CONGO – it’s possible to beat an epidemic
Testimony from Congo after difficult months fighting the Ebola virus. https://vimeo.com/402904193
Believers and non-believers in dialogue – PART 2
The Focolare’s Movement’s ‘universal vocation’ to build universal fraternity without distinction of race, religion, social or economic status. Part two of our interview with self-declared ‘non-believer’, Luciana Scalacci, member of the International and Italian Commissions of the Focolare’s Center of Dialogue with people of non-religious convictions. As a non-believer, how did you come across the Focolare? What impact did it have on you? One day our daughter wrote that she’d found a place where she could put into practice the values we had passed on to her. She had met the Focolare community in Arezzo. We’d never heard of the Movement and were naturally rather concerned. So we went along to see what it was all about. Immediately we had the impression of being in a place where other people’s ideas were treated with respect. We found a rare kind of openness among the people there. Meeting the Focolare Movement was like a light which allowed me to hope again in the possibility of building a better world. You met Chiara Lubich several times. How important has this personal relationship been for you? In an open meeting in 2000, Chiara answered one of my questions saying, “for us too, humanity has the solution for humanity. But precisely who in humanity? For us, it’s Jesus, the man Jesus. So take him for yourselves too, because he’s one of you, he’s a man”. That’s when I understood the Focolare Movement was a place where I could be active. I also understood why, even as a non-believer, I’ve always been fascinated by the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. As this dialogue has progressed over the years, how have you moved from a “them” and “us” to feeling united together in “us”? Our initial scepticism is the first thing to overcome. On our side, as non-believers, there’s the fear that it’s all aimed at proselytizing us. On the side of the believers, I think there may be a concern that we’ll try to shake their certainties and their faith. The only one who never had any kind of worry about it was Chiara herself! We’ve increasingly experienced that the one great resource for advancing towards the goal of universal fraternity is dialogue. Gradually we’ve established trust between both “sides”, until we no longer feel “them and us” but “united in us”. How do you find young people responding to this option of dialogue? Not all young people are well informed about such openness towards those who don’t adhere to any religious faith. But those who’ve had the opportunity of getting to know about it show a real interest in this reality. After meeting us recently, one girl wrote, “I see this dialogue like a face in a precious diamond, entrusted to us by Chiara … let’s be sure to keep it shining!” Click here to read Part 1 of the interview
Claudia Di Lorenzi
Impossible without you! In dialogue with those who do not believe in God – PART 1
Building a united world without distinction of race, religion, social or economic status. “As a new Movement within the Church, we have a universal vocation. In fact our motto is ‘May they all be one’. We can’t do this without you, because this ‘all’ includes you. Otherwise we cut ourselves off from a third if not half of the world. How can we exclude all these while at the same time saying ‘May they all be one’!” This is how Focolare foundress, Chiara Lubich in May 1995 explained why her Movement was reaching out to dialogue with people who do not acknowledge any religious faith. We talk to 73-year-old Luciana Scalacci, from Abbadia San Salvatore, Italy. A self-declared ‘non-believer’, she is a member of the Italian and International Commissions for the Focolare’s Center of Dialogue with people of non-religious convictions. The Focolare Movement’s interest in dialoguing with people who have non-religious convictions goes back a long way. What are the most significant steps? The Focolare’s Center for Dialogue with ‘non-believers’ was opened in 1978. A year later, for the first time, people of non-religious convictions participated in a conference organized by the Focolare. Chiara encouraged the whole Movement to embrace a new openness towards ‘non-believers’, maintaining that as we’re all ‘sinners’, we can embark on a common journey of liberation to build universal fraternity together. In 1992 the Center organized its first international convention, entitled “Together to build a united world”. Chiara told us, “Your participation in our Movement is essential for us. Without you (as without its other parts) it would lose its true identity”. A second convention followed in 1994. At that meeting, Chiara affirmed, “our goal is to contribute towards the unity of all, starting from Love for every single person. Therefore we’ll try to see how strong the aspiration for universal fraternity and unity is among humanity at all levels”. After Chiara’s death in 2008, Maria Voce, as President, confirmed on various occasions that people with non-religious convictions are an essential part of the Movement. In the 1970s it was quite unusual for a Christian-inspired movement to open its doors to ‘non-believers’. Why do you think they did this? For the unity of the human race. To make the goal “May they all be one” more solid, because a united world can only be built with others, not despite or against them! What are the foundations needed to build a dialogue between ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’? The existence of common values, like fraternity, solidarity, justice, help for the poor. We also share an understanding that we all have a personal conscience, which permits us to reflect on these values on our own and also together in a collective way, so they become a shared patrimony for everyone. What difficulties have you encountered along the way? To engage in dialogue when holding very different positions is not always easy. Connecting together to achieve something practical is simpler, because action doesn’t distinguish between colour, religion or ideas. The difficulties start when you move from action to values, to ideologies, to the super-structures. At this point, dialogue can risk running aground. But this hasn’t happened. Chiara has challenged both believers and us ‘friends’ to open ourselves up as much as possible, not as an ‘act of charity’ but to enrich and be enriched as we journey together towards a better world.
