Aug 26, 2020 | Non categorizzato
How often does God use a person to draw someone else close to him? We should never forget him, because we too could one day become his instrument for someone. A new hope Having been in the U.S. to study, I decided to return to my country at the insistence of my parents. But I was stuck in quarantine at an institution near the border with about 500 people. I had the exact same feeling as if I were in jail. Fortunately, my phone kept me connected to the outside world. Whenever I met someone, I heard the same questions I had about what was happening. During that time I met a Salesian priest at a distance. Although he was as isolated as I was, he emanated a peace that neither I nor the others had. It was as if he was not surprised at anything. At first he celebrated mass alone in his small room, then I began to attend. In short, I returned to the sacraments and my previous life of faith, even if no longer as before. Even my girlfriend noticed that I had changed. Sometimes I think: if this transformation happened in me, can it be that it has also happened for others? A new hope is born within me: that the world that previously seemed to take it away from me can now refind its way in other directions. K., Slovakia Baby carriage I met a young Gypsy girl who was expecting a baby. She needed everything, from clothing to all the baby gear for the birth of her child. I had read in the Gospel, “Whatever you ask of the Father… he will give it to you”. That day with faith I asked Jesus during Mass for a baby carriage. Later at school, I committed myself more than ever to love my classmates and teachers. Back home in the evening, I learned from my mother that a neighbour, knowing that I help the poor, had left something for me. It was a baby carriage! I was moved by this prompt response from providence. C., Spain Blessing Working as a nurse for a month right during that period of the coronavirus, in the hospital where I served I shared the loneliness of several patients who passed to the other life without the comfort of their loved ones at their side. The strongest experience, however, was after I learned from my mother that, according to the pope’s words, even doctors and nurses were qualified to give a blessing to the deceased patients. I was able to draw a cross on the forehead and chest of several of them before filing the paperwork to confirm their deaths and send their bodies to the morgue. Joseph, Italy
Edited by Stefania Tanesini
Aug 25, 2020 | Non categorizzato
Chiara Lubich’s charism for Christian unity. Interview with Lesley Ellison who is an Anglican and the first non-Catholic focolarina to follow Chiara. Living the Gospel, Word of God together; loving one’s neighbour as Jesus did, to the point of dying for the other; living for unity among believers in Christ, beyond every affiliation and beyond all divisions. It is with these dimensions that the ecumenical potential of Chiara Lubich’s charism of unity is unfolding. “A completely ecumenical spirituality” is how Card. Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity described the charism in the preface to the book entitled “A Spirituality for Christian Unity. Selected thoughts.”, published by Città Nuova, which is a collection of speeches and answers to ecumenical questions given by the founder of the Focolare Movement, one hundred years after her birth. The introduction to the book is given by Maria Voce, President of the Focolare with a foreword offered by Rev. Olav F. Tveit, former Secretary General of the Ecumenical Council of Churches, now President of the Conference of Lutheran Bishops in Norway. Lesley Ellison, an Anglican focolarina, is the first non-Catholic focolarina to follow Chiara: Your experience has paved the way for many. Did you ever have hesitations? “I grew up in a Protestant family with prejudices against Catholics, and at that time in Liverpool the two communities were separated. Like Chiara, I also wanted to give my life to God. When I first heard her speak, in Canterbury in 1967, I had been visiting the focolarine in Liverpool for a year. We tried to live the Gospel but I didn’t know they were Catholic. Just as I did not know the community of people around the focolare. It was a shock to realize they were all Catholic but in Canterbury, listening to Chiara, I understood that God loves everyone, and that “everyone” also includes Catholics! I felt I had to take a step and put aside my prejudices. When I got to Liverpool a Catholic couple offered me a lift home. This was unheard of. “But I’m Protestant,” I said. “That’s all right! We love each other!” they said. This was my first ecumenical experience.” When did you feel that the Spirituality of unity could be yours? “In 1967 I went to visit the little town of Loppiano. During the visit there was a Catholic Mass but being an Anglican I could not receive the Eucharist. This rift between our Churches seemed absurd to me, so painful that inside I cried out to Jesus: “What can I do?” And I seemed to hear Him respond, “Give me your life for unity.”” Living the Gospel is the way that Chiara indicated for unity. Why, as an Anglican, did this proposal have an impact on you? “My formation as a young Anglican asked me to “listen to, read, take note of, learn and digest inwardly” the word of God. So the idea of “living the Gospel” which I heard for the first time in the focolare, was a complete novelty and gave my Christian life a new communitarian dimension”. Jesus asks us to love one another as He did, to the point of giving our lives for one another. What does this mean for you in your relationships with people of other Churches? “It’s in the word ‘as’ that I find the whole of Chiara’s charism, Jesus crucified and forsaken who is Life. This is the way God Himself wanted to dialogue with humanity, and it is the model He offers us for any dialogue with one another and with Him. For me, giving my life means welcoming the other, listening, putting aside my thoughts and judgments. But it also means offering my thoughts whilst being completely detached from them. This is what Chiara did with me and with every person she met. And this is how we try to live the relationships with one another in the Movement.
