May 13, 2020 | Non categorizzato
The exhibition dedicated to Chiara Lubich in her hometown in Italy is enriched with a multilingual virtual tour that will allow visitors from all over the world to visit the exhibition composed of images and documents. May 13th marks the launching on the web , a significant date for Trento and Lubich. “Chiara Lubich Città Mondo“, the exhibition set up at the Gallerie in Trento, the birthplace of the Focolare Foundress, is now transformed and enriched with a virtual tour. The exhibition, closed for a period due to the pandemic and now extended until the beginning of 2021, can also be visited online. (http://mostre.legallerietrento.it/chiaralubich) The exhibition in Trent, which is part of the events linked to the Centenary of Chiara Lubich’s birth, continues in this way to implement the motto of the centenary: “Celebrate to meet with this extension on the web, “. Winding its way through history, life, images and color, it offers an opportunity to ‘meet’ with Lubich, and now the tour extends beyond the Galleries’ exhibition venue , to offer access to visitors from all over the world. Moreover, the date chosen for this launch on the web is no coincidence: on May 13th , 1944 Chiara Lubich’s story intertwined significantly with that of her city. That day when Trent suffered the second heavy bombardment also marked a turning point for the emerging Focolare Movement. Chiara Lubich was among the people displaced from the city towards the Gocciadoro woodland, after the family home was damaged. “I remember that night,” she would write years later, “on the outskirts of the city, lying with the others on the ground, just two words: stars and tears. Stars, because, throughout the night, I saw them all passing over my head; tears, because I was crying, realizing that I could not leave Trento with my loved ones. By then I saw with my companions the movement coming to life: I could not abandon them. And it seemed to me that the Holy Spirit, in order to make me understand His will, suggested words to me that I had studied at school: “Omnia vincit amor[1], Love conquers all”[2] .The next morning, Chiara Lubich informed her parents of her decision to stay in Trento, and soon afterwards, with her first companions, she set up the first focolare. The little house that housed the first focolare is one of the stages on the virtual tour that the visitor takes “Chiara Lubich city world” from the birth of the founder of the Focolare Movement in 1920 to the current worldwide expansion of the Movement. Even in the virtual setting, it is Chiara herself, through images and documents, who “tells her story “: her life as a young teacher, her consecration to God on December 7th, 1943, the growth of the first Focolare community. And then the summer of 1949, the beginning of a period of light for Chiara Lubich from which will flow the charismatic novelty that would give life to a new Work in the Church. Light and colours are the protagonists of the last part of the tour which, through words and images, allows us to know experiences of unity, spaces of fraternity born of the Charism of Lubich which continue to grow and develop in the present day in order to contribute to the fulfillment of what she considered the “testament” of Jesus: “That all may be one” (Jn 17:21). “For that page of the Gospel we were born,” Lubich wrote, “to bring unity in the world, unity with God and unity among all our brothers and sisters”.
”Even though we were aware” – she explained –“ of the divine audaciousness of the program that only God could carry out, kneeling around an altar, we asked Jesus to make his dream come true using us too if it was part of his plans”[3]. A dream also formed on that night of May 13th 1944 when, faced with the collapse of everything, bewilderment, the anguish of the unexpected drama of the moment, among stars and tears, she chose to believe that “Omnia vincit amor, love conquers everything”.
