31 Jul 2019 | Non categorizzato
“What do you think?”, “What would you do if you were me?” People often ask for our help, or we realise they need it, and we are convinced that to help a friend, a brother, a person, we need to “do” something. In the book “Meditations”, a collection of Chiara Lubich’s very first spiritual writings, we find a few lines where she invites us to change our perspective and aim at the life of God in us. Thus, our love for all others would be His love and not ours. There are those who do things ‘for love’. There are those who do things trying to ‘be Love’. Someone who does things ‘for love’ may do them well, but thinking for example that they are doing a great service for their neighbour, who is sick for instance, they may annoy them with their chatter, their advice and their help. Such charity is burdensome and not to the point. Poor thing! They may gain merit, but the other person gains a burden. That is why we must ‘be Love’. Our destiny is like that of the stars: if they revolve, they are; if they do not, they are not. We are, in the sense that not our own life but the life of God lives in us, if we do not stop loving for one moment. Love places us in God and God is Love. But Love, which is God, is light and with the light we see whether our way of approaching and serving our neighbour is according to the heart of God, as our neighbour would wish to be, as they would dream of it being if they had beside them not us, but Jesus.
Chiara Lubich
Text adapted from Meditations, New City London, Dublin, 1989, p. 45
30 Jul 2019 | Non categorizzato
Does it still make sense to work for fraternity in politics? A pact for the brotherhood of peoples, originally drawn up 60 years ago, will be renewed on August 10 at the European Mariapolis. We spoke with Marco Titli from the Focolare’s Movement for Unity in Politics. Echoes from the war could still be heard back on August 22, 1959. Yet at the end of the Mariapolis that was being held in the Primiero Valley that year, representatives of the five continents came together and established a pact of unity. Praying in nine languages, they consecrated their own peoples to Mary, affirming that fraternity was truly possible. Sixty years later, descending to the current political climate, the idea of a pact of unity for the brotherhood of peoples seems utopian – both because it comes from a low point (as it did in 1959) and because it would need to come from governments themselves. Do we need to resign ourselves – or does it even make sense – to work for political fraternity? We discussed it with Marco Titli, 33, who works in parliament and is active in the Movement for Unity in Politics, a district councillor in Turin. What message does the European Mariapolis give to a Europe that is divided between integrating and special interests? “The role of the Mariapolis is not to enter into political debate. The message that we hope to give is that the unity of Europe is a value worth safeguarding, while respecting each country’s individual identity. If Europe breaks up, we end up back to defending borders. Instead, it is bridges and roads that widen our perspectives and bring well-being. The Focolare is part of a network of other efforts in the Church, such as actions against arms exports to Yemen, or combatting against problem gambling.” There is a crisis of trust towards political parties that has exacerbated, and citizens step back from active participation. How can we rebuild trust? “Alongside the political crisis I also see another in the media, which spotlights bad news. Many mayors risk their lives fighting against organised crime and risk their reputations accomplishing brave things for their cities. At the national level as well, there are politicians who fight for the common good. If you look beyond the political apathy, there are many great people in politics today.” Holding fast to your ideals can sometimes mean making someone else unhappy. How do you decide on which actions to take in politics? “In politics, you need to be ready to compromise. We live in complex situations. But not just any compromise – when faced with illegal activities or serious incidents you need to be able to say no. That means you need to take risks. Many public servants have fallen because they said no and were not even understood by their own constituencies. Yet if you shun compromise and go into politics to defend your ideas, you bring division. It is a hard road, and there can be opposition, but a politician is called to listen to special interests and then compose a mosaic with them.” Can you tell us about collaborative efforts between parties in your city? “We were building a bridge near the Porta Susa station in Turin, which joins two parts of the city that were once divided. Together with others in my district and those on the other side of the bridge, I proposed that we name the structure after the European Union, a symbol of unity between different peoples. The project was unanimously approved, and a number of political groups attended the naming ceremony. It was a moment of hope, and my wish is that signs like this can build citizens’ trust towards politics.”
Claudia Di Lorenzi
Immagine:© Ufficio stampa Mariapoli Europea
29 Jul 2019 | Non categorizzato
Young writer Andrea Cardinali shares about the fourth Harmony Among Peoples summer camp for kids, held in the Holy Land in July. This story is both his personal experience and that of a country which, perhaps more than many others, has the ability to touch the soul. There are trips that leave you relaxed because they’re holidays, others that you need to take days to rest and recover from. Then there are trips that when you come back you ask yourself, “Where was I?” 
