India, how I live the Golden Rule

5 Feb 2012 | Focolare Worldwide

I am Dr. Vijaya Bhatia, a Hindu associated with the Focolare Movement since 1988. Being in contact with Chiara Lubich I could understand my religion better. That has really made me more generous in sharing my thoughts, my material things, my life and whatever I have but to my surprise whenever I give something it comes back to me in a hundredfold.  I have experienced this many times. Once I thought of helping somebody by giving her two of my new dresses and to my surprise the next day I got three dresses from my relatives. In 2005 my house was submerged in water because of the heavy rains. After I came back, I did not know what to do because I did not have enough money to buy a new house. A few stations away even my cousin’s house was submerged only for a few hours and the damage was not so much. I thought to myself I cannot do anything for my house but at least I can help her. So I rang up a few of my relatives telling them that I would contribute to help my cousin: we collected Rs.50,000. She could not believe her eyes… To my surprise after a few days I got double the amount of money from some unknown source for my house! One night during the winter season I was cozy in my bed ready to go to sleep when I realized that there were many daily wage workers who do up the road sleeping out in the cold. I could no longer get sleep. I thought of the golden rule: ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. The next day I went to buy blankets for these people. I chose to buy the soft good ones instead of the hard cheap ones. Then I saw that there were many babies and small children among these people. I went to the nearby shop from where they bought things and I asked the shop keeper whether they bought any milk. The owner told me that they did but only for the very little ones and not for the older children and even the adults had tea without milk. I gave the shop owner money so that he could give all these people the milk that they needed and it has been over 3 years that I continue to do this. One day a patient came to me. She was a Hindu lady suffering from depression, with high blood pressure, sleeplessness, swelling of the body, obesity, etc. Going through her detailed story I understood that all her problems started the day her daughter married a Muslim boy. Since then she started rejecting her daughter. I could understand the suffering of this lady. When I was a child we suffered the partition of India and Pakistan. I was born in Lahore and with the partition we lost everything. We had to leave our home and come to India…however we cannot go on with the hate in our heart that we experienced in the past. Therefore I explained to this lady that since she had sown the seed of hatred in her soul, the result was a tree of hatred which was the root cause of all her problems. She had to forgive and sow the seed of love in her heart if she truly wanted to be cured. I thought she had understood and gave her some medicine. When she came back she was still with all her problems and I understood that she had done nothing about it. I understood that I had to do her part. So I took the phone, made her speak to her daughter and invite her and her husband to her place for dinner the same evening. After two months, as the relationship with her daughter and with her son-in-law got better her health improved too. One day I had the great joy to see them altogether in my clinic: it was like seeing a living piece in the mosaic of ‘universal brotherhood’. Witness told during the 4th Symposium Hindu-Christian, Mumbai – 10/14 December 2011