Anna Lisa Innocenti
[1] Virgil, Ecloghe, X, 69 [2] Chiara Lubich, Nascita di una spiritualità, in Michele Zanzucchi, Enzo Maria Fondi, Un popolo nato dal Vangelo, San Paolo, 2003, pp. 9-10. [3] Ibid., p.17
May 12, 2020 | Non categorizzato
What effects has this pandemic had on life in society and in the Church? What did it bring about in the Focolare Movement? How can we live these new and as yet unknown times that await us? An open dialogue with Maria Voce. From an interview with Radio Inblu (Italy). From 18th May, Mass can be celebrated again [with a congregation], by taking all necessary precautions of course. Could you comment briefly on this? Maria Voce: We have always followed the Pope’s Mass and there have been very many opportunities to pray together online. But we cannot hide the fact that Christianity is an embodied religion. We feel the need to be physically present at the liturgy, to participate more directly and actively in the sacraments of Christianity. So we certainly missed participating in the Eucharist in a real way and this gift is now being given back to us. So we are ready to do all that is required, to take precautions in order not to miss this opportunity. Q: Of course, many things have happened during this time. We have had to review our behaviour and what we buy. What do you think the pandemic is bringing out in social life and therefore also in church life? Maria Voce: It is bringing out beautiful things but there can also be bad things. A first thing worth emphasizing is equality among all. The pandemic has shown that faced with this small virus that we have been hit by, we are all the same. It has affected the powerful as well as the poor, the rich and those who have nothing, children as well as adults, those in prison and those outside. So in this sense we are all truly equal. At the same time the pandemic has also revealed many inequalities that are not created by the fact of being human, but are created by different cultures, by prejudices and by lifestyles. So some people can afford treatment and others cannot; some people have homes where they can isolate themselves and others are forced to live with several people in a very small space. Some people have lost their jobs and can draw on savings set aside in a bank account; others don’t have anything to draw on and when they lose their jobs, they and their families are in danger of going hungry. So, unfortunately, inequalities have become even more obvious. And this should make us reflect, because it’s clear that these inequalities are not wanted by God, nor are they willed by human nature. They are due to the ill will of people who have not been able to manage correctly the gifts that God has given us all. We need to make up for these inequalities so as not to find ourselves, when the pandemic is over, in a worse state than we were before. Instead, we want to come out of this having gained from realising the need for equality and make programs that respect the equal dignity of all. Q: What about the church community? Maria Voce: For the church community, I feel this period has highlighted what is essential, because so many things have fallen by the wayside. We have seen that church walls are not essential but that living the Church as communion is essential. We’ve seen that going every day to visit Jesus in the sacrament of the Eucharist is not essential, but it is essential to love our neighbour; it is essential to answer with love to the people near us; it is essential to seek out inspiration for our lives from Jesus’ words in the Gospel. Many things have fallen away even on an ecclesial level. However, this has done us nothing but good, because it spurs us towards the rebirth of which Pope Francis continually speaks, to the resurrection and the completely new start we can make in truly reforming the Church in a vital way, not in an institutional or formal way. Q: Which of these essentials is most essential? Maria Voce: The most essential thing is to keep in mind that we are one human family. Being part of one human family must push us all to take care of each other and take care of creation, which is the only house this one human family is living in. We must care responsibly, attentively, precisely because Christianity makes us look at this reality also in a responsible way. We are all members of a family but we are all responsible for this family. Therefore, every person in this family is important; everyone has rights but they also have duties. There is a collective responsibility. I think this must push us to make proposals, to put forward programs, to see what can be done to truly include everyone. We must propose ways forward both in the economy and in politics, ways that can truly look to the common good, not to the good of one group or another, not to the interests of one side or the other but to the good of all. So proposals should be put forward that aim towards a communion of goods on a more universal level. Then the Church itself – and we too, in fact, as Focolare Movement – is universal, it has no boundaries. In a certain sense, the Church competes on equal terms with the virus. The virus is not afraid of borders but neither is the Church; the Church is universal because it is God’s family on earth. We must look to this, God’s family, to see how to make it truly be one family. We must see how to create structures that enable the integral development of all, which respect the history, culture and way of life of each people, without coercing them into developing