9 Aug 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
‘I belong to the Dominican Sisters of Bethany, a contemplative congregation founded in 1866 by Fr Lataste, a French Dominican. When he was sent to preach in the women’s prison of Cadillac, he had the idea of opening up contemplative life also to those women, once their sentences were over, and he founded a community in which ex-offenders, together with women with no criminal convictions, lived a life of prayer and work together on a completely equal basis and drawing a veil of silence over everyone’s past life.
‘The spirituality of unity and the Word lived and communicated made us realize the value and the relevance of our charism better. Once a week we go to the women’s prison in our city of Turin. Just as in Cadillac, we try to give witness to the hope that comes from God. We meet many women, we offer them the possibility of coming to us when they are released on licence, respecting their legal obligations, for example the need to check in with the police on a daily basis.
‘In the prison we listen to their sorrows, their worries, their pains and their unexpected joys. To extend our charism to the world today, we have started spending time with the people of the night: drug users, the homeless, unscrupulous people on the make both foreign and local, who live in Porta Nuova. We offer them friendship with no strings attached and a chance to meet without demanding that they change. “Are you hungry?” I asked young man from Morocco a little while ago. “Yes, I hunger to be heard, to have relationships, not bread. This is a kind of hunger too.”
‘They know and wait for us at Porta Nuova. As in prison, here too we are spectators of the miracles that sharing out Love makes happen. We could tell many stories. One evening I heard someone calling me. The voice, distorted, came from a pile of blankets. It was a boy obviously going cold turkey. “Tell me, sister, was Jesus Christ tall, blue-eyed and blond?” “I don’t know,” I answered, “I’ve never seen him in person.” He carried on, “He is followed and loved by lots of people.” I responded “He also had problems with the people close to him.” “Physically I look like him, but nobody likes me.” I tried to understand why he was so angry. The tears coursed down his hollow cheeks. “Can I stay for a bit?” I said quietly. Sitting on a station trolley, I listened at length to his story. He spoke like a river in spate. Some years went by. Then, one day, while walking along the street, I hear myself being called. I instantly recognize his blue eyes, which now seem clear, healthy. “I still remember what you said about Jesus Christ! Look! I’m still around!”
‘While I am at Porta Nuova, my community supports me by their adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, so that Jesus may pass through my words and I can recognize him in the faces of the women and men I meet.’
(Sr Silvia, Italy)
Excerpt from Una buona notizia. Gente che crede gente che muove – Città Nuova Editrice, 2012
9 Aug 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
“When the problems began in the country, I was drafted into the army for military service. Despite the fear that I felt, I also felt that even this was part of God’s plan for me. What gave me strength was the Word of Life, the only spiritual food I could have. Every once in a while I managed to telephone my family and give them some news. Then I would telephone the focolare and the Gen – other young people with whom I share this path – in order to share my experiences with them.
My troop in which I was the only Christian, was comprised of fifty officers from all over the country and from all confessions. There was a sincere relationship among us, one that didn’t take differences into account, one built upon sacrifice and altruism and generosity on the part of everyone. At the end of November 2011, we were informed that we were to be transferred each to a different part of the country. This created suspension in everyone. I was also wondering how it would turn out for me. Little by little, I began to notice a small voice in my heart that said to me: “Entrust your whole life to God,” and this gave me peace. Before taking leave of one another, we met on the last night for a send-off and to say goodbye to each other. To my surprise each one of us expressed what he had learnt from the other and, in the end, we embraced like real brothers.
From the month of March 2012 I was assigned to taking charge of new recruits, besides notifying the families of fallen soldiers. These are dramatic moments in which I try to share the family’s pain. As far as my work as an officer, I try to act with transparency and promptness, and to see that every decision I make is for the good of the person. For example, one recruit had to be dismissed for health reasons, but someone had forgotten to draw up his papers. As soon as I realized this, I did everything I could to speed up the process, and he could return home as planned. I even worked extra hours in order to finish all the paperwork.
Right from the start, I decided to live as a real Christian bringing love even into this environment. There are always occasions to live my choice in concrete ways, even risking my life sometimes. For example, one time a colleague had to go and pick some new recruits in a far-away city. There was the danger of attack during the trip and she was frightened. I proposed that I accompany her to the place, and so it happened. At the last moment, the administration decided to send me in an airplane.
One day, coming back from Mass, I heard the news that one of my colleagues, a soldier, had been killed during an attack at the bus station. It was a shock that remained with me for days. Recalling that I had given my life to God gave me strength to believe in His love and it rekindled my hope that God could draw good from all this suffering. In a situation like this there is the risk of becoming accustomed to death. One day they telephoned me with a list of soldiers who had been killed. I was mechanically writing down the names, when I suddenly realized that behind every number was a human being and this made me want to begin praying for each of them and for their families. It seemed the only useful thing to do in this tragedy.
My faith each day is a conquest, and my Ideal is put to the test. This is the only weapon I have along with that of living love completely in each moment with the assistance of the many people who are praying for me.”
