26 Sep 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
http://vimeo.com/75469803
«Caritas Jordan is an entity affiliated to the Catholic Church headed by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. It has been in Jordan for 45 years and is part of Caritas International.» These are the words of the director, Wael Suleiman. He continues: «Caritas Jordan has responded to the appeal of the Church to take care of the Syrian refugees. We have recorded 1 million and 300 thousand Syrians who have entered Jordan, including 130,000 registered to Caritas. We provide them with medical care, educational services and humanitarian aid. It certainly is difficult for Jordan to welcome such a large number of refugees with the few resources of the country: water, petroleum, and all the economic problems. But Jordan does not want to close the doors. The King has ordered that the borders remain open to serve our Syrian brothers and sisters. At this moment we all try to live solidarity.»
Suhad Zarafili is the administrator of the projects for Caritas Jordan: «One of our programs – she explains – is the volunteer program: we have around 30 committees, with more than one thousand volunteers, Christians and Muslims. They were the ones who started doing the field visit to find the needy Syrian refugees in all our areas.»
Carole is one of the volunteers. «I am very happy – she shares – that God has given me the opportunity to work with Caritas and to help the Syrians. I too am a Syrian so in a certain way I understand better what they feel, it’s a mutual feeling. They have a lot of sufferings, they need many things: the association embraces them and tries to give them all the possible aid, until our God will solve the situation.»
«I belong to the Focolare Movement – continues Director Wael Suleiman – and this spirituality, lived by so many here at Caritas, helps us to go out into the world, outside our small circle where we live and work, so as to love everyone more. Living the spirituality of unity, we have now formed a “cell” within the Caritas, which has helped all this progress so that those who come here may experience not only assistance, but the spirit and the life behind this aid.»
![Chiara Luce. Three years after her Beatification]()
25 Sep 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
Three years have passed since that 25th of September 2010 when Chiara Luce Badano was proclaimed Blessed at the Roman Shrine of Our Lady of Divine Love. It seems like yesterday, the memories of that extraordinary event are still so alive. They seemed like the realization of Chiara Luce’s words in a letter to her friends: “I went out of your lives in an instant. Oh, how much I would have liked to stop the speeding train as it carried me farther and farther away from you! (. . .) But now I feel enveloped in a splendid design that little by little is being revealed to me.” We would like to reflect on that “splendid design” that Chiara Luce fulfilled in life, with some words from her parents, Maria Teresa and Ruggero in the book by Franz Coriasco In viaggio con i Badano (Travelling with the Badanos) “Did you ever think during her final months that you were dealing with a saint?” 
Maria Teresa: “No, we never thought that, not even distantly. We were living with ‘extraordinary normality’ even though Chiara had lost the use of her legs and was confined to bed. Evidently there was a grace that at the time we didn’t even have time to be fully aware of, but which we lived each day. And this grace continued afterwards, and continues now. If I may be allowed to say it, I think Chiara’s specialty was that she became a saint not amidst horrific suffering and pain (although these were not lacking), but immersed in the joy of loving God.” Ruggero: “Well, thinking back on the period of Chiara’s illness, we cannot but say that those were surely the years of our lives that were most blessed by God.” (Taken from: Coriasco, F. In viaggio con i Badano. Chiara Luce e la sua famiglia: i segreti di un segreto, (Rome: Citta Nuova, 2011).
![Chiara Luce. Three years after her Beatification]()
24 Sep 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
“I work in an elementary school as an assistant teacher. There is a boy in my classroom who wears a hearing aid. For the sake of privacy I’ll call him F. He has problems getting along with his classmates who are then disrespectful towards him and excluding him from their games. There is a general atmosphere of rivalry among the children who compete in underscoring the errors and defects of those who seem to be weak. So I decided to engage them in an activity that would be gratifying to them and would help them to see the good in one another; and hoping that they would also see the good in F. This is how the Friendship Post began: One morning a colourful mailbox with slots appeared on the teacher’s desk. A cartoon image of GB&W was pasted on top. The pair of smiling cartoon characters were saying: “I have a surprise for you!” I suggested to the children that we could use this box to say good things to each other during the week, good things we had noticed in one another during the day. The messages could be signed or anonymous and addressed to anyone. We could send drawings, poems or small gifts. We teachers also wanted to participate, writing mostly to the children we thought would not receive a message. These messages would then be read every Friday afternoon. The children enthusiastically agreed to the suggestion and began writing messages, letters, poems and drawings. At the end of the first week the entire classroom was overflowing with enthusiasm. Opening the mail was a moment of true sharing in which everyone finally focused on the positive rather than the negative. Every child received a letter and promised to respond to the sender. We teachers had kept watch for those who hadn’t received a message when the box was opened. We would write short thoughts for some, and for others we would send a small cartoon image of GB&W. The recipients of the comic strips asked about the comic strip characters and I offered some explanations. A deep and beautiful dialogue was begun. From then on receiving a comic strip was seen as a privilege, something special that was cherished. During the weeks that followed the atmosphere in the classroom had changed noticeably: the children were more polite to one another, a bit because they wanted to receive a letter, a bit because of the positive bonds that had begun to be formed among them because of the positive compliments they had received from their peers. 
However, it was more of a struggle for F. to benefit from the Friendship Post. He refused to write messages to his classmates, saying that he would surely receive none from anyone else, except teachers. This went on for two weeks. During the third week, however, one girl wrote a message to F. saying that he was her friend because he lent things to her. F. broke into tears and angrily ripped up the note. But the next week he asked me to help him write several letters and, in the following weeks, he began to receive messages that were filled with compliments that filled him with surprise. Then he decided to write everyone a friendly message. For him, who was always so selective in his relationships, it was a very big step that was filled with emotion. The “friendship mail” continued until the end of the school year, becoming an integral part of the scholastic programme as a vehicle of friendship and reciprocity for everyone.” (M. T. – Italy)
![Chiara Luce. Three years after her Beatification]()
23 Sep 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
© Sean Scaccia
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Trust.
A leap in the darkness by a soul in the Light, defying the darkness with the plunge into Heaven’s embrace. |