Udisha, a new dawn

5 Feb 2012 | Focolare Worldwide

Mumbai is the economic heart of India and one of the largest and most densely populated cities in the country. But many of its 20 million inhabitants live on the streets or in slums found all over in the city. In one of these, about forty minutes by train from the centre of the city in the north west, live about 400 thousand people in conditions of extreme poverty. It is here that in 1997 several families in the slum decided to set up a social project in collaboration with ‘Support at a Distance’, a project run by New Families. In 2001, during her first visit to India, Chiara Lubich encouraged them to develop what they had begun as ‘a practical response to the poverty around us.’ From then on the project has grown. Today it cares for 115 young people from 4 to 22 years old. Its activities aim at supporting students in their schooling, nutrition and health, in order to raise the standard of life for them and their families. In 2004 the project took the name ‘Udisha’ which means ‘the sun ray that announces the new dawn’. Today Udisha participates in the Schoolmates project, which seeks to build up a network among school classes and groups of young people in various countries and to support projects that promote solidarity. Main activities: ñ    Schooling and education. In India the schools have 70-80 students per class. This makes it difficult to give individual tuition and, to pass their exams, the young people have to attend expensive private support lessons. The poorest among them, since they cannot afford this, are forced to give up their studies. Udisha, therefore, offers free support lessons in several subjects. In addition it tries to raise funds to pay for further schooling, educational equipment and school uniforms. Occasionally extra-curricular cultural and recreational activities are organized. ñ    Intercultural awareness. There are various religions present at Udisha: Christian, Hindu and Muslim. One of the project’s objectives is to contribute to creating constructive integration, culturally, religiously, linguistically and also between the generations. It encourages exchanges of experience and activities, working together especially with the Shanti Ashram of Coimbatore. ñ    Medical treatment. Many of the young people suffer from malnutrition. They are at risk from the seasonal epidemics that come with the rains or floods. For this reason during the year there are group medical visits involving both doctors in the area and other organizations. Help is also given to improve domestic diet with proteins and vitamins through the distribution of food stuffs and dietary supplements. For some time a counselling service for young people and parents has also been on offer. ñ    Training in parenting. Meetings to raise understanding and to share good practice among families are organized periodically for parents. These are occasions for a rich exchange of experiences, advice and points of view. ñ    Microcredit. A year ago Udisha began an small venture into microcredit which involves seventy of the young people’s mothers. Split into three groups that meet monthly, these mothers have been trained in microcredit in the kind of atmosphere of mutual trust  absolutely necessary for such a venture to work. This year they will start to offer loans.

Young people with the Gospel in their pockets at the farthest ends of the earth

3 Feb 2012 | Focolare Worldwide

“Being Jesus 24 hours a day” was the title of the Australian youth congress which was held at the Mariapolis Centre of Melbourne, Australia. 115 teenagers were present, aged between 9 and 17 years. They came from various cities of the country, from New Zealand and New Caledonia. The meeting lasted 5 days, and was made possible through the communion of goods made throughout the past year by the young people together with families and friends. Even the shops and markets participated by donating fruit, vegetables, bread, meat and drinks. The programme provided for moments of study of the Gospel and how to put it into practice, space for dialogue and sharing of experiences from life. “The moments of communion were profound-says Madeline – and they helped us to understand that we are not alone in trying to be another Jesus in every moment of our life.” It was a solemn moment when a copy of the Gospel was given to each one. “I felt that Jesus was really present-said one of the youths-as though He in person gave us His Word.” The readings of the day, with the call of the apostles, put in the hearts of each one a purpose: to live the Gospel in their own environment, as today’s apostles, sent by God to evangelise these lands. The second event was framed within New Zealand, a marvellous archipelago, with high mountains and crystal clear sea. 60 youths of various ages took part in the “Teens4unity Camp” of Lower Hutt. The theme was: putting the Gospel into practice in our cities. Many of the youths, together with their families were refugees from other countries. Their experiences were strong, often painful, but lived in a “one to one” profound relationship with God. Together they examined the initiative “Colour the city with love” that the Youth for Unity are taking forward on a worldwide level, in order to help those persons in their cities who are alone or deprived. Many ideas emerged on how to take forward this initiative, as for instance those activities involving the youths of the aborigines population. The last stage was Perth. Characteristic of the meeting is that it was an itinerant day: the youths accompanied Nadia and Agostino across this magnificent city where natural beauty and very modern buildings trace a very harmonious landscape. Thus, between the banks of the river Swan and those of the Indian Ocean, the youths spoke of the history of the city, of the discord between the colonisers and the aborigines, of its characteristics and today’s problems. Then the dialogue opened up on the commitment of Christian life, and also on the responsibility and beauty of the response of each one to the call of God. While saluting each other, they expressed the desire to continue to meet to delve into the life of the Gospel, involving also their friends. They also bore in mind the world relay race “Run4Unity” of the 12^th May when the youths of this region, at the extreme east of the world, will be amongst the first to begin the race.

Focolarina from Uruguay, consultant to PCCS

3 Feb 2012 | Focolare Worldwide

How did you react to the news?

With surprise and joy. The word that immediately came to mind was ‘service’, in the way Jesus teaches us. Now all I have to do is serve the Church, and through it, society.

What are your first impressions?

