20 Jan 2015 | Non categorizzato
According to the United nations, there are 700 thousand people who are forced to leave their homes due to the violence in the northeastern states of Nigeria. Precisely during the days of the massacre in Paris, Nigeria was again in the news, with the criminal escalations in the State of Borno due to the actions of the extremist group of Boko Haram. They even spoke of kamikaze children who were made to explode in two markets of the Country. The population is defenseless, while contradicting politcal analyses are given and very few reveal the heavy economic interests linked to the exploitation of the petroleum resources of the country. There is great expectations for the presidential elections in February. In Nigeria the Focolare Movement is present with two centers, one in Onitsha (in the south of the Country) and one in Abuja, the capital: «After the first trip that we made to meet the people who were displaced by the internal warfare, we realized what the true situation is: the misery, diseases, hunger, lack of clothing, lack of shelter but especially the children with no hope for a future», George and Ruth, the persons responsible for the Movement in that African nation wrote to us. And so they organized a second trip, during the Christmas season inviting their friends, relatives, co-workers to join in: «We truly experienced the generosity of our people, in Focolare all kinds of God’s bounty arrived: money, food, clothes, medicines. We even received a car with a driver who was an expert and knew where to pass to avoid the dangerous areas». Three of us went on the trip: a focolarina who is a nurse, another person and the driver. Bearing many gifts «so as to bring the joy of Christmas to those people who more than anyone else resembled the Baby Jesus who did not even have a suitable place to be born». The situation was precarious: the medicines were not enough for their many needs: «I am a professional nurse – Imma shared – I treated hundreds and hundreds of sick people: malnutrition, anemia, malaria and various illnesses. Then we helped the bishop to distribute food to more than 5000 refugees. It is a very painful situation, and everyday other refugees arrive». «May this be the year of the Yes», Maria Voce wished for us in 2015, «a yes that is repeated an infinite number of times: yes to God who asks us for something unforseen, yes to that neighbour who needs our concrete love , yes to an unexpected suffering, yes to Jesus who is waiting to be welcomed by us in humanity, transforming suffering into joy, into life and resurrection». But what does this mean in situations of darkness, that seem to be without hope, like in Nigeria? «For us this is the everyday reality – Ruth and George continue – in the difficult circumstances in which we find ourselves in our Country. There are so many sources of Evil. In front of this situation we cannot remain indifferent. When we arrived there, where the people are suffering the most, we touched concretely that which Jesus repeats to us even today: “you did it to me”». And, on behalf of the whole Focolare community of Nigeria, they would like to convey to us their gratitude for the prayers and support that has reached them in many ways, «above all in this moment, and also before and after the presidential and legislative elections».
19 Jan 2015 | Non categorizzato
20150119MariaVoceTG1TG1, 8:00 edition, January 2015 (around 8:10)
Uno Mattina, January 19 – beginning at 21:38 and from 28:33
19 Jan 2015 | Non categorizzato
The opening of the Cause was joyfully announced in a letter to the Focolare Movement, in which president, Maria Voce, invited all those who live the spirituality of unity to be a “living witness” to what Chiara had lived, proclaimed and shared with so many; that is, the common effort of “becoming saints together.”
The decision to solicit the opening of the Cause of Canonization had been announced by Maria Voce on December 7, 2013, with the hope that such recognition would encourage many in their moral and spiritual commitment to the good of humankind.
The event on January 27th can be followed via the Internet 4.00 – 6.00PM (CET): http://live.focolare.org
19 Jan 2015 | Non categorizzato
Here, December 25 is not a holiday – a volunteer at the centre for children with disabilities told us. Nevertheless, informing ahead of time the families of these children with disabilities who are undergoing rehabilitation with us, we at least take a break for one day. And so, together with the youth in our team, we thought of spending Christmas at the Center by having lunch together.
They also invited other young people who have helped us during the year in our service in some orphanages and who were happy to share this moment with us. Some of them are Christians while others are not, just like the majority of the people around us, but the desire to be one family is in the heart of each one. When we greeted one another there was that look of joy in everyone in expectation of something beautiful.
In this period, some families with their children whom we are taking care of and who come from faraway, are housed near the Center, where we try to put into practice the spirituality of unity. They are passing through very difficult and painful situations, for many reasons. Even if we had suspended our services for the day we told them that whoever wished to join us to share a moment of celebration were welcome to do so. All of them said yes. A mother cried tears of joy at our invitation: “I know that Christmas for you is a very important celebration, if you have invited me it means that I too am important!”.
Another mother, just three weeks ago had taken the train to come to the city with her husband to search for medical treatment for their daughter who has a severe form of cerebral paralysis. She went to several places but everyone told her that it was not worthwhile and it would be better for them just to go home and accept things as they are. With great sadness in her heart, she already had the train tickets to return home in the afternoon. But then she remembered one of her Christian relatives who some time ago told her about a church that she had visited. Even if she was not Christian, she felt the push to go and look for this church. She found it and met a priest. He knew one of the youth in our team who sings in the church choir, and so he told her: “Look, just fifteen minutes from here there is a place where they take care of children like yours, why don’t you try to go there”. He explained to her the route and she arrived in our center. Even if she did not have an appointment, two of us welcomed her. After awhile she called her husband who was waiting at the hostel and she told him: “We will not leave anymore”.