Sometimes you live everything so intensely that there’s no time to question – that stage when people ask themselves about why things are, where things are headed, and the meaning of it all. That’s not necessarily bad – quite the contrary. This can particularly happen when you spend most of your time with children who have yet to understand that they are “prisoners” in their own birthplace, Palestine. And the fact that there is no time to question is not a symptom of a lack of reflection. Some trips, perhaps the greatest ones, work like that—you say a somewhat ignorant “yes”, take off and go all in to the full adventure. You can’t even think of what it might mean from outside looking in; you are so beyond yourself that you go through it and find meaning within.
I was in Palestine for 18 days, having been dragged there by Antonella Lombardo and the brilliant girls from the Dance Lab at Montecatini School (Italy), some of whom I had met at the unforgettable “Let’s Bridge” Genfest in 2012. “Harmony Among Peoples” began in 2005, with the idea to use art and dance as tools to unite peoples and cultures. After various editions in Italy and workshops with youth from a number of countries, some years ago the “Children Without Borders” project began, thanks to a collaboration with Father Ibrahim Faltas. This summer the fourth edition was held in Palestine, and I was the newest addition to this band of artist-educators. Together with Luca Aparo of Sportmeet, we also took a sports angle. We know that sports are just as important to learn how to enjoy while respecting all kinds of diversity. After two weeks of artistic workshops we opened with the children on July 14 at the Notre Dame Theatre in Jerusalem, and on July 16 at the John Paul II Foundation in Bethlehem. It showed the historical meeting between St. Francis of Assisi and the Sultan of Egypt, Malik Al-Kamil, which happened 800 years ago in 1219. To enhance the two evenings, singer Milad Fatouleh also performed with us. He is known in Italy for Una stella a Betlemme, which was voted best foreign song at the 2004 Zecchino d’Oro. There were many political and religious figures who attended the two shows, which celebrated the meeting between Christianity and Islam. It was a prophetic sign of interreligious dialogue and possible peace.
Andrea Cardinali
28 Jul 2019 | Non categorizzato
The present and future challenges of humanity in the light of Chiara Lubich’s intuitions and experiences of summer 1949. The theologian Hubertus Blaumeiser relates about the recent Abbà School seminar held at Tonadico (Trent, Italy). Who are we? How do we achieve our fulfillment? What relationship do we have with others? What are our goals and what about our roots? Today, these questions are being asked with a new urgency, because, scientifically, man can appear to be simply the result of evolution, determined by his genes and brain activity, and because he can be empowered by new technologies, and also manipulated by them. Today, these questions present a certain emergency because masses of people are compelled to flee from their countries or forced to experience the poverty of slums, and man’s interventions may risk to compromise the planet’s state of affairs. These very complex challenges cannot be tackled in a sectoral way; they need new approaches, they need “light”. The 65 scholars, who met at Tonadico, on the Dolomites, from the 14 to 16 July, are fully convinced of this. They got together for a seminar that involved the “Abba School” (the interdisciplinary centre of studies of the Focolare Movement), the “Sophia” University Institute (Loppiano, Italy) and the “Chiara Lubich Centre”. What was the objective of these scholars engaged in about twenty academic disciplines? While putting aside ideas that might have led to the expectation of rapid conclusions, they aimed at avenues of research that could be followed together. Place and time offered the perfect setting: Chiara Lubich and the first nucleus of the Focolare Movement were in this same mountainous spot exactly 70 years ago when a period of overwhelming experiences and insights started. While being led to feel enraptured in God, Lubich and her companions discovered that they were looking at the world not from “above” or “below”, but from “within”, if one can say so. This experience left an indelible mark on them, and it was decisive for the Movement’s development. Later on, one realized that it was also a source of light for new cultural developments in the whole range of scientific disciplines. The vision of the human being that emerged from this seminar was varied yet convergent. Piero Coda, the Dean of the Sophia University Institute, spoke about the need of further development in universal, “panchosmic and pan-human” self-awareness, quoting Chiara Lubich: “my ego is humanity, with all men who were, are and will be”. While speaking about a vision of man and society that is not at all static, Anouk Grevin, the French economist who is a scholar in the dynamics of giving, said: “Giving and receiving are both based on the ability of discovering myself in the other person, of owning all that is his, in such a way that we can communicate fully and receive one another totally “. Whilst referring to environmental issues, the political scientist Pasquale Ferrara and the nature scientist Sergio Rondinara indicated that: “World politics adopt an anthropocentric view of the globe, while the socio-natural dimension of our planet’s life still remains in the shadow”. Urgent is the need to move from a “despotic” anthropocentrism and pass on to “an anthropology that is not hegemonic but oblatory”. In his comment at the end of the seminar, Fabio Ciardi, the coordinator of the Abbà School said: “As the hours went by, we delved deeper into the realities of existence. We need to move ahead: we must work in our own field and confront with the other disciplines”. Jesús Morán, co-president of the Focolare, indicated a twofold task: an adequate hermeneutics of the charism of unity and “the service to humanity, addressing at least some of the most important issues of our time”.