Claudia Di Lorenzi
Aug 24, 2020 | Non categorizzato
The Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted programs, systems and procedures in all areas of human life. In every place there is a great need for creativity to find new answers to the challenges posed by this situation. Something that Chiara Lubich suggested back in 1983 is very up-to-date. God speaks in us in various ways and among these are the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. We must, therefore, serve God by following the guidance of the gentle voice of the Spirit that speaks in us. The Holy Spirit! The Third Divine Person who is God just as the Father is God and the Word of God is too! (…) The Holy Spirit is in the heart of all Christians, and therefore in my heart too. He is in the heart of my brothers and sisters. … Let’s become attentive and assiduous pupils of this great Teacher. Let’s pay great attention to his mysterious and delicate promptings. Let’s not put aside anything that might be one of his inspirations. In the early days [of our Movement] we made great progress by putting into practice the motto “Every idea is a responsibility”. Therefore, let’s remember that the ideas that come to mind in someone who has chosen to love are often inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Why does he give them to us? For our own good and for the good of the world through us, so that we can take forward our revolution of love. So let’s be attentive and consider every idea, especially if we think it might be an inspiration, as our responsibility, to be grasped and put into practice. In this way, we will have found a really good way of loving, honouring and thanking the Holy Spirit.
Chiara Lubich
(From a telephone conference call, Mollens, 1st September 1983)
Aug 22, 2020 | Non categorizzato
Bintou Konaté, a Muslim, and her Christian friends have turned loss and suffering into an opportunity to help her community. By Stefania Tanesini, Egilde Verí, Marco Tursi. https://vimeo.com/430765602
Aug 21, 2020 | Non categorizzato
“Charism and Prophecy” is the title of the new book by Jesús Morán, co-president of the Focolare Movement. It follows on his previous book, “Creative Fidelity – The challenge of making a charism a reality”. Morán offers in this text his reflection on Chiara Lubich’s “ecclesial genius”, starting from talks he gave on the subject over the past three years. We talk about it with the author. How did the idea for this book come about? Since I had several texts that had not yet been published, I thought of honouring Chiara Lubich in the centenary year of her birth and, at the same time, I wanted to make an act of love to everyone in the Focolare Movement. Since I began several years ago to use the expression, “Chiara’s ecclesial genius,” I saw that many people liked it, that is, they grasped in it a synthetic concept that could define the marvellous synergistic unity between Chiara’s person and her charism, as “all one piece”. I am convinced that Chiara, in addition to having been endowed by God with an “ecclesial instinct” is, indeed, an “ecclesial genius”, in continuity with others in the Church who have opened new horizons, always inserted in the tradition that goes back to Jesus himself. It was right to study it more deeply during this centenary. As you yourself have explained several times, the Focolare Movement, after its charismatic phase, is living its historical phase, the one you have defined as “a period of creative fidelity”. It is therefore the phase of giving Chiara’s prophecies concrete shape in the world today. What do you think is the main contribution that the Focolare Movement can make today to fulfil these prophecies in the ecclesial sphere, in the journey towards achieving “that they all may be one”? When I say that we have entered the phase of the historical foundation of the Movement, in creative fidelity to the phase of the charismatic foundation, I do not intend to dialectically oppose the two phases. In fact, the charismatic foundation has also been historical and, therefore, the historical foundation has a charismatic element. But they are two different phases, with different emphases, which touch both the foundation and the form of things. There is no doubt that today the theme of actualizing the charism of unity acquires a particular poignancy and urgency. Creative fidelity should always be exercised, keeping in mind two principles: listening to the questions that God proposes to the world and listening to what God continues to tell us in the foundational nucleus of the charism. In my opinion, one of the questions that God poses to the Church that lives and acts within history is what we could summarize as “synodality”, which implies openness, communal decisions, being close to one another, being attentive to the dignity of the person, especially the most vulnerable. The Focolare Movement contributes to this ecclesial journey with a very special emphasis, which comes from the heart of its charism, that is, a vital and concrete experience of the Triune God who has an impact on