Feast of the Assumption
«To all of you who are gathered in Budapest to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the birth of the “volunteers,” I send my most cordial greetings. It is not by chance that you chose Budapest, the capital of Hungary, as the headquarters of this important meeting. This nation lit the first spark of that reality – one of the most flourishing branches of the Focolare Movement – which would soon burst into flames in Italy, in Europe and all over the world. It was our answer to that longing for freedom, suppressed in blood by those who wanted to uproot God from society and from the hearts of men and women. It was also our echo to the heartfelt appeal which Pope Pius XII launched to the world on that occasion: “God! May this name, source of every right, of every justice, of every freedom, resound in parliaments, on city streets, in homes and factories …”. It was then that women and men of all ages, nationalities, races and conditions, linked by the bond of mutual love, united in order to form an army of volunteers: “the volunteers of God.” You know the story or it will be told to you during these days. Perhaps there are some among you who lived “that story” personally. “Volunteers,” your vocation is splendid! Following the example of the first Christians, as free persons, out of love you made yourselves slaves of Jesus, who awaits your witness in the world, precisely there where He is not known or not loved. 
You are “volunteers of God,” therefore nothing is impossible for you because He is with you. Take advantage of this circumstance to ask Him and yourselves for great things. Ask Him to be able to continue unleashing, through your life, that evangelical revolution based on love, which the world awaits. And do not look upon your vocation only as something spiritual and individual. The spirituality of unity already makes you open to your brothers and sisters! But you are called to bring into the structures of society around you, the divine leaven that can make humanity new in its various worlds, in the world of the family and in the ecclesial world. Let whoever is not prevented from doing so because of age or other reasons, launch themselves then in this splendid lay vocation, for it is entrusted specifically to the laity. Ask God that this world may change also through you and do not be satisfied until you notice in it lasting fruits. All of us in the Movement are with you on this anniversary in remembering, in making proposals, and in launching ourselves. Just as Mary assumed into heaven with her body brought creation into heaven, you too, do not long to enter heaven without a renewed world. Hurrah for the men and women volunteers, pillars of the Work of God in its most beautiful expressions! I am with you, Chiara ». Message for the 40th Anniversary of the Birth of the “Volunteers Rocca di Papa, 6 November 1996 – letto da Dori Zamboni a Budapest il 23 novembre 1996 Fonte: Centro Chiara Lubich
St Claire of Assisi
It was a time of war. Everything crumbled before us, young as we were, attached to our dreams for the future: a home, our studies, people dear to us, our career.
The Lord was teaching us, through events, one of his eternal truths: «All is vanity, nothing but vanity…».
It was that total and multifold devastation of everything that formed the objective of our small hearts, that brought forth our Ideal. We saw other young women launch themselves with sincere enthusiasm into working for the salvation and better future of our nation.
It was easy to talk about the Ideal in that life dead to all that could humanly attract one. We felt that only one idea was real and immortal: God. In the face of that destruction provoked by hatred, the One who does not die appeared more alive than ever to our young minds. And we saw Him and loved Him wherever He was absent: «Deus caritas est.»
Our thoughts and aspirations were sealed by another young girl who in other times, not so different than ours, was able to illuminate with her divine light the darkness of sin and to melt the frozen hearts of egoism, hatred and grudges: Clare of Assisi. She too, like us, saw the vanity of the world, because the Poor one of Assisi, a living example of poverty, had educated her to «lose everything so as to gain Jesus Christ.»
She too, having run away from the castle of the Scifi family, at midnight at the Porziuncola, before taking off her rich garments, had responded to the saint when he asked her: “My daughter, what do you desire?” “God,” she answered.
We were struck by the fact that a young eighteen-year-old, beautiful, full of hope for the future, knew how to contain all the desires of her heart in the one Being worthy of our love.
And we too, just like her, felt that same desire. We said: “God is our ideal. How can we give our whole life to him?”
He had said: “Love me with all your heart…”. But how could we love Him?
“Whoever loves me observes my commandments. Love your neighbour as yourself.” We looked at one another and we decided to “love one another so as to love Him”. The more one “lives” the Gospel, the better one understands it.
Before launching ourselves into living the word of God, just like children get involved in play, even if it was not totally unclear, it was not however alive to our intellect, nor sacred to our heart.
Now every day was a new discovery of the Gospel, by now our only book, the only light for our life.
We clearly understood that everything lies in love, that mutual love “had to” inform Jesus’ last appeal to those who had followed Him, that “consuming ourselves in one” could only be Jesus’ last prayer to the Father, supreme synthesis of the Good News.
