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Lent, A Time Of Conversion

13 Feb 2018 | Non categorizzato

For the Catholic Church and other Christian Churches, the season of Lent is about to begin. Lent is a period of the liturgical year, which comes just before the celebration of Easter. It lasts from February 14th to March 29th in the Roman Rite. Lent is seen as an invitation to conversion toward God. It lasts for 40 days, a number that occurs rather often in the Bible – in the Old Testament, for example, Israel spent 40 years in the desert, the great flood lasted 40 days, Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Sinai, and Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert. In the Roman Rite Lent begins with the rite of ashes, in which the priest or minister places a pinch of blessed ashes on the heads or the foreheads of the faithful, symbolizing the fall of earthly existence and one’s commitment to a penitential life.

Mary, Teacher of Life

Mary, Teacher of Life

10 Feb 2018 | Non categorizzato

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Foto: Pixabay

Our Lady appeared to Bernardette, under the aspect which humanity more expected: The Immaculate Conception, whose purity shines over a dumpsite to signify that it is she who purifies the world from the composite putrefaction in which all its values rot away in her purity. Mary, daughter of the common folk, born in a humble village of poor people, appeared to Bernardette, daughter of labourers in a humble village of mountaineers. This was at a time in which the recent proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception promulgated by Pius IX in 1854, had crudely bared the contrast between the Ideal of purity, incarnated by the Mother of God and transfused in the doctrine and practice of Christians, and the reality of a degradation in unbridled vice and passions promoted by materialistic and positivistic philosophical trends, favoured by politics aimed at demolishing the Church’s ethics to destroy the dignity of the person. The urgent value of that apparition was immediately consolidated by the miracles at the grotto of Lourdes, with which the divine Mother helped numberless sons on earth to recover bodily health and pureness of soul. And the value grew and increased after the urgency was understood by the Christians who saw that the water freed people from physical illness together with the moral one: Mary, water arising from the Eternal, purifies human blood to free it from all ugliness. The Pope (Pius XII), in his Encyclical for the centenary celebration, highlighted the actuality of the healing action through which the virgin, who is stainless Purity, increasingly rises against the corruption of customs and ideas, advocated with the instruments of art, politics and example. Mary, dressed in white and blue represents the Ideal of Life against Death which is preceded by vice. The New Eve, if the old one gave in to the Enemy already at the first encounter, she rises since her conception, when from the merits of the newborn Son she drew forth the privilege of Immaculateness. With her he entered into human existence, a new element: absolute purity, humanity without a stain, and that divine health which mankind needed most to stop their moral and intellectual decomposition. The Immaculate Conception thus means the most radical – divine – strike of the rod to reverse the course of history heading for dissolution. The significance of the apparitions and miracles is easy to see and was thus expressed to an unschooled and gross girl and is universal (and therefore diffused among gentry and classes of every place and category). Pureness is an essential, preliminary condition of life and coexistence, for all and for always: but especially for our time, in which we thought of exalting the physiological value of the flesh, degrading it to perversions against nature. Master of life, the Church offers the Immaculate to the peoples as the ideal of beauty without shadows: as Mother and Virgin she transmits God to us; she gives us Jesus who, as the “Way, the Truth and Life,” is the Health of mankind. Igino Giordani, The meaning of Lourdes, New City, n.3, 5.2.1958, p.5.

Sant’Egidio celebrates its 50th

Sant’Egidio celebrates its 50th

8 Feb 2018 | Non categorizzato

AndreaRiccardi_ChiaraLubichThe Community of Sant’Egidio is celebrating its 50th year. A story that began on 7 February 1968, in Rome, with Andrea Riccardi and a small group of high school students who wanted to change the world. “We have discovered in all these years, along with many people worldwide, the joy of the Gospel,” declared the president of the Community, Marco Impagliazzo. “At Sant’Egidio, in the heart of the Trastevere district (Rome) – the notice diffused on that occasion said: an adventure has begun, one that has led the Community to the human and existential outskirts in the different continents, a commitment amid the poor of every condition, up to the healthcare plans to treat AIDS and statistical records, from interreligious dialogue to working for peace.” Next Saturday, 10 February, the “people of Sant’Egidio” will gather in the Roman basilica of St John Lateran for a celebration presided by the Vatican Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin. On behalf of the Focolare, president Maria Voce will attend, together with some of her staff. In her warm message she gives “ heartfelt thanks to the Holy Spirit for the charism bestowed to the Church and all of humanity and for the fruits achieved in these fifty years of life, also thanks to your fidelity.” She added that “the Community, now spread to 70 countries, has contributed and continues to contribute to building peace in the world, through a courageous dialogue at all levels and with a particular attention to the most forgotten members of society,” and recalls the peace obtained in 1992 in Mozambique and the “humanitarian corridors” in favour of refugees. Maria Voce underlines, among the many moments lived together, a “special” one: “the joyful commitment assumed together and in an altogether particular way by Chiara Lubich and Andrea Riccardi, after the historical encounter of the Movements with the Pope on the Pentecost of 1998, which has produced many fruits for the glory of God.” And concludes with her wish and that of the Focolare “to totally fulfill God’s design on your Community.” See the new site: www.santegidio.org

“Onecity: The Beauty of Diversity”

“Onecity: The Beauty of Diversity”

8 Feb 2018 | Non categorizzato

Scuola NH2018_IT_V_Pagina_1That is the title of an event that the New Humanity Movement is planning at the Principe Hotel in Pomezia, Italy. It will be comprised of five days of work, sharing of experiences, study, budgeting planning and finding new directions for their work. It will be a “school” for “learning,” one more time, how to actualize brotherhood in a city beginning from the wealth of diversity that lies in the people. For information: International New Humanity Movement Tel 06 943156 35 newhumanity@focolare.org  

Day of Prayer and Fasting for Peace

Day of Prayer and Fasting for Peace

8 Feb 2018 | Non categorizzato

DayofprayerandfastingOn February 23rd the Focolare Movement will join the Church in a Day of Prayer and Fasting for peace and the end to all forms of violence. The day was instituted by Pope Francis in a surprise announcement before 20 of the faithful in Saint Peter’s Square for the Sunday Angelus. The Pope turned especially to the populations of the Democratic Republic of Congo and of South Sudan, which have been going through great escalation in violence and oppression, but he was also mindful of all the prolonged conflicts that are taking place in all parts of the world. This is not anything new: Pope Francis had invited “all believers, also non-Catholic brothers and sisters and non-Christians” to unite in a common moment of prayer, each in their own way, to implore together the gift of peace, while trying to understand what each of us can do to stop the violence. “The victories obtained by violence,” said the pope, “are false victories.”