history, without which synodality is reduced to a new organizational form deprived of the life of the Spirit. And which of these prophecies still need more time and effort in order to be actualized? I think that in order to live up to our true vocation in the Church, the members of the Movement must grow in the sensus ecclesiae, to have “the mind of the Church”. Not that they do not have it, but there is a need to grow, which means overcoming, once and for all, every attitude of self-referencing and reaching the maturity that all the recent Popes have asked of us. Moreover, we need to overcome any dualism between civil commitment and ecclesial commitment, looking at the model that we have always held as Christians: the figure of Jesus, the man-God, truly man and truly God. In the light of the reflections you offer in your book, what would you like to say, from your heart, as we draw to the end of these six years in which you were co-president of the Focolare Movement? I pray that God will give us the necessary graces to update the charism of Chiara Lubich in a vital and radical way. I think that we must begin again, reborn from the heart of the charism, from what we call “the Ideal”, and from there set in motion the necessary reforms so that the Movement, also as an institution, may better reflect the human-divine life that animates it. And rebirth means purification and conversion.
Edited by Anna Lisa Innocenti
Aug 19, 2020 | Non categorizzato
We are witnessing a period of great changes, transformations and contradictions that can open up new ways of seeking the common good. Through the new campaign #daretocare the young people of the Focolare Movement want to put the theme of care at the top of the political agenda, locally and globally. The new campaign of the youth of the Focolare Movement was launched on June 20th with the title #daretocare i.e. “dare and take care”, taking charge of our societies and the planet. The campaign is being constantly updated on the United World Project website What does #daretocare have to do with politics? Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, believed that there was a real vocation to politics, a personal call perceived in one’s own conscience and born out of certain circumstances, inspired by a social need that is asking for help, a human right that has been violated or the desire to do something good for one’s city or nation. But is it still valid today? 
Javier Baquero from Bogotá in Colombia, Cristina Guarda from Italy and Frantisek Talíř from Zubčice in the Czech Republic help us to answer this question. They are young people from the Focolare Movement and are part of the network of the Politics for Unity Movement, an expression of the Focolare for a culture of unity in politics. Javier, who today works in the office of the mayor of Bogotá tells us: “I have worked in politics since I was 13 years old and formally in government since I was 18, and I have worked with people who have integrity, who have the capacity to deal with corruption, whose actions are transparent. So maybe there are corrupt people, but they are just a few. For me the most important principle in politics is service. Because one puts one’s knowledge, skills, professions at the service of a society, of humanity, of the planet. And you don’t do it alone but together with other people. So, the principle that should guide every politician is service, an attitude of service to meet the needs of a society. #daretocare, to dare and to take care means first of all to feel and to be close to the problems of my city but that’s not enough: it is to think and to formulate public policies to solve these problems”. 
Cristina who has been in politics for the last five years adds: “Yes, I know, sometimes I feel disgusted observing the hatred created by some politicians, the conspiracy of silence, laziness or deafness in front of some complex problems. But for this reason, we and I must act and do our best. In my political action, I want to express my intense love for others by doing my best to help them live better, to lighten their worries and give them all the elements to achieve the lives they dream about”. “Politics is not bad in itself. Politics is made by politicians, who can be more or less good at it “- says František, a regional political activist. “That is why it is necessary that new politicians continue to enter this field and try to do it in the best possible way. To speak of politics as a service is what Pope Francis suggested to me when we met a year and a half ago. I think this is the recipe for good politics. The key is really to serve others. The key is my thinking: do I do politics for myself or do I do it to serve? And every time I have to make a decision – small or big – I can choose: am I putting myself first or others? And if others are put first then everything will be fine”! That’s why it’s important to network, to think and to act for the common good, to take care of everyone. To follow the events of the #daretocare campaign visit the United World Project website.
By the youth of the Focolare