Claudia Di Lorenzi
Doctor balances faith, work in coronavirus hotspot
Gabriela Bambrick-Santoyo is an Internal Medicine physician. She was born and raised in Mexico City and has been an active and committed member of the Focolare community since 1987. She currently works as an Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine department in a hospital in northern New Jersey, currently a hotspot in the current COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Here is an excerpt of the interview made by cruxnow.com Gabriela, can you say something about how your Catholic faith and Focolare spirituality informs your calling to a be a physician? My calling as a Catholic and part of the Focolare movement and my vocation as a physician are inseparable. I was born Catholic and I found the Focolare movement when I was about eighteen. This encounter changed my life because it was the first time, I was pushed to concretely live the gospel of “love your neighbor as yourself.” This profoundly changed me and has been what has guided my actions, both as a person and as a physician. What has it been like to be on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic in a hotspot in New Jersey? It has put my faith to fiery tests. Especially the fear of death. It becomes a very real possibility when you see so much death around you. Once you say yes to the calling that we all have as Christians to lay our lives down for others the graces come pouring in and out of you! They really do! I also had to ask myself what it meant to “love others as yourself” in this COVID pandemic. When I first started seeing patients, I was full of fear. I wanted to go in quickly…and leave the room as quickly as possible. Then a twist: my daughter, a healthy 18-year-old, was hospitalized with COVID. During the evenings, she would call me crying from her hospital room saying “Mom, I have lost all my dignity. I need to go to the bathroom, and they won’t let me out. They don’t want to come in and keep pushing me back into my room and at some point I thought I was going to have to go to the bathroom on the floor.” That just crushed me, Charlie, and it made me wonder if I was doing something similar to my patients. At that point I resolved to change to fully give my life to my patients, to pour out more mercy and never let them feel abandoned. It must be so hard to deal with death on the level you’ve had to see it during the last few weeks. It is so difficult for the rest of us to even imagine it. That’s true, but at times there are graces too. One of my patients was a very sick 91-year-old that essentially knew she was going to die from COVID-19 and was at peace about it. My act of mercy consisted in being there in the last moments of her life. In spending time not only with my patient but also with her family over the phone. I will never forget when I told her that her family loved her very much and that they were at peace and they know you are ready and she just squeezed my hand. That is mercy. I had another patient with whom I had what I call “the double whammy” situation. Besides being a COVID patient, he was very aggressive, not completely stable and stated he would punch me if I did not do X or Y. It took two or three moments to remind myself that this person is also a child of God and that I needed to look on him with patience, love and mercy. Once he saw this in my eyes his anger began to evaporate. On his way to being admitted to a different ward, he turned to me, smiled and said, “You and [nurse X] have been the only ones that have taken the time to explain things to me.” What difference does your robust prayer life and theological commitments make for how you practice medicine under these circumstances? Prayer has been a central pillar of my life and has allow me to get through this crisis. It is in prayer that I find peace and solace. It is in prayer that I find myself in God. Lastly, I participate in weekly meetings (zoom meetings) with my Focolare community. All those things together are the armor I count on to live through this crisis. Here you read the full interview: https://cruxnow.com/interviews/2020/04/doctor-balances-faith-work-in-coronavirus-hotspot/
Prefer the least
One of the many consequences of the coronavirus in all countries, but especially in the poorest ones, is to have taken away the means of subsistence from many people who had insecure or casual jobs. At this time, therefore, it has become even more important to look around and take the most varied initiatives for the benefit of those in need. This is Gospel: Jesus is there, in the least, waiting for us. … Jesus has a preference for the poor, for the “least”. After Peter had denied him three times[1], Jesus asked him the same question three times, “Do you love me more than these?” To Peter’s first affirmative reply, Jesus said, “Feed my lambs”. Instead, to the other two replies, he said, “Tend my sheep”. According to bible scholars, by “lambs” he meant the little ones, the poor, and the needy; whereas by “sheep” he meant everyone else.[2] In this way, Jesus showed his option for the poor long before many bishops, for example, especially in developing countries, formulated and put forward this option. Besides, we know that Jesus came to evangelize the poor.[3] He said so clearly, “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”[4] While Jesus had already demonstrated this preference with words and works while he was living on earth, his Spirit has very frequently instilled it, down through the centuries, in those who would become his instruments for many, like St Francis, for example, St Philip Neri, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Camillus de Lellis and so on. It was the same for us. At the beginning of the Movement, when we were still at home with our families, the charism drew our attention first of all to the “least” of those around us: the poor, the sick, the wounded, prisoners, the homeless, the elderly, and children. And later on, in the first focolare in Piazza Cappuccini, to those who were the “least” among us. We tried to solve the first problem (the least around us) through works of charity, which were the seeds of the many social actions and works that would begin in later years; and the second (the least among us) through the communion of goods among all of us. Later on, we felt urged to look at everyone, to love every neighbor as ourselves, whether or not that person was one of the least of our neighbors, and to love one another. Now this way of living is so deeply inculcated in everyone that it has become the basic life-style of the whole Movement. But during this recent period … we have been reminded anew to give first place in our hearts to the “least” of our neighbors. How can we put this into practice? Above all, by looking with special attention to those among us who could be the least and by meeting every need through a freely given but intense communion of goods, extended to the Movement throughout the world. … And then by looking around us. … A motto? A question for our hearts: “Have I preferred today, among all my neighbors, those who were most in need?”
Chiara Lubich
(From a telephone conference call, Rocca di Papa, 27th June 1991) [1] Cf. Jn 18:15-27. [2] Cf. Jn 21:15-17. [3] Cf. Mt 11:5 [4] Mt 25:40.
Coronavirus – distant but united
Supportive actions, mutual help, prayer and sharing generated by the Focolare communities all over the world. https://vimeo.com/402904028