Christian social vision means interdependence between men and women

10 Nov 2012 | Non categorizzato

Giordani told of a man in the ancient world who ‘having travelled far away for reasons of trade, wrote home to his wife about to give birth: “If it’s a boy, keep him; if it’s a girl, put her her out to die.” That person, Giordani said, ‘expressed, quite simply, how pagan idolatry saw woman: a mammal for exploitation and for pleasure, considered immensely inferior to the male and, in all cases, in all legal systems, kept in subjection to men: from girlhood under the care and control of her father, as a wife under the care and control of her husband, and as a widow under the care and control of her sons and relatives. Never free to choose for herself.

‘Christianity changed this state of affairs by establishing the spiritual equality women with men, giving them equal rights and duties and taking mothers away from the caprice of fathers through the indissoluability of marriage, with which they were assured a stable position in the home. In Christ, Paul the apostle taught, ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female’ (Gal. 3:28), but all are spirits, all children of God and so equally brothers and sisters.

‘Christian social vision brought about interdependence between men and women: ‘Neither women without dependency upon men, nor men without dependency upon women, in the Lord.’ A man belongs to his woman and a woman to her man: ‘Just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God.’ (1 Cor.11:12) …

‘It is true, however, that in society the influence of women is less than a third: an influence absolutely inferior to their sacrifices and number. And this causes enormous social damage, because the lack of the action of feminine virtues, which are specifically devotion, grace, love of peace and order, means that there prevail in society the masculine virtues of strength, conquest, adventure, which, like all the virtues, if they are not tempered and harmonized by others, easily overflow into the vices closest to them.

‘But it is a fact: if women are degraded, men follow in degradation…. For the perverted woman passes her perversion on to her children, just as the upright, heroic woman passes on uprightness and heroism to her children. In the end, to undo a society, a sure way is the corruption of women. To substitute society with a hive, make human beings into cyphers, it is necessary also to undo its reverence for chaste and faithful women and disrupt their relationships into sexual licence so that the sacrament is replaced by an utterly different element.

 ‘Having degraded women, men are ready to give up everything. The dishumanization of humanity, necessary to reduce it to automatons, begins with woman: as in Eden. Hedonistic, materialistic philosophies, championed in the last generations and reaching our times with their first vast practical experiences, bring about the end of motherhood: and motherhood is the principle of life.’

La Società Cristiana (Città Nuova: Rome, 2010 (first pub. in 1942)), pp. 54-8.

A Pluriform Society

4 Nov 2012 | Non categorizzato

Four national languages, three major Christian confessions and various other smaller Christian communities, small populations in its towns and villages: this is Switzerland, currently being visited by the Focolare’s President, Maria Voce, and Co-President, Giancarlo Faletti. They have come for a meeting of the local Focolare community and members of the Reformed Church in touch with the spirituality of unity. To welcome them in Zurich airport were representatives of the pluriform society that is the hallmark of this small nation, forged out of the clear desire to stay together, and currently reflected in the make-up of the Focolare Movement in this land. The President’s time in Switzerland, which will last until 11 November, is based at the meeting and educational Centre called ‘Cornerstone’ in Baar, near Zurich. It was set up in 1976 as a place where the Focolare Movement and its friends from different regions, cultures and languages, could get together. Since then it has seen the growth of small businesses. Training courses are held here in the fields of religion, politics and ecumenism. The agenda for the next few days is to have meetings with various members of the Movement: focolarini and young people, leaders and children and, indeed, the entire community of the Movement in Switzerland. On 8 November there will be an ecumenical day in Bern and it is already drawing the attention of Catholics and Reformed Christians who sincerely long to build relationships of unity. The Focolare Movement in Switzerland The first contacts with the Movement were in 1955, through an architect, who was a member of the Evangelical Reformed Church, working at the time in Milan with one of the first focolarini. That meeting was, it could be said, the foundation stone for the spreading of the spirituality of unity in Switzerland, as well as further confirmation that the spirituality could be lived both by Catholics and Reformed Christians. In 1961 the first focolare house was opened in Zurich, and after that in Geneva, Lugano and Bern.[1] To facilitate contacts and unity among its members and their friends in the various regions of the country in 1976 a Centre of Formation was set up in Baar, near Zurich. It is open, however, also to groups other than the Movement itself. In Zurich and in Adliswil are the Movement’s two national centres as well as the Swiss publishing house Neue Stadt. 1981, in Montet in the canton of Fribourg, saw the setting up of an international Formation Centre for young people with a vocation to live in focolare houses. The spirituality of unity lived in everyday life by about 20,000 friends and members of the Movement builds bridges between the various Christian Churches and with followers of different religions. This is given witness to by focolare houses where people of different Churches live, ecumenical  and inter-relgious meetings. There are also strong, long-term links with the World Council of Churches in Geneva.

Geneva, October 2002: Chiara Lubich with Dr. Konrad Raiser, then Secretary-General of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

Not for the poor, but with the poor

4 Nov 2012 | Non categorizzato

Parish priest Martin Piller recounts: “I had often spoken to the parish council about the poor people that knock at the door of the priest house, asking for money. Thinking of Jesus who identifies himself with such as these, helped me to care for them in their need. My collaborators and I asked ourselves what we might do to improve their situations.”