Later we understood that their relationship was undergoing a moment of crisis because of their daughter: “When I arrived here, what immeediately touched me was the smile of the people. I found hope once again and my husband is also not as depressed”.
The invitation to the Christmas celebration was also exptended to them. Christmas… a God who made himself little so as to make us all brothers and sisters!
18 Jan 2015 | Non categorizzato
One asks today, after the murderous attacks in Paris and the massacres in Nigeria and Pakistan, whether there is need for dialogue between people of different religions and cultures.
“I beg to reverse the question”, Maria Voce says, and continues to ask: “Can we live without dialogue in a globilized world?” While speaking about the increase in the number of people who choose to emigrate and about entire populations who are forced to flee because of persecution,“uprooted from their environment and their future” and forced to live with others of different races, cultures, opinions and religions, the president of the Focolare Movement quotes the pressing question of Western Countries: how does one live with these people? “The answer is clear”, she affirms, “We either dialogue or fight with one another. But conflicts lead to destruction of both residents and immigrants, while openness and dialogue create life and lead to life”.
“I have noted this during my trips to places in the Middle East, Africa and Asia where dramatic situations are present”, she explains.“The brave commitment to dialogue is lived by children in their schools, by families in their neighbourhoods and by many people in their workplaces”.
She reminds that the most effective dialogue is the one “built on the sharing of everyday life”, which is “not generated through an immediate confrontation of ideas” but “ through getting to know the other person – and not his religion – to be able to discover the bond of brotherhood that binds all human beings”. Maria Voce is convinced that diversity does not necessarily cause opposition, but that it can be a source of mutual enrichment. And we truly enrich one another, because God is generous and he bestows his gifts on all men, whatever religion they belong to”. She reaffirms,“When we discover this, we all become richer and freer in our mutual relationship”.
She hints at what Pope Francis is manifesting through “his words and attitudes, emphasizing warmth, empathy, listening fully to others” . And “equally valuable is the Pope’s indication not to make concessions on our identity as Christians in order to prepare ourselves for this dialogue, because we can dialogue only if we are deeply and authentically Christian”.
In her conclusion, MariaVoce states “ A Christian or a Muslim become better persons when they walk on the road of dialogue and discover that they can progress together, and that this progress leads to common initiatives, starting from peace, that contribute towards the benefit of humanity”.
Read the full text of the declaration
17 Jan 2015 | Non categorizzato
Igino Giordani presided over a conference of ecumenists in the autumn of 1967 at the headquarters of the Focolare Movement in Rocca di Papa. Archimandrite Msgr. Eleuterio Fortino participated at this conference, and later gave this testimony: “Giordani, at that conference, succeeded by his inner serenity to appease the fiery tones of the debate; and clarified the theological and pastoral aspects of the decree of Vatican II Unitatis Redintegratio (1964), thus placating the last resistance of the Italian opponents to common prayer among all Christians in the Week for the unity of the Churches.”
For his part Giordani had followed this week of Prayer for Christian Unity since 1940, which to be more precise is actually an Octave: from January 18th to 25th each year. He explains this himself in a paper he wrote that year, where among other things he explains the significance of the two dates: the feast of the Chair of St. Peter’s in Rome, the first, and the conversion of St. Paul, the second.
“The practice of the Octave for unity, because it gathers millions of Christians at the feet of the one Father to make him one, choral demand, to make everyone one again, is itself a beginning of this unity, as well as a start in the right direction.
During the preparation of the Octave this year, news had spread, to begin with a little vague, that in a Trappist monastery of nuns in Rome, they were praying with particular intensity, for the termination of the divisions among Christians, whose image – which is the image of Christ bleeding – should not let us rest.
Sr Maria Gabriella Sagheddu
I came to know that, in that Trappist monastery, a humble nun, Maria Gabriella, had offered herself her life for the unity of the Church and that her sacrifice had deeply affected a community of separated brothers in England.
The news, even though vague, widened immensely – to my eyes at least – the horizon of the movement for unity and opened new perspectives, in which, like a strip of blue between the cracks of a storm, showed the face of the sky above a quarrelsome humanity. It put, in short, in its true light the Octave and its aims.
Now these nuns probably knew nothing of all those debates and commissions and committees: and in any case – no matter how great the merits of those international conferences were – they did not think it had anything to do with them. Confronted with the problem of the division, they had contemplated with simplicity, by the light of the Rule, which never changes: that is, they saw that unity has to be sought where it is to be found: at the source, at the matrix: it had in other words, to be asked of the Father, in whom – as we had been taught with the parable of the prodigal son – and only in whom brothers and sisters can be unified.
This means that these humble creatures, who we will never meet in any congress, had seen immediately what to do and had put the movement for unity back on the straight road. […]
Unity is not the work of men and women but of God: not of study, but of grace. Accept, Father, these pure offerings, first of all for your Church, that you might deign to purify it, guard it and unify it ….”
From “The ecumenical journey of Igino Giordani” by Tommaso Sorgi – excerpt from Nuova Umanita, n. 199 – January / February 2012.