according to our models or our plans. At the same time, we should make available to each other all the talents with which God has endowed every people, every culture and every person. We can make them available to each other so that all together we can make the world become a common home that is ever more beautiful and ever more worthy of being inhabited by the children of God. Q: Maria Voce, what reactions has this time brought about in Focolare Movement? How have you been reflecting on this? Maria Voce: The same reactions as everyone, in the sense that we too, from one day to the next, found ourselves not being able to organise our lives, neither personally nor as a Movement. So we had to change all our programs. It is an important year for us because it is the centenary year of Chiara Lubich’s birth. We have the General Assembly of the Movement planned for the month of September and several preparatory meetings for the Assembly were scheduled. All this ground to a halt from one moment to the next, from one day to the next, so we found ourselves completely unable to foresee, plan and think what could be done. Naturally, this was a shock. At the same time, Chiara Lubich taught us to live the present moment, wanting to do only what God asks us to do. Therefore we want nothing other than His will and to seek together – precisely by listening to each other and trying to understand the needs of all – to hear together what God wanted to tell us through this circumstance. In doing this, first of all we changed all the programs, thinking always not only of the needs of the people who were supposed to participate in the programs, but also of the needs of those who would perhaps suffer economic losses from the changes, who would experience upheavals; there were many things of this kind. We did this and did it joyfully, without letting ourselves be overwhelmed by the situation. And now we are seeing that it was all in God’s plan, because it has led us to greater simplicity in life, to reviewing our lifestyles, to a greater sense of moderation when deciding whether to buy something now or not. We have put off acquiring something we had planned to buy, delaying or deciding against it entirely in order to make that sum of money available for more immediate needs. It led us to seeing how all our families are and how they are coping at the moment. Many of our people, like others, have lost their jobs and don’t know how to manage. This has brought about a more complete, open and transparent communion of goods among all. So we have communicated more about the various needs but also about what Providence has sent us. Truly we can say that Providence has shown us once again that it is true, that it is a reality, that the Father sends what is needed to his children if his children want to live for him and in mutual love. So, in a way, he has given us the light to see the driving force that moves us, this love which is the love that God has placed in our hearts, not as focolarini but as people, as human beings. For us focolarini, this light takes on many colours because it becomes love that leads to unity, a love that enables us to give our lives for one another and risk everything. This really is something that has energised the Movement throughout the world. The Movement, like the Church, is also universal, so we suffered what our people in China were suffering, what those in America, the Middle East, everywhere, or in Italy were suffering. And we lived all these things together so that people who had more gave to those who had less. Aid has come from China, Korea, Japan, the Middle East and Syria. Maybe it was aid in terms of encouragement and good wishes, but everyone said that this great family that lives the Ideal left to us by our founder, Chiara Lubich, wants to be one. Through unity we want to help the world become one. From an interview with Alessandra Giacomucci for the Ecclesia (Radio InBlu) column, 8 May 2020
May 11, 2020 | Non categorizzato
“With the day of interreligious prayer on May 14th, the Higher Committee for Human Fraternity reminds us that the current pandemic has marked a point of no return: our future will be secure only by looking to the common good, not to the good of one group or another, not to the interests of one side or another but to the good of all.” Thus, Maria Voce, president of the Focolare Movement, affirmed the Movement’s full participation in the day of prayer for humanity, which was proclaimed also by Pope Francis on Sunday, May 3rd, asking that: “On this coming 14th May, believers of all religions should unite spiritually for a day of prayer, fasting, and works of charity, to implore God to help humanity overcome the coronavirus pandemic.” “We are one big family – Maria Voce added – formed by Christians, by believers of various religious traditions, together with people without specifically religious beliefs. I encourage everyone to live Thursday, May 14th, in a spirit of prayer – according to their respective faiths and traditions – of fasting and concrete commitment to help those close to us, especially the weakest and marginalized. We will do this at the local level, as every community deems best, always abiding by the directives in force, and in a spirit of true and effective fraternity.” “We are certain that the prayers lifted up to God by his sons and daughters will be heard, for the good of the great family of humankind; and that the trial we are all experiencing will truly make us stronger in the shared pilgrimage of life.”
