7 Apr 2020 | Non categorizzato
Their live streaming sessions from Loppiano keep alive the hope that fraternity can reach everywhere. Their new single is coming out any day now. During the Coronavirus emergency, we all need to stay home as much as possible. Gen Rosso, the international performing arts group began live streaming from their home on March 20th.Here we report a short interview with Tomek Mikusinski, spokesman for the group. 
How did the idea of live streaming come about? “It began because we wanted other people to know that we are close to them during this time – close to the people who are giving their own lives each day as they try to save others and close to the thousands of people we have met at our concerts. We also wanted to share something positive and beautiful during this time of almost total isolation. I think that all of us, at least once, will have asked ourselves: ‘Why is this happening?’ It’s not easy to give answers, but we have sung ‘We believe in love’ so many times. We believe that love is behind everything that is happening.” Your broad and varied audience confirms the universality of your message. “The essence of our message is love, unity and a culture of sharing. It is a message that has no labels, it’s universal and everyone can understand it. We would like the people who watch us to experience the good and the longing for happiness and unity that there is in each one of us.” Your audience interacts with you a lot during streaming: which message has impressed you the most? “We get a lot of messages from people who work in hospitals: here are three of them. ‘I work in Covid Resuscitation. Our faces scarred by the masks, our eyes are our only recognisable feature and we no longer have timetable to follow but we are not giving up.. Please continue to bring us joy. My colleagues and I promise you that we will do all we can and persevere to the end.’ ‘A huge thank you to Gen Rosso. I saw them today before I left for my shift at the hospital here in Asti. It was a breath of fresh air for my soul.’ ‘I’m a Covid ICU nurse and I listen to your CD in the car on the way to work. It gives me the energy and inner peace to get through the shift… Thank you!’ Your new single “NOW” is coming out: can you give us a foretaste? How did it begin and what is it about? “Actually it’s not just a single, we’re planning a whole new album but we want to release it song by song over the next two years. ‘NOW is a song that blends the most current electro pop sounds with the vintage sounds of the funky 70s. The lyrics of the song, in English, express our belief that even if we make serious mistakes, we can always start again, because the voice of God-the-Father who is Love can be heard. On April 15th the single ‘NOW’ will be released on the most popular digital stores like Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, etc.”. The next live streaming appointment is April 8th 2020, at 16:00, Italian time, with some songs and special greetings on the @YouTube channel. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17WFM3tos4&feature=youtu.be Don’t miss us! #Distantiuniti
Lorenzo Russo
6 Apr 2020 | Non categorizzato
Dialogue with Vincenzo Buonomo, Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University; Luigino Bruni, an economist; Amy Uelmen, a lawyer and professor at Georgetown University. https://vimeo.com/402934400
4 Apr 2020 | Non categorizzato
In these times of the coronavirus, often it is no longer possible for us to visit relatives, friends or acquaintances that we know are in need. The media seem to be the only way to express our concrete love. The following text shows us another way in which we can respond. It is wise to spend the time we have by living God’s will to the full in the present moment. Sometimes, however, we worry about the past or the future. We are concerned about situations or people for whom we cannot do anything at the moment. This is when it becomes difficult to steer the ship of our lives. It takes great effort to keep to the course that God wishes us to have in that particular moment. At such times we need strong willpower, determination, and especially trust in God, sometimes to a heroic degree. “Can I do nothing to resolve a certain complex situation or for a dear person who is sick or in danger? Then I will concentrate on doing well what God wants from me in the present: study, homemaking, prayer, taking care of the children … God will take care of the rest. He will comfort the suffering and show a way out of that entangled situation”. This way the task is being done by two in perfect communion. It demands from us great faith in God’s love for his children. And in turn it gives God a chance to trust that we do our part. This mutual trust works miracles. We will realize that Another has accomplished what we could not do, and that he has done it far better than we could have. Then our trust will be rewarded. Our limited life acquires a new dimension: we feel near the infinite for which we yearn. Our faith invigorates and gives our love new strength. We will know loneliness no longer. Since we have experienced it, we will be more deeply aware of being children of a God, who is a Father and who can do everything.