Jesus knew that the Holy Trinity was eternal beatitude, and He, the Man-God who came down to redeem humanity, wanted to bring all those He loved into the com-Unity of the Three.
That was His homeland, that was the homeland of the brothers and sisters that he had loved to the point of shedding his blood.
«To become one»: became the programme of our life in order to love Him.
But where two or three are united in His name, He is in their midst.
We felt His divine presence each time that unity triumphed on our human natures, so rebel to die: a presence of His light, of His love, of His power.
Jesus among us.
The first little society of brothers and sisters, his true disciples, had formed.
Jesus the bond of unity.
Jesus, king of every individual heart, because the life of unity requires the total death of every ego.
Jesus in that small group of souls.
And we already said at the beginning: «Yes, the Gospel is the solution to every personal problem and every societal problem.»
He was so for us, having become one heart and one mind; He could be so for more people, for everyone.
And it was not difficult. It was enough to have in our hearts those same desires that Jesus would have had if He were with us; to think each thing as though Jesus would have thought of it; in other words, to embody the Gospel in our own lives, to carry out the Divine will, different for each soul and yet coming from the same God, just as many rays have their origin in the same sun; and unity was accomplished.
The faith and love, that He lived in us, drew us close to all those that He made us encounter every day and this spontaneous love, freely given, drew them to the same ideal.
We never thought of doing apostolate. That word did not attract us at all. Some people had abused it, ruining it. We only wanted to love in order to love Him.
And we soon realized that this was the real apostolate.
Seven, fifteen, one hundred, five hundred, a thousand, three thousand or more people of every vocation, of every social status. Every day they grew in number around Jesus among us.
Our humanity, put on the cross by the life of unity, attracted everyone to it.
Perfect unity lived and still lives among those souls by now spread throughout the whole of Italy and beyond it.
Not only spiritual unity in our passionate quest to be another Jesus, but also a practical unity.
Everything is in common: things, homes, assistance and money.
And there is peace, there is heaven on earth.
Life totally changed.
Throughout the whole city, there is no office, school, store or factory without a brother of sister of unity who works there.
From them shines forth, like the sun, the life of charity that creates a new divine atmosphere, squelches hate and grudges. Many families came together again in peace: others began their life with the Ideal in their hearts. Truly, we are at the beginning of a new era: «the era of Jesus.»
And all of this because the only principle, the only means, the only end goal is Jesus.
Jesus “in” us. Jesus “among” us.
Jesus end of times and of eternity.
Human minds grapple to find solutions to today’s drama. They will not find it if not in Jesus. Not only in Jesus alive deep within in each person, but in Jesus who reigns “among” souls.
They do not have time to discuss because He too clearly shows, to those who are united to others in his name, what “needs to be done” to give real peace back to the world.
There is porro unum necessarium[1] (only one thing necessary) to a soul in its relationship to God.
There is porro unum necessarium (only one thing necessary) to a soul in its relationship with his/her neighbours and this is to love them as oneself, to the point of becoming one down here, in anticipation of the perfect consummation of souls in the One, Jesus, in Heaven.
This is the Christian community.
From «Fides», 48 (1948), n. 10, pp. 279-280.
[1] «…porro unum est necessarium» («only one thing is necessary» Lk 10:42). The quote, in Latin, was commonly used in the early days of the Movement.
New Moderator of Communion among Bishop Friends of the Focolare
The meeting of Bishop Friends of the Focolare from 1st to 9th August concluded at Forno Coazza, in the Italian region of Turin. Focolare President Maria Voce, who attended on Sunday the 5th, invited Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij, the Archbishop of Bangkok, to take on the role of moderator of the communion among the bishops who share in the spirituality of unity coming from the Focolare founder, Chiara Lubich.
Archbishop Francis Xavier accepted the invitation to succeed Cardianl Miloslav Vlk, Archbishop Emeritus of Prague, who has had the role of moderator for 18 years, organizing numerous international meetings of bishops, both of Roman Catholics and of bishops from various Churches. These meetings satisfy the bishops’ desire to deepen their spiritual lives and to construct together the Church as communion hoped for by the Second Vatican Council and recent Popes. The meeting have been held in Castel Gandolfo (near Rome), Istanbul, Jerusalem, Beirut, Augsburg, Wittenburg, London and Geneva – just to mention some of the places.