In the first place: that I have a chance to give my contribution as an aspect of communication in dialogue. Secondly, looking at the group of consultants, which is made up of priests, a nun, a lay woman and several lay men: that here you see the Church in its various vocations, its charisms and its intercultural dimension.

What is your background and experience in the field of social communication?

My degree was in Social Communication, Social Science and Catholic Social Teaching. My first studies were in the field of education, at Montevideo, my home town. Later on I studied Formation in Popular Communication and Analysis of Social Communication at Buenos Aires. After that I got a degree in Sociology at the Gregorian University, Rome, and a Master’s in Catholic Social Teaching at the Lateran University. Last of all, again at the Gregorian, I obtained a doctorate in Social Sciences, specializing in communication. My work has been in the field of communication, not just as theory but as social practice within the constructive interplay of theory and praxis.

What is your current experience of the Latin American Episcopal Conference?

I have been part of it for 6 years as a communications consultant, and in that role I was present at the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate held in Aparecida (Brazil). Experiences like that have touched me deeply, seeing at first hand the social relations that make up Latin American people. The Latin American Episcopal Conference, CELAM, since it began in 1955 has had a real and lasting commitment to dialogue and communion with the universal Church, which comes from its very being as Latin American. In relation to Vatican II, the General Conferences of the Episcopate at Medellín, Puebla, Santo Domingo and Aparecida give witness to this powerful desire. I believe that being a consultant to PCCS while being a member of CELAM, I will be able to be a bridge, even though there is already a high degree of communion between these two parts of the Church.

What influence does the spirituality of Chiara Lubich have on what you do?

The Spirituality of Unity is where my core vocation is rooted: to share Jesus’ dream, ‘May they all be one.’ I got know Focolare spirituality in the 70s when, like all Latin American young people, I was looking for something to change the world. In Chiara’s spirituality I found a Jesus who was alive, and with other young people I learnt how to put the Gospel into action, forming a community open to everyone, and building a little town – the Mariapolis Lia – which proclaimed to society that Jesus’ New Commandment can be put into practice and that the presence of Jesus among people united in his name is a visible reality capable of transforming society. As time went by I carried on living that same experience in the various Focolare communities where I have been. I have done this until now, when I am here in Bogotá with the wonderful Columbian people.
I begin my new service with joy because of the love for the Church that Chiara Lubich, with her own life, communicated to us.

Nigeria: saved at the last minute

1 Feb 2012 | Focolare Worldwide

“My name is F., and I am from Jos, in Nigeria. In my city, from 2001 up to today, there is a political, ethnic, and religious crisis. Many thousands of lives and many properties have been lost, and today there is a profound division between Christians and Moslems, to the point of seeing each other as enemies and looking at each other with suspicion. We live constantly in fear, without knowing what will be our lot in the next moment. One of my colleagues was involved in an incident, and we were asked to go and seek him. As he is a Moslem, nobody offered to go, precisely because we are in Jos, and Christians do not go to the Moslem zones, just as Moslems do not visit the Christian ones. I offered to go to him, even if at first I was a bit hesitant, but a voice inside me continued to tell me to go. I succeeded- with a bit of insistence-in convincing a female friend to come with me. We arrived with great fear at the house of my colleague. When we entered, however, we were warmly greeted by him and his family. They were really happy to see us! Sometime later, I was returning home from work, late in the evening, together with the same female friend, when all of a sudden, her car broke down, not far from a Moslem post. Both of us were without credit on our mobile phone to ask for help. In those parts, in the dark, there were some gangsters carrying out their affairs. Our prayer at that moment was: “Lord, send us help as soon as possible!” We were so scared that we did not know whether it was better to remain in the car or jump out and stop the first car that passed by. At a certain point we noticed someone approaching us, and we started shivering. I said my last prayer, because I felt we had reached the end. When they were a few metres away, suddenly a car parked in front of us, and whom do I see? The colleague we had visited a few days previously….the head of the gangsters asked him whether we were one of them “Moslems”, to know whether to let us go, and he answered in the affirmative. This is how we were saved… He himself then put the car in a secure place and accompanied us home. Moreover, the following day, after having repaired the car, he brought it to my friend.”