experience from Australia

18 Oct 2013 | Focolare Worldwide

I’ve been given the opportunity to spend time visiting the terminally ill at home as part of the Special Ministry in our parish, and have seen and experienced quite a few things in the past 25 years of doing so with regard to the sick and dying.

This email came late one afternoon from an ex-colleague of mine. It was like a bolt out of the blue:

“Guess you have never been asked this before (…). I know I have no right to ask this of you but I am searching my conscience and really need help for an answer. I have been asked to escort ‘someone’ to Switzerland to be with him/her as they die. I am sure you know about the euthanasia program that is available there.* The person’s life is a misery, no hope of returning to a so called normal life….he/she has no religious beliefs and has no possibility of returning to a reasonable life… Personally, I have no religious beliefs, so your honesty would be appreciated. If it helps it is a family member I am talking about.”

I sat and read it over, I think, probably 4-5 times before I started to think about an answer. How do you answer such a painful cry for help? What sprang to mind was the “thought of the day” I was living with my Focolare friends:  “Free yourself totally in order to be the living will of God”. But how could I live it? I tried to concentrate on living the present moment, putting aside everything else in order to take onto myself the burden of the person who was asking for my help. I prayed to God for courage to say with sincerity what I was feeling in my heart, without any fear.

All I did was to share my thoughts as asked. I also shared some brief experiences I have personally made with the dying and their families over the past 25 years, that includes the sufferings, the joys and the triumphs. And then I said I wouldn’t take the path her relative had chosen and the reasons why from the depths of my heart, and gave her some contacts in Palliative Care close to her.

My friend, who has always remained grateful for my help, recently let me know that she had shared my thoughts with her relative who decided to consult the resources I had given her and not to go to Switzerland, choosing the palliative care option instead.  In fact she spent nearly 2 years making peace within the family.

R.L. (Australia)