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Feb 12, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide, Senza categoria
Being consistent with the choices involved in living in accordance with the Gospel requires determination. Stories from a recently published book of Gospel experiences of ordinary people from around the world*.
“I’m an hydraulic engineer from southern Italy, and for many years I’ve been in charge of a water purification plant. In the late 1990’s I began working for a multinational company that was handling the management of fifty treatment plants throughout the southern region. Shortly after I began the job, I realized that I was probably the only one who had been hired based on my studies and credentials and not on reccomendations.
Nevertheless, we began the job with a lot of commitment and, contrary to what had occurred during previous years, after thirty or forty days of probation the treatment plants began to work beautifully. It was a worrisome sign, because it clearly showed that before it had not been any technical glitches to render the plants inactive, but rather opposing economic interests.
Everywhere, I realized, strict management of public water, public health, the future of our children, the well-being of a city were all of secondary importance with respect to profit and private interests. I was even explicitly asked to forget the first in order to serve the latter. In order to make a profit in one of the municipalities, sewage was dumped into the stream that flowed into a neighbouring waterway that after a few kilometres flowed directly into the sea. Now, at a distance of ten years from these events the first arrests have been made.
All of this was at odds with my principles. With my wife and many friends I was trying to live the Gospel in all the circumstances of life. My conscience and my ideals were calling me to go against these practices even at the cost of personal sacrifice. I resigned. For a long time it wasn’t easy. However there were also positive experiences while I was involoved in the management of the water treatment plants. One of these was with a community cooperative on the southern coast. There were three of us: me, the engineer; an electrician and a worker with a drug problem. Thanks to this job opportunity he was able to re-enter the work force. The results were so extraordinary that the lab technician told us that it was impossible to have water so pure. Certainly it had been tampered with!
Currently I run a municipal sewage treatment plant and other small private companies. The same lab technician who did not believe in our so pure water, today brings students – future lab technicians – to visit the facilities that we have under management.
The price of being consistent is high. My family’s financial situation is always precarious, making it through to the end of the month is always a major effort. But in order to leave space for God to act, you need to believe in His love even if it means making choices that go against the tide.
This morning I went for a walk along the beach. Standing in front of the sea and seeing the reflections of sunlight on the water, I felt God’s presence reassuring me.”
(Roberto, Italy)
*From Una Buona notizia. Gente che crede gente che muove (Rome: Città Nuova Editrice, 2012).
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Feb 11, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
«An extraordinary story, a divine one, which you know well. So many years of faithfulness and commitment from many of you that made that seed grow –sown first in Cameroon. From that seed pieces of humanity renewed by love have blossomed, striving towards the realization of God’s project for the whole large African continent, and beyond». These are some excerpts from the message sent by Maria Voce (Emmaus), the President of the Focolare Movement, to the members of the movement in Africa, who are celebrating this year the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Charism of unityin their continent. There were 2000 persons gathered close to Fontem on the 9th February, at Shisong, in the Bamenda Region (North-West of Cameroon) the same place that welcomed the first focolarini who reached on the 12thFebruary 1963. There were all those who consider themselves as “Chiara’s children”. They had celebrated the Cry Die (the end of mourning) for the founder of the Focolare in January 2009, in that same place. With that event Chiara was solemnly counted among the ancestors, and therefore worthy to be remembered and invoked, because “her ideal of solidarity, spirituality, sharing, and love cannot die”. There were also those who in these years have taken part in the “New Evangelization” action, an integral project started in 2000 by Chiara and the Fon (King) of Fontem, who was the first one to take the commitment, in front of his people, to living the spirit of love and unity that comes from the Gospel. It’s the Fon himself who later on got the other chiefs and noblemen involved. Last Saturday’s event at Shisong started with the Time Out for peace, and continued with the ‘Jubilee celebration prayer’, asking God to strengthen their Faith in Him, keeping in mind the ‘pioneers’ of this adventure (Chiara Lubich, Bishop Julius Peeters and the Fon Defang); to know how to start again with humility to love every neighbour, to walk towards universal fraternity, to increase the fire of charity in every community, in order to be apostles of Jesus’ Testament “That all may be one” (Jn 17,21). Two of the first focolarini who gave so much of themselves in Africa, Bruna Tomasi and Lucio Dal Soglio, were present through their messages. The reading of their letters and those of others among the protagonists of the beginnings of the focolare (Rosa Calò, Rita Azarian) introduced the documentary: “Focolare, 50 years in Africa”, retracing this journey, interwoven with the experience of Piero Pasolini and Marilen