Mark Etter from the pastoral team: “We read a text by Chiara Lubich: ‘If you want to win over a city to the love of God, if you want to transform a town into the kingdom of God, first make your plans. Gather round you friends who share your feelings. Unite yourself with them in the name of Jesus (. . .) Make a pact of mutual love with them. Then look for the poorest. Having consoled, helped, enlightened, made happy those who were the dregs of society, you have laid the foundations to build a new city.’”

Piller: “Jesus was clearly speaking to us through these words: the poor are our treasure. And so we sought out a few people who were sensitive to the poor, and shared with them our desire to work together for two hours each week, for the poor“

Etter: “The beginning was anything but professional. Work tools may have been lacking, but there was no lack of ideas. Someone suggested working together with them at repairing the tables in the parish garden, and then paying them for their work. Another person then suggested breaking some empty bottles and using the pieces of glass to sand away the old varnish from the table tops. And so we did, but the next time someone brought along some sandpaper.”

Piller: “Four years have gone by now. Today some forty people of all ages and backgrounds have joined in working with us for two hours every week. There are teenagers, retired people, parents, drug addicts and homeless people. Everything has grown. A pastry shop donates sandwiches and sweet breads for our coffee break. In the church bell tower we’ve set up a candle-making shop and in the parish centre a workshop for making other objects. We are now financially supported by an Economy of Communion business. We’ve begun a constructive relationship with the city’s social workers. They visit us often and have shown very positive interest in our work.”

Etter: “There were many times when we knew that the cash box was empty, even though many people would be coming, expecting to be paid. I well remember that night when we knelt together in church asking for the light to go on. The next day someone dropped an envelope at the priest house with a huge sum of money inside. It seemed to be God’s answer to our faith in his Word: ‘Ask and you shall receive.’”

Piller: “Marco, one of the people who came regularly, died suddenly from a drug overdose. Since his parents wanted to have a private funeral ceremony, we went into the chapel and, following a song, we were quite moved to see how everyone spontaneously turned to God.”

“We continually try to put ourselves in the shoes of the needy and we are always enriched. A few weeks ago we gathered some money for the daughter of one of the workers, who is sick in Africa. It was a great surprise to us when saw everyone’s willingness to give all that they had earned that day for her.”

The courage to speak

1 Nov 2012 | Non categorizzato

‘I am a sales assistant in a clothes shop. It is a job that I like, because it lets me build relationships with our customers. One woman, in particular, would come often. She would buy clothes for her daughter in Australia. She would get me to try them on as she said I looked like her daughter. She would talk to me about her and she told me many confidential things.

‘One day, as usual, I saw her arrive, but I realized immediately by her face that something was different. She looked sad, exhausted. She had come to talk to me. She had found out that her daughter in Australia was in relationship with a man much older than her. Both she and her husband wanted her daughter to come back home, but just a few day before, on the phone, she had told them she was pregnant and wanted an abortion. The woman was confused, angry, full of hard feelings. She thought, all the same, that getting rid of the child was the only possible solution. Basically she hoped that sooner or later her daughter would come back.

Up to that point I had always tried to fit in with her and what she wanted – after all she was the customer. But in that moment I felt very strongly that I had to say what I really thought. I wanted to help her in some practical way, not only to share her burden with her. I asked her for the phone number of her daughter. I had decided to try talking with her. I prayed that I might find the right words. To my surprise she was happy to speak with me! She told me she wanted to have an abortion but she hoped she would die as well. The burden of the pain for her family was too great  after all her parents had done for her. But in the midst of all that pain I sensed a tiny light of hope, at the same time as a sincere sorrow for having made her parents suffer. I then spoke to her mother, explaining that her daughter was sorry and wanted to start again.

‘After that I actually met the daughter and her boyfriend. They did not have an abortion, and in fact they wanted to get married so as to give the baby a family. The future grandparents could not  thank you enough.’

(Twinette, Zimbabwe)

An excerpt from Una buona notizia. Gente che crede gente che muove (Città Nuova: Rome, 2012)

“We can’t do without you”

1 Nov 2012 | Non categorizzato

In an uninterrupted dialogue with people without any religious affiliation, Chiara Lubich, in 1995, finds herself explaining why the Focolare Movement would lose its identity without the non-believers.

«This is absolutely true! As a Movement, as a new community that has come to life in the Church, we have a universal vocation.

Therefore, our motto is: “That all may be one.” Now, this “all” includes you too. We can’t do without you because you are included in that “all,” otherwise we would be cutting away or excluding half the world, or at least a third of the world. Instead, we say: “That all may be one.”

Of course, we must “be one” in so far as it is possible. We will be one in values, we will be one in other ideas, we will be one in something actual».

Chiara Lubich to friends without any religious affiliation, Loppiano, May 7, 1995

Published in DiaLogos 02, CNx, September 2012