(Z. M.– Syria)
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8 Aug 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
The last visitors left a few days ago. A coach of young people from Oporto, the second city of Portugal, accompanied by their bishop, was among them. They came to Sassello, a province of Savona in Italy, to visit the place Chiara Luce Badano had lived and to get to know how she lived the Gospel in everyday life.
Since her beatification in September 2010, the town where the eighteen year-old was born and grew up, has become more and more a place of convergence for young people from all over Europe and beyond. Monday 6 August saw another, quite particular, proof of a fame that is spreading far and wide and of a holiness with universal appeal, because 65 bishops and cardinals from all over the world came to the town of 1900 inhabitants on the border between the Italian regions of Liguria and Piedmont.
Of course, these bishops are friends of the Focolare Movement and live the same spirituality as Chiara Luce. But as they point out to Maria Teresa and Ruggero (Chiara Luce’s parents), Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti (Focolare President and Co-President), from the outset the beatified young woman’s influence has spread beyond the Focolare Movement.
‘Now lots of young people from all over the world are coming,’ Chiara Luce’s mother confirmed. ‘There is one coach after another. Large numbers of boys and girls who don’t believe come to our home and look and listen and when they come out of Chiara’s bedroom they make the sign of the cross, as if taking away a gift from my daughter.’ The bishops, in small groups, also went into the room where she had suffered and died. They saw her king-size bed transformed into an altar by the pain she offered and into a pulpit by her example of suffering transformed into joy.
Monday was the feast of the Transfiguration and Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, until recently in charge of the Pontifical Council for the Family, presided over the Eucharistic celebration at the conclusion of the day at Sassello. He pointed out an aspect of Chiara Luce’s holiness ‘precisely in her capacity to show that life conquers death, showing the transfiguration of the human person.’ Shortly before she died, indeed, she said to her mother, ‘Please be happy, because I am happy.’
Such a large number of bishops all in one go have never been seen before in the town, and the mayor, Paolo Badano (the surname is common there) found himself filled with admiration and pride. He expressed his gratitude to Chiara Luce and, after reading out a message of greeting from Claudio Burlando, the Regional President, he called her ‘the smiling saint.’
The bishops went to the tomb ‘to ask Chiara Luce’s intercession and protection for the path to holiness along the way of the spirituality of unity opened up by Chiara Lubich,’ as Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, Archbishop Emeritus of Prague, emphasized.
One moment of the entire day seemed to be the climax, both for its meaning and for its symbolism. A brief moment with the Badanos in their garden had been arranged for the large group of bishops. The skies were darkened by clouds and a slight wind was rising. The couple were concerned. The bishops carried on and asked their questions: what kind of young people come here? Does Chiara Luce only have an effect on young people? How do you become a saint? Chiara Luce’s parents drew from their daughter’s wisdom, telling the bishops about things she did or said. It was, as it were, 45 minutes of catechesis by this attractive eighteen year-old girl: almost a foretaste of what she would like to do on earth in the future. In the end a warm sun shone down from the heavens.
‘The Church has now a very contemporary example of what it means to live the Gospel and Christian love,’ commented Archbishop Francis Xavier Kreingsak Kovithavanij of Bangkok. ‘But we have seen the nature of a Christian family that walks in faith during trials, suffering and death.’ Archbishop Francisco Pérez González of Pamplona in Spain agreed: ‘’Jesus has shown himself to the young and uninstructed. I saw it yet again in Chiara Luce and I have reflected on the humility displayed by her parents.’
‘We may be in front of another two saints, seeing the simplicity and wisdom of the Badanos,’ said the Brazilian Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life. ‘Chiara Luce shows us a fulfilled life that teaches the joy found in accepting the unforeseeable plan of God. By choosing love she hit upon the heart of Christianity. Her greatness comes from having remained a normal girl. We need people like her. Young people who don’t go to church find in her an example of normality that takes them to God and then leads them to the Church.’
Before the bishops arrived, Maria Voce had visited Chiara Luce’s room for the first time and had stayed for thirty minutes with her parents. ‘I feel she’s like a sister because of the charism of unity linking us,’ she confided to Maria Teresa and Ruggero. ‘A younger sister because she is a child of the Focolare Movement I am President of and an older sister because, running like an Olympic athlete, she has gone before me in holiness.’
From our correspondent Paolo Lòriga.
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4 Aug 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
The educational crisis is one of the urgent challenges of our time. There is need for a renewal in formation programs to meet the demands of students who wish to achieve their goals in an era of globalization.
A group of Italian educators, which includes teachers, youth group leaders, psychologists and pedagogists have come together in a “National Board of Education” which, since 2010 has met in Grottaferrata, Rome at the headquarters of the New Humanity Movement which promotes the project in collaboration with “Action for a United World”, “Education for Unity” and “Teens for Unity“.
The latest novelty to come out from the work of the Board has been that of placing on the 2013 agenda an “International Meeting for the World of Education”, which will be held in Castelgandolfo, Italy on 6-8 September 2013. The meeting will gather people who are in any way involved in the world of education: family, school and catechesis, youth groups, researchers and teens. The declared objective is to lay the groundwork, on an international level, through an exchange of ideas, educational approaches and best practices, and to implement projects in various countries.