Stefania Tanesini
May 11, 2020 | Non categorizzato
Our relationship with nature, whether as individuals, organisations or nations, is ever more the focus of attention. We have a duty to protect the environment and repair the damage already done. The pandemic we are currently experiencing has highlighted this duty of ours and also given the natural world some breathing space. Chiara Lubich’s spiritual experience leads us to the One who is at the root of all things: God. … While taking a short break, I watched a documentary on nature. Unlike some other TV programmes, that film had a great effect on my soul. Contemplating the immensity of the universe, the extraordinary beauty and power of nature, my mind rose spontaneously to the Creator of it all, giving me a new understanding of the immensity of God. It made such a new and strong impression on me that I felt like falling on my knees to adore, praise, and glorify God. I felt a need to do that, as though it were my vocation in that moment. It was as if my eyes had been opened, to understand as never before who it is that we have chosen as our ideal; or rather, who has chosen us. I saw God as so great and so immense that it seemed impossible he should think of us. This impression of God’s immensity stayed with me for several days. Now, when I pray, “Hallowed be thy name,” or “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,” it’s different for me: it has become a need of the heart. … We are all on a journey. When people are travelling, they are already thinking of the place they will be in on their arrival and getting ready to be in that environment or that city. We need to do the same. Up there in heaven will we be praising God? Then let’s start praising him right now. Let our hearts cry out with all our love to God and proclaim him, with the angels and saints: … “Holy, holy, holy.” Let our heart and our lips tell his praises. Let’s take the opportunity to revive some of our daily prayers which have this purpose. Let’s give God glory also with our whole being. We know that the more we empty ourselves (imitating Jesus Forsaken who made himself nothing) the more our lives cry out that God is everything, and in this way we praise him, glorify him and adore him. When we do this, our “old self” dies and out of its death the “new self” comes to life, the new creation. During the day let’s be on the lookout for many opportunities to adore God and praise him. Let’s do it during our meditation [or other prayer times]. …Let us praise him beyond nature or in the depths of our hearts. Above all, let’s live dead to ourselves and alive to the will of God, to love of neighbour. May we too, as Elizabeth of the Trinity used to say, be “praise of his glory.” In this way we shall have a foretaste of Heaven and make up for the indifference to God in so many hearts living in the world today.
Chiara Lubich
(Form a telephone conference call, Rocca di Papa, 22nd January 1987)
May 10, 2020 | Non categorizzato
Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity sent a video message for United World Week 2020. In these difficult times we’re living through, marked by the corona virus crisis, many people are confined to their own homes and forced to live in quarantine. The very word “quarantine” brings to mind the forty days of Lent, rather than the celebration of Easter. And in fact our liturgical services, particularly the most important Holy Week and Easter liturgies were affected by government bans and so took place behind closed doors in churches without the presence of the faithful and transmitted via streaming. This out-of-the-ordinary experience has brought to my mind a detail in the biblical account of Easter more vividly than I’ve ever experienced in the past. The evangelist John opens his account of the apparition of the Risen Christ to his disciples with the words, “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews …” (Jn 20:19). Even though the Lord had already risen and was on his way to his disciples, they were still living Holy Saturday, as is evident from their fear and those closed doors. To this place, beleaguered by fear, Jesus comes and radically changes the situation, as the Gospel highights. “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord” (Jn 20:20). Joy is the visible expression of the fact that Holy Saturday is transformed into Easter. And today too, in this moment afflicted by the corona virus crisis, we can rejoice because we know that the Lord does not leave us alone in our fears and worries, but he comes among us and gives us his presence and precious company. Christ is always among us, especially when we await his coming. Chiara Lubich never tired of repeating this message to us. When Jesus comes among us, he brings us a gift. It’s the same gift he brought to his disciples that Easter night. The Gospel narrates how Jesus came among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Peace is the first gift Jesus gave to his disciples after his resurrection. Peace is the true gift of Easter. Peace is the gift Jesus offers to us as well. It’s a peace we human beings are not able to create on our own; we can only receive it as a gift. Nevertheless, it’s the most important kind of peace, and all other forms of peace we aspire to are but reflections of that peace. In fact, only the peace that comes from Christ can give us the unity we desire so much: unity in our communities, in our Church, among all Christians and in the whole of humanity. Naturally, this peace cannot remain closed in on itself. The Gospel narrative continues after the greeting of peace, with Jesus telling his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn 20:21).These words are also addressed to us. We too are called to transmit to others the peace we receive from Christ. In this way, particularly for those living in fear and anxiety, Holy Saturday can again be transformed into Easter. In this time of trial due to the corona virus, your motto “In Time For Peace” is true and indispensable. My heartfelt wish for a joyful and peaceful Eastertime for all of you. May the Risen Lord of Peace bless and protect you!
Kurt Cardinale Koch
May 9, 2020 | Non categorizzato
The testimony of those who are on the front lines and those who stay at home: many ways of living for others. https://vimeo.com/402903328