Hubertus Blaumeiser
25 Jul 2019 | Non categorizzato
Travelling from Damascus to Aleppo, you go through Homs. We saw for ourselves what is happening there: the rebuilding and the people’s determination to go back to a normal life in a country where the war is not yet over and rubble blocks roads and hinders lives. We saw what the Focolare is doing through projects run by the Action for a United World (AMU) and the New Families Association (AFN). https://vimeo.com/343238660
23 Jul 2019 | Non categorizzato
An interview with Lucia Abignente, co-author with Giovanni Delama of ‘A Golden City’, the story of the first Mariapoli, to be published by Città Nuova in September. The first Mariapolis happened 70 years ago in the Dolomites in the Trentino province of northern Italy. It was the summer of 1949 and Chiara Lubich had a few years earlier made her definitive choice to live the Gospel, a choice already shared with a group of companions. Together they went to the mountains, to Tonadico di Primiero, to rest. It became a key moment in the history of the Focolare Movement. During this time, through a mystical experience Chiara gained a new understanding of God’s plan on the emerging presence in the Church: the Work of Mary. Since that time, similar gatherings, which came to be called Mariapolis (“City of Mary”), take place every year in summer time, in countries all around the world. In the story of Mariapoli, the years from 1949 to 1959 have particular significance. Can you explain in what way? Those years mark the origins of Mariapolis, years in which the power of the charism of unity, given by God to Chiara for the Church, was producing new fruits. A very strong sense of communion was generated among the participants who were of all ages, social backgrounds and even from different countries. (The 1959 Mariapolis was visited by 12,000 people from 27 countries!) It emerged as a profound experience of God, a way of sanctity lived together as a family. It has been described as a “people of God”, to use a term the Second Vatican Council would later promote. Why is it called “Mariapolis”? In fact, this name first appeared in 1955, and it emerged from the life of these gatherings over the years, which developed as a kind of small city, a people who identified themselves as being guided by Mary. The Gospel-inspired love lived among them generated the presence of the divine, in the sense of Jesus’ teaching, “Where two or more are united in my name, I am in their midst” (Mt 18:20). And this enlightening experience inspired the title of our book on the Mariapolis phenomenon. How would you define the key elements of these gatherings which are still taking place today? I would summarize them in one word: “communion”, or rather “communions”. Meaning, communion in the Eucharist, renewed each day; communion with the Word of the Gospel; communion with our sisters and brothers. This is what characterized the Mariapolis experience of 1949, and this is what we find in the Mariapoli which continue to this day. From this communion, people draw strength to continue to live this experience in their daily lives, to cooperate in the design of God on Creation and on the social environment around them. What is the most important thing you learnt from those who participated in the very first Mariapoli? Meeting those “witnesses”, I saw how their Mariapolis experience is not a memory for them but a vivid and vital reality to this very day. From the written testimonies I’ve gleaned the authenticity of a life lived as a “body”, in the quest for unity. Those early Mariapoli have sparked off some notable long-term effects … First of all the “Città Nuova” magazine (“New City” or “Living City”) came to life during these first Mariapoli as a way of keeping all the participants in touch with this life once they got back home. Then there are the permanent “Mariapoli” small towns which have been established in different countries – Chiara first spoke about these in 1956. The Focolare’s experience of dialogue among members of different Christian Churches was already part of the Fiera di Primiero Mariapolis in 1957. The presence of charismatic figures within the Catholic Church indicated pathways of communion which were later developed in the Second Vatican Council and by successive Church leadership. It’s also possible to identify the precursors of the Movement’s impact on social and political fields. In the permanent Mariapolis towns, people of different ages, countries, cultures and Christian traditions live together, putting the Gospel into practice. Diversity lived in a context of unity. Do you draw any message from these Mariapolis towns for today’s Europe fragmented by nationalist and populist pressures? Pope Francis made a very important point when he visited the Mariapolis town of Loppiano, Italy, last year. He spoke of the “mysticism of ‘us’” which propels us to walk together through our part of history. This is something which was very alive in the first Mariapoli. For example, in 1959, despite being so close to the end of the second world war, participants from Italy, Germany and many other countries overcame their own personal barriers, to consecrate their peoples to Mary. They wanted to do this together, as a demonstration of love for one another, forming the “one people of God”.
Claudia Di Lorenzi