Chiara Lubich
Taken from: Here and Now, New City Press, 2005
3 Apr 2020 | Non categorizzato
How the many children who are members of the Focolare Movement are living this moment of global emergency. A new website designed for them goes online. “We have to stay at home at the moment, but we have a secret to stay happy: loving. So every morning we throw the dice and do what it says”. Gen 4, children who are members of the Focolare Movement, are not giving up. Even in isolation, they start each day with their ‘dice of love’. Each of the six sides bears one point of the ‘art of loving’ and they try to live it during the day. In some cities, the Gen 4 boys and girls have been busy writing letters and cards offering help to the older residents in their apartment blocks. They’ve drawn their parents into the activity too. “None of our neighbours has actually asked us for practical help,” explained one mother, “but it’s been a great opportunity to get to know each other and they’ve all been calling us to say thank you”. “What if some of the children here don’t have as many toys as we do?” reflected Niccolò and Margherita, two Italian Gen 4. So they filled a box and left it in the hallway of their apartment block, with a sign saying: “Ciao! We found these toys at home and we’re not using them. You can take them if you like and keep them. Courage!” While it may be true that “home” in these times is coming to signify “limits”, in Rome the Gen 4 have welcomed a proposal to build their own small houses out of cardboard and fill them with accounts of their acts of love. As the cardboard houses fill up with notes and pictures, the adults confined with them are learning how everyone can fill their home with small acts of love. The Gen 4 are present all over the world. As the pandemic spreads to all countries, it’s natural for them to feel solidarity with those who are suffering the most. Two Gen 4 in Asia sent a video-greeting with the image of a rainbow, as they called out “Courage Italy!”. Another greeting from Africa encouraged everyone “We can get through this together!” Alongside the children, Focolare animators are actively accompanying them through this delicate period. From Brazil to Congo, new ideas are springing into action. In Bilbao, Spain, they wrote, “We had the idea of holding meetings for the Gen 4 and their families every week via the web. We share how we are living this new situation, highlighting our acts of love. We encourage each other by promising to pray for peace, for the sick and for all who are suffering”. A group in Portugal is preparing a video about each Sunday’s Gospel reading which they share on social media every week. Being part of a network is proving valuable at this time. And a new website (https://gen4.focolare.org/en/) from the international Gen 4 Centre has just gone online, for children and their educators, offering material and formation programs in the Focolare spirituality, designed for this age group. The timing is significant. On 29 March 1972, Chiara Lubich gave life to the Gen 4, as the youngest generation of the Focolare Movement. A few years later, comparing the whole Movement to a large tree, she defined the Gen 4 as “the buds of the tree. (…) Something so very precious, very precious. It is the very future of the tree” .
Anna Lisa Innocenti
2 Apr 2020 | Non categorizzato
Gen Verde live streaming from Loppiano… #distantimauniti Riccardo, Anna, Cristian, Paola … the list is unending. They are just some of the over 4,000 fans who watched Gen Verde live streaming directly from their home last week. This is not the time for concerts, as public gatherings are banned, yet some questions just keep coming back to haunt us: how can we support those who are lonely, or are in the front line facing this pandemic, to be bearers of peace and of hope where we all are right now? This is where the idea of “Gen Verde from Home” was born: no longer live from town squares and concert halls but the living room at home. The instruments are there: a guitar, a keyboard, a flute, microphones and … a computer helping us reach the homes of all those who connect. But this is not a concert, it is quite an extraordinary appointment: we sing, we tell real life experiences, we present the fruits of the creativity born of this moment and … as Hans Christian Andersen wrote, ‘Where words fail… music speaks.’ In real time everyone from home can express a thought, send a message and literally the chat explodes and it is impossible to contain the gratitude and enthusiasm of those connected from all 5 continents. Nobody is missing from the roll call: from Argentina to Korea, from Canada to Hungary, from Italy to Australia. Suddenly, through the miracle of technology, the living room open to so many at the same time becomes an intimate place where singing and praying are synonyms, where celebrating a birthday and remembering those who have lost the battle against COVID-19 take on the same importance and everything is a gift of love. “Recently – Colomba says – I have heard a lot of news, not only from TV, but also from our neighbours, family and friends. Unfortunately, it is often quite painful news. I