Switzerland: Crossing the Borders
The visit Focolare president Maria Voce to Switzerland, concluded with a glance to the future. She was accompanied by Giancarlo Faletti for nine days in this land of the Swiss (2-11 November 2012) and met with people from the Movement and ecumenical personalities from this country. Her last appointment was with 120 Gen 3, teenage boys who live the spirituality of the Movement and animate the Teens for Unity Movement. Their lively vitality of their experience in engaging numerous teenagers in Switzerland, and the concrete projects that one group carried out during a week-long stay in Croazia where coming into close contact with the most needy families, taught them to value what they have, “being more attentive about eating everything on their plates, even old bread,” as one of them recounted.
The boys’ questions provided an opportunity for Maria Voce and Giancarlo t share their own personal experiences, along with a few “tricks” for becoming “great in love”. “Whenever we find ourselves in front of people who are difficult to love, that is the moment to make the life of Jesus grow within us; these are the moments in which Jesus makes us love with his own Heart. My love grows stronger not when the others have given me a compliment, but when I’ve felt wounded inside and I’ve carried on loving,” said Giancarlo. Maria Voce encouraged the boys to “take the initiative and not expect anything in return.” And she also explained that it’s not enough to tell a boy that he was wrong in stealing, but also that his action “diminished the communion among all, igniting fear and suspicion in the relationship.”
There was the same intensity in the dialogue with the young people on 10 November 2012, in which Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti launched that challenge of “living for a united world” with a blazing love in order to be a new generation, always ready to offer the world a supplement of the spirit it so much needs.
The adults were also drawn into the “revolution of love” and they left committed to build fraternity everywhere. “One day, passing in front of a kiosk,” one of the recounts, “I noticed that among the games there were some pornographic videos. I mustered up my courage and spoke to the seller, then with the director, and finally with the owner of the kiosk. It wasn’t easy. But a few days later when I passed by the kiosk again, the seller told me that the owner of the kiosk had told her to ‘remove those DVDs from the shelf‘.”
The ideal of unity arrived in Switzerland in the 1950’s, and so it has a long history in this country. Many were the pioneers of fraternity and not only in the Catholic Church. In fact, the first person to know the focolarini in Italy was an architect from the Reformed Church. Over the years there have been many ecumenical projects, in which Chiara Lubich was directly involved. She loved Switzerland and spent her holidays here, calling it her second homeland. Among those whom the spirituality has reached were also people of other faiths, and others who have arrived from countries in difficulty. This has given witness to how much the Ideal of unity has favoured an integration that must not be taken for granted.
During the open discussion with Maria Voce, Giancarlo Faletti and the thousand people who came from all Switzerland, a few proposals emerged: to make the current of love increase in the world; staying inside one’s own group makes the united world a utopia, so if we want to bring it forward, we should move beyond the borders, responding to this urging from God who is asking for more than what has been done up until now. We should be more passionately engaged in working for the unity among the Churches, active in the building of a better society, aiming for great things because God is in our midst, who can do all things.
By Aurora Nicosia
This experience became tangible during the congress for seminarians and priests, because of the intense communion between priests and laity. It was the dominant note that also enlivened theological understanding, the sharing of experiences between priests, families and youths, artistic pieces, a visit to some concretizations of this spirituality in the fields of economy and cultural workshops that are part of the Mariapolis.
On 8 November 2012, members of Reformed and Free Churches, Methodists and Catholics, ecumenical personalities, pastors, priests, pastoral assistants and members of several movements from the different linguistic regions of Switzerland – 250 people beyond what was expected – crowded into a hall at the Kreuz Hotel in Berne. They had come to attend an ecumenical symposium organized by the Focolare Movement entitled “Ecumenism: Where is it going?” The speakers were three special guests: a Cardinal, a lay woman and a Reformed pastor. They were Swiss Cardinal Koch who came from the Vatican and is now president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; the president of the Federation of the Protestant Churches of Switzerland, Gottfried Locher and, to do the honours, Maria Voce, president of the Focolare Movement. In their presentations the speakers explored various aspects of the ecumenical process with a strong common belief that the ecumenical process is by now irreversable indispensable despite the signs of fatigue that sometimes characterize it and make it seem like a mission impossible. “As long as we fight for unity,” the future president of the work Community of Christian Churches in Switzerland, Rita Famos, affirmed, “we are on the right path. It means that we haven’t laid down our arms. Today we want to stimulate dialogue between those who dream with hope and those who struggle for unity.” In fact, one of the “dangers” in the ecumenical journey is that of “getting used to the differences in thinking, and imagining that we are just fine without the other Church,” Locher warned. Maybe “we got comfortable,” we no longer find the “division to be scandalous.” Hence his call to “construct unity wherever it is now possible,” to step out of the Cantonal Reformed Churches that are often very independant from one another, in order to find more communion and a common voice, a common message of the Swiss Reformed Church in these important times. He gave strong and constant reminders of the transforming power of the Word. 
Many were involved in this process that saw moments of enthusiasm and moments of stalling. Among them the Pope, as Cardinal Koch recalled when he pointed to the ecumenical passion that led the John XXIII to create the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity in 1960. This institutite over which Koch presides also witnessed how close Paul VI was to the Orthodox world of Constantinople and the cancellation of the mutual anathemas that had “expelled the poison of excommunication” after 900 years. It also also brought Paul VI to meet with Anglican Primate Ramsey. Then there was John Paul II with his concrete acts of ecumenism, until Benedict XVI who in his first message stated his desire to work with all of his strength for the unity of Christians. But there is not only the ecumenism promoted by Church leaders, nor even the ecumenism that is brought forward by theologians. There is also a vital ecumenism based on an ecumenism of life, an 
There are already many types of dialogue that already exist among Churches,on different levels and reaching different levels. And the difficulties that are never lacking often make the goal of Jesus’ Testament seem a faraway dream. At times lose the trail, we drift apart rather than draw closer together. It was recalled in the hall that in his prayer, Jesus did not command unity. He asked it of the Father. What we Christians are called to do, therefore, is to collaborate with patience and fervour, but unity is a gift of God that we must pray for together. Just as we must feel the pain of our division together, acknowledge the fault of our disunity together, so too must we work together so that “all may be one.” An evermore secularized society requires the witness and the commitment of a united Christianity. This is also something we all agree on. By Aurora Nicosia (Source: Città Nuova online)
They write: “A group from Havana travelled right away with a van full of food supplies and basic supplies, but especially to be with the people and share their pain and suffering, trying to help in any way they could. We brought the supplies into their homes, and the people couldn’t find enough words to thank us! Everything arrived at just the right moment. In one family there was no more salt, in another no candles or matchsticks. Others hadn’t eaten in days. . . Above all, we brought comfort and support from the Movement around the world. Our own city was devsastated, but, nevertheless, the mutual love among us grew stronger and the sense of brotherhood towards all helps us in not being defeated by the sadness.”
Children listen wide-eyed to Pietro’s explanation. For them it is a school day in a classroom without desks or other learning aids, and the teaching is done primarily by nature itself. Lots of schoolchildren pass through the farm 
Pietro tells of a profound personal journal in relationship with nature seen as the manifestation of God’s creativity. It was a spiritual search that led him to understand more of the secrets of “permaculture” (sustainable use of the environment) and of various techniques seeking to optimize agricultural production while conserving the ecosystem. This sustainable agriculture is in keeping with the production philosophy of the farm, which has always been attentive to these kinds of values: ‘We created a market garden that was completely sustainable and which enriched the agricultural ecosystem. We planted and tended it together with the children who visited during those early years. Nowadays we grow seasonal vegetables and rear poultry.”