Holzhauser. For the occasion, a special issue of the African edition of New City was entirely dedicated to cover this topic. Since the beginning, the Word of God was not merely an object of contemplation, but was instead immediately translated into real choices, in daily life. When the different communities were born, that special atmosphere of family was experienced, a spirit in which it was possible to share even one’s needs. Then many actions were initiated in the continent, including social programmes, schools, and health centres: from the College in Fontem, to nursery schools, primary schools and tuitions programs in Cameroon, Nigeria, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Kenya; a hospital in Fontem, medical centres in Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Ivory Coast; actions against malnutrition; carpentry workshops for the youth in South Africa, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Kenya; an agricultural project in Nigeria. From the beginning of the ’70s, many African youth discovered “Chiara’s way” and therefore a new lifestyle. Like her, Anne Nyimi Pemba (Congo) and Venant Mbonimpaye (Burundi) left everything to follow Jesus, embarking themselves on this new way of consecrated life in Africa. They were among the first ones, like Teresina Tumhiriwe, from Uganda, Benedict Menjo and Dominic Nyuyilim from Cameroon. Dominic was present at the Shisong celebration, sharing his own experience. Many have followed them in their footsteps. Mafua Christina, Queen of the Bangwa, and Prof. Martin Nkafu, born in Fontem and lecturer of Philosophy and traditional cultures at the Pontifical Lateran University, were also present. They shared their personal experiences, followed with a array by the new generations – children, teenagers and youth– that showed how much today’s experience is in continuity with the Ideal of brotherhood that took roots 50 years ago. “A people born from the Gospel, capable of witnessing of being family beyond their belonging to different tribes, ethnic groups and peoples,” Maria Voce wrote in her message, with the wish of restarting together from this milestone –that will last for the whole year, with a celebration in Kenya at the Mariapolis Piero on the 19th May, during the Pan-African congress of the Volunteers of God, and other events in various African countries.
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Feb 9, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
“Always in search of something that would make me truly happy, I had tried everything. Here I have come to see that the happiness I longed for was never to be found in material things. There was another truer and deeper happines still to be discovered.” When Daniele De Patre arrived at the Pag-Asa Community Centre he began to experience something that would profoundly change his life. The faces of those people and those poor environments, often seen on television, suddenly became tangible.
In Tagaytay, in the Philippines, homes are constructed with only one room, dirt floors and without running water. Families do not have access to community health care services and there are no employment opportunities.
In this rural area many children are left to themselves and often have no legal identity, so that they are excluded from the most basic social services such as education, health care and economic assistance. They are left at the mercy of inhuman work and criminal activities.
With support from Azione per Famiglie Nuove the Pag-Asa Community Centre carries out numerous activities in the fields of health, education, professional training and provides ongoing support for 400 minors. The clinic is equipped to offer medical care for permanently disabled patients, and this is where Daniele was a volunteer worker, and where he came to know of a new theraputic approach, one based on continual interaction and a relationship of mutual exchange between patient and caregiver. While translating the letters that the children had written to their supporters from around the world, Daniele felt that he was drawn into their world. He perceived their joy, the hardships and hopes of these young children, which he then saw face to face when he personally visited the barrios.
Life in Teramo, Italy, where Daniele comes from, was just a distant memory now, as were those 26 years spent in working and going out with his friends. “Seeing situations of such deeply rooted poverty,” he admits, “was hard to accept. But slowly, slowly I also discovered a solidarity and generosity among the people, that the country in difficulty seemed perhaps to be my own because of its indifference, isolation and closed spirit. . .”
“Once,” he tells, “we reached such a muddy barrio that it was impossible to climb the hill wearing our flip flop slippers, so Heero and I left them at the bottom of the hill at the end of the road. When we came back they were gone, but two days later we found them again at the community centre.” Then he countinued, “I’ll never forget that day on which we went to visit one barrio and it was raining so much that we lost our way, but three children then ran up to us under the rain and were so happy to guide us in the right direction. During those months at Tagaytay Daniele found in each act of generosity what he had been searching for: “Life is far more than what can be measured with numbers.”
Everything he had in his wealthy life in Teramo was free and taken for granted. Here it had to be obtained under much difficulty: food, clothing, medicines and everything else. “I would like to place my stone,” he writes, “into the building of a world in which me and my brothers and sisters can eat the same way, have the same kinds of schools, the same clothing and time for play without having to sit and beg for alms, to have a roof over our heads, and a bed to sleep in at night, so that finally a more just world will not remain forever just a utopian dream.”