In Italy the Board publishes online educational, didactic and methodological projects from several parts of Italy, like education for peace, citizenship and comprehension which demonstrate that only an authentic interpersonal relationship of reciprocal giving, can be the principle of every great educational event, capable of favouring the full realization of the personality of each and every one.
Some students from a science high school in the province of Catania are a witness to this. Educational programmes in education for the common good, for appreciating not only the cultural patrimony of the individual disciplines, but the unity of human knowledge and universal values, with the goal of helping students to interiorise the messages and bring about a transformation in their way of life. With the involvement of experts from various fields, meetings are planned with associations involved in the field of development and cooperation and volunteering.
The teenagers themselves become the protagonists of projects of solidarity and sharing, as with the “distant support” project for children who live in difficult situations, but also within the classrooms, sharing their materials, talents, abilities.
Cecilia Landucci teaches literacy in a first class school in the province of Rome. She is the coordinator of field projects with the commission for “Education and Culture” of New Humanity: “The Board is a concrete network of educators. Knowing each other’s experiences promotes collaboration, brings us out of our isolation, favours the spreading of what is already happening and becoming a cultural way of thinking in the field of education within the light of the charism of unity; the elaboration of a project for Italian schools, which can help redefine them.”
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2 Aug 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
Her mother writes: “A. was performing her piece at the end-of-the-year gymnastic trials and many people had come to watch. At one point one of her companions dropped her hoop. A. immediately gave her own to her companion and went to fetch the one that was dropped. Then she re-joined the choreography.
The trainers were open-mouthed with surprise. One of them said to me: “In all my years of training, I’ve never seen anything like this: an athlete who leaves her place in order to cover the mistake of another.” I responded: “It’s love that urges you to go beyond looking good; thinking of others makes you capable of things like this.”
The trainers all congratulated her. Then when were alone my daughter said to me; “Mamma, I didn’t care about looking good. My friend was in trouble and I had to help her.” It made me see how the Gospel that is slowly entering into her is making her a witness of her yes to Jesus. This episode occurred shortly after her return from the Gen4 congress that was entitled: “Love that embraces the whole world”.
(A. F. –Italy)
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1 Aug 2012 | Focolare Worldwide
It was the first seminar to be curated by the Social-One research group outside of Europe in cooperation with a group of Latin Americans from the Anti-utilitarian Movement in Social Sciences (M.A.U.S.S.). On 6-7 July 2012 about fifty people, including professors, researchers and students from various regions of Brazil gathered inOlinda, north easternBrazilwith an Italian delegation. Agapic Action (i.e. action motivated by fraternal and disinterested love) was the central topic of the two-day seminar, and it is also at the heart of the thinking of the group of researchers connected with Social-One. But it is certainly not a common topic for the field of Sociology.
“Free Gift and Agapic Action: Diaologue Towards A New Prospective for the Social Sciences” was the title of the seminar, which was opened by Brazilian Dr. Vera Araujo who underscored the need for new ideas – like agape and free gift – to inspire behaviours and the collective dynamic.
Twelve hours of intense work. Four conferences and four parallel sessions, enriched by an open dialogue that involved all the participants.
There were three Italian presenters: Prof. Michele Colasanto from the Catholic University of Milan who discussed the role of the concepts of agape and free gift in the construction of the common good; Prof. Gennaro Iorio, member of the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the University of Salerno who, after his presentation of a reflection on the theme of agapic action as developed by Social-One, then spoke on the relationship between agape and conflict; Dr. Licia Paglione, member of the Department of Social Sciences and Communication at the Sophia University Institute of Loppiano, Florence who proposed a study of the relationship between the concepts of gift and love, beginning with the work of Russian sociologist P. A. Sorokin (1889-1968).
In the parallel sessions five projects were developed by Brazilian students and professors from several universities, who are familiar with topics under discussion in a Brazilian academic and social setting.
Twenty year old Maria Julia Izidoro speaks of wide horizons, “talking about love in the lecture halls of a university.” For Maria Eduardo Couto: “A wall has come down between the youth and the old “dinosaurs” of the Social Sciences. Here we found ripened scientists who listened to us with such great interest and attention.” Young Lucas Francisco da Silva Jr said that he was “impressed by the idea, given that society is in need of change and of the concept of agapic action in its social interactions, to make the world better.” Saulo Miranda was struck by “the presence of so many young people who are interested and prepared to examine such topics in their academic studies.” Simone Alves made an interesting comment; “I’ve acquired some important theoretic academic baggage here, but the basic thing has really been the experience of love, of that agapic action that I found in the relationships among the people here.”
“This seminar will leave as a legacy,” says seminar coordinator Lucas Galindo, “an openness of mind, heart and spirit in favour of dialogue that is fruitful and allows one to hope that agapic action (love) will have a strong effect on social life.”