feel so much fear, worry, and an almost overwhelming sense of helplessness … of not being able to do anything for those who suffer. And I ask myself “why? and for how long?” In the past few days, one morning, while cleaning the house, I heard a voice speaking within: “be at peace, if you do small things well with love where you are, this is a contribution to support humanity”. A simple experience for Colomba who, like the other women of Gen Verde, seeks a meaning to stay at home, to deal with household chores like so many women all over the world. “Since that day the situation has not changed much – Colomba continues – but I can change my attitude by believing that this can change the world”. Here then is the recipe for transforming the 4 walls of the house (which sometimes appear very narrow) into a living room wide open for all humanity, a recipe to try and live. And Colomba is already at work and between a phone call and housework her experience has become music … and it is ready to be shared during the live streaming April 3 at 4pm (Italian time). An opportunity not to be missed. Just connect by clicking on https://youtu.be/NLsPTyuITu0
Tiziana Nicastro
30 Mar 2020 | Non categorizzato
Fraternity, tenderness and creativity: the right ingredients to face the coronavirus emergency, with thousands of experiences of love for others Struck particularly hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, Italy is experiencing one of its greatest ordeals since World War II. Despite this, Italians are facing it with countless gestures of solidarity, fraternity and tenderness. “At the beginning I was afraid of contagion, so I was very quick in my nursing duties,” writes I.V., a nurse in the ward for patients testing positive for Covid-19 in the province of Naples. “A patient asked me for a coffee from the machine. At first I told him I couldn’t. But then, by involving a colleague, we found two coffee machines for all the patients.” Having to stay at home changed life for Salvo and Enza’s family in Viareggio, with their children Emanuele and Marco. “Until a few days ago,” says Enza, “the children, taken by so many commitments, could barely say a quick hello to their sick and bedridden grandmother. Now they stop more and try to help me, even just by giving her a glass of water. At lunch and dinner we have more time to talk and to laugh, too.” 
In Lucca, Paolo and Daniela offered to do the shopping for all their neighbours, and they donated some masks too. Also in Lucca, Rosa and Luigi, a young couple of teachers with two children, all at home at the moment, lent their car to a family with a serious financial situation. In Siena, Giada and Francesca offered their services as babysitters for the children of nurses living near home to support them. In Pisa, Carla and Giacomo prepared food for some families near home, while in Arezzo there was a race of solidarity between Rosanna, Rita and Mario to support two people who cannot go out, through shopping and preparing meals. In Latina, in order to support her young colleagues away from home and forced into isolation, Barbara began to record videos to share her recipes. They thanked her very much, because by doing this she makes them feel at home, like family. Emanuele and Simonetta from Sardinia have been in quarantine for two weeks with their three children. “It immediately seemed to us an opportunity to build deep relationships as a family,” they write. “Since we came into contact with the virus, we started sharing our experiences in a chat group with other people who are experiencing the same suffering. “One day some of them needed food. Since we couldn’t do the shopping ourselves, we found another couple who immediately were able to provide. And we realized that we should never give up when faced with someone else’s needs.” “In my work in the cardiology intensive care unit, I found myself with a young patient who had a complicated heart attack,” says Orsolina, a nurse from Sicily. “In her eyes I saw fear and despair, because she did not have the comfort of her family and small children with her. “I felt that I could be her family. So I helped her with her personal hygiene, thinking about what I would have wanted if I were in her place – making her bed just right, fixing her hair. Her eyes changed, and we felt a great joy together. At that moment we were a family.” In Rome, Mascia, Mario and their son Samuel are discovering that “this virus, as well as reminding us that we are all interconnected, is giving us the opportunity to appreciate small things, to put family and affection first, to give free rein to creativity against the frenetic schedules and rhythms we are used to.” As class representative, Masha is looking for the best way to love families and teachers, keeping relationships vibrant through online chats and phone calls. As Focolare’s co-president, Jesús Morán, said a few days ago: “This is truly a moment of wisdom… It leads to an awareness of reality enlightened by love and… triggers a formidable movement of fraternity. “Truly God can do exceptional things, even in the midst of evil. He defeats it with his plan of love.”
Lorenzo Russo