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Feb 8, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
Claudio, Antoanetta, Marinella, Giorgio
Vallo Torinese
Don Vincenzo
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Feb 7, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide, Senza categoria
The course of study he is concluding at Sophia presents various points of interest. What is the reason for your enrollment at the IUS? It was a decision that matured gradually. I already had some knowledge about Sophia and of what it offered, and at a certain point, this idea crossed paths with my studies. On bringing home with me a degree in International Relations, I felt the need to step beyond the confines of political theories and to explore the future of humanism. After more than four and a half years at university, I was finding myself…… with a great thirst: I was seeking where and how to answer my own questions. What some of my friends were telling me about Sophia where they themselves had studied, helped me understand that the IUS could be the right place for me to find answers. Why did you choose to specialize in Trinitarian Ontology since your studies had been in the Political field? What relationship is there between the two? It’s true, I arrived at Sophia thinking of following the same specialization in politics; it was the most natural choice for me. But after a couple of months, two impressions came to my awareness. The first was one of wonderment: the wonder of coming to know who Jesus is, perhaps for the first time in such a personal way, especially during the course on the Gospel of Mark. The second put me before a new understanding of myself, which happened gradually on the occasion of a seminar on theological topics: I felt ‘able’ to get close to Jesus’s thought, to that which Paul calls “our Christ”. Not out of some ambition of knowing the meaning of everything, at arriving to possess the logic of reality, but of a discovery of a place wholly human from which to read the world and its challenges, while respectful of its languages and reasons. And what better place would there be for God Trinity to manifest Himself? 
You are enrolled in the second year: have you started work on your thesis? Yes, I already have the topic for it, the phenomenology of the ‘stranger’, if one could say it this way, a theme of great impact in politics, but which I want to analyze starting from its philosophical foundations. I am finding myself therefore having to deal with politics once again, but my looking will be of a different kind, because I will treat migratory fluxes crossing contemporary societies to help one see the emergence, from a viewpoint of knowledge inspired by reasons of love, of new political and cultural variations. The questions I have are still many, there’s no doubt. Every time I think of having gotten an answer, I realize I have only taken the first steps. You have been at the IUS for two years now: how would you define the time you have been living here? I would like to continue using the metaphor of the ‘place’: 
Sophia is above all a place from which to look…..at the numberless, various human realities starting from fraternity, from a deeply innovative idea of sociality. Furthermore Sophia is giving me the tools to reflect with, but also to act concretely keeping the individual at the centre in the richness of his relationships. I know that there will be many other moments of ‘wonder’ waiting for me, of the philosophical wonder that anticipates and unveils knowledge, and together with the other students and all of the IUS community I feel ever more directed in my journey. Source: Sophia University Institute
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Feb 6, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide
“Discovering the Scriptures of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam and Christianity and how they contribute to peace and harmony” is the title of the course that gathered together 290 members of the Focolare Movement from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Australia and many others from different regions of Thailand. It was a real cross-section of Asia, whose goal was to deepen knowledge of the world’s Great Religions from the East and to be trained for mature dialogue. The meeting was highly anticipated, following the last one that was held in the Focolare’s “Mariapolis Pace” in the Philippines, in 2011. The course was opened by the president of the School of Dialogue with Oriental Religions (SOR), Archbishop of Bangkok, Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithanavanij who stated in his opening remarks: “The different religions consider their scriptures to be sacred in different ways. But there is one thing they have in common, and it is basic: they are all fonts of wisdom.” Competent presenters included: Dr. Seri Phongphit from Bangkok for Theravada Buddhism; Dr. Donald Mitchell for Mahayana Buddhism; Professors Adnane and Mokrani for Islam; Philipp Hu for Confucianism; Stephen Lo for Taoism and Luciano Cura for Hinduism. Bishop Roberto Mallari from the Philippines presented his reflections on the Apostolic Exhortation, Verbum Domini. And as a summary of the main theme of the course, Andrew Recepcion, president of the International Association of Missiologists (IACM), offered an illuminating lesson on the New Evangelisation in Asia, in relation to interreligious dialogue. 
The fact that the SOR was held for the first time outside the Mariapolis in Tagaytay permitted the participants to immerge themselves in Theravada Buddhism which is typical of Thailand and of the entire South East Asia. The approach toward Buddhism was not limited only to delving into its Scriptures at an academic level, but entered into concrete life, thanks to the experiences of Metta and Beer, two Buddhists who have been in friendship with the Focolare since 1980. Deeply moving were the video clips in which Buddhist monks shared impressions concerning their personal relationships with Chiara Lubich, accompanied by personal experiences which they lived after encountering the ideal of unity. It was inspiring to everyone. Professor Donald Mitchell, who could not be present personally, presented his lesson via Skype, linking the SOR of Bangkok with Purdue University in the United States. The atmosphere of communion enabled participants to understand the lessons not only intellectually, but spiritually as well. Many said that they had understood interreligious dialogue on a much deeper level, as a lifestyle and not as an activity to be carried out. The “SOR 2013” was particularly significant for Asia in this Year of Faith; and interreligious dialogue turned out to be a bridge not only to an understandin
g of other religions and cultures, but an encouragement to understand one’s own Christian faith. Fr. Vicente Cajilig O.P. underscored how the interreligious dialogue of the Focolare Movement offers concrete answers in different ways to the deliberations of the Federation of Asian Bishop Conferences (FABC). The participants returned to their homelands grateful for the ideal of unity that leads them to live their Scriptures, the Word that makes them discover the “true self”. They left committed once again to living the charism of unity more intensely so that they might be a gift within the Church.