The choice of Archbishop Francis Xavier Kriengsak should be taken as ‘a sign of the Movement’s universal openness and its attention to the emerging continents and our various dialogues’, as Maria Voce wrote in communicating the news. He will take up the new role at the beginning of October during the international assembly of the Movement’s leaders.
Cardinal Miloslav Vlk expressed his gratitude to Maria Voce for having appointed a bishop from the East, ‘where the spirituality of the Focolare Movement is spreading quickly among bishops too.’ He said his successor had ‘the right experience and background and was very suitable for the task’ and he wished him ‘the strength and creativity needed to guide the communion among the Bishop Friends of the Focolare Movement at the same time as fulfilling his commitments as Archbishop of Bangkok.’
For his part, Archbishop Francis Xavier, to the joy of all present, accepted the task with humility, saying that he was comforted by the openness of his brother bishops to give him their support in any way possible.
The participation of bishops in the Focolare Movement, approved and supported by the Holy See as a way of favouring ‘effective and affective’ collegiality among bishops in a brotherly spirit of communion, is purely spiritual.
Source: Focolare Information Service
focolare.org – ‘A place of welcome for everyone’
In the first four months of this year focolare.org had 477,687 hits, with 1,422,450 pages visited for an average of 1.54 minutes per page. The typical visitor to focolare.org was between 35 and 54 years of age and tended to visit it on week days, especially Mondays, and do so from the workplace. Younger people, however, were reached by means of social networks (Facebook, Twitter and Google+), with a weekly average of more than 30,000 persons.
This is what is shown by the data collected by three students from the Faculty of Institutional Social Communication of the Santa Croce University, Rome, who chose the official site of the Focolare Movement for their research. Their names are Oleksii Fedorovych, Fr Rastislav Hamráček and Fr Tiago José Síbula da Silva. Introducing their research they say that www.focolare.org was set up in 1998, updated in 2006 and had a complete overhaul in 2011. It then received the WeCa Prize 2011 * in the Institutional Websites category. They say, ‘The general mission of www.focolare.org is to be a place of welcome for everyone and, at the same time, it has the task of giving expression, in dialogue with the world, to the unity and the diversity of those who make up the Focolare family and to typical Focolare events.’
Our visitors. The vast majority of visitors, 44%, are Italian speakers. On average on each visit they looked at 2.98 pages, spending 3.45 minutes. Navigations to the site were more by men than women. But this larger amount of men is a reflection of the fact that in general many more men use the internet. If the fact that people navigate to the site from work rather than from home is linked to GoogleAnalytics’s data on loyalty, it indicates that the site is visited especially during weekdays. Indeed, in the period from the 1 January to 30 March, according to GoogleAnalytics, the day with the largest amount of hits is generally, as we have said, a Monday.
Internet traffic. About half the visitors (48.5% in the period between 1 January and 30 March) came to it via search engines. Of these visits 44.2% came from Google with search terms such as focolare.org, Focolare Movement, www.focolare.org and Focolare. 4 % of the visits originated from media such as mobile phones, iPads or iPhones. A large amount (37.4%) came via Facebook.
Who is behind the site? The study analysed the composition of the editors of focolare.org and spoke of a real workforce with a broad range of editors made up of representatives from various Focolare centres, correspondents in every nation, technical experts, news editors, translators and a fixed team of four people together with a part-time worker for social networking.
Contents and the site’s best page. Looking at the site’s contents and observing its ‘informative and formative character’, the researchers emphasize the site’s ‘consistency’ with ‘the values of the Movement’. Appreciation was expressed because it publishes not only news about the Roman Catholic Church but about all of the Churches, world religions, people of convictions not based on religion and about issues of a social nature that offer insights into life in various parts of the world. In conclusion the page of the ‘Word of Life’ is said to be done well, with its Bible quotation and commentary. ‘This page,’ write the researches, ‘has great formative value and is among the best of the site’s contents, gaining many hits and comments from users.’
* Italian Association of Catholic Webmasters
The World of Sophia University
‘The grain of wheat has fallen into the earth and has begun to sprout, fragile but full of life and rich with promise. This gives cause for great and sincere thanks to those who, with dedication and generosity, have worked to set up the Institute and to help it through its teething pains. As we have gone along, we have realized the beauty, the originality and also our responsibility for the ‘idea’ of a university that Chiara Lubich, with inspired intuition and tremendous trust, committed to our care.’ These are the words of the theologian Piero Coda during a live interview (published in Italian on the Sophia’s site) following the confirmation of his presidency for the next four years. ‘Sophia, today, is a reality.’
How do things look academically? The President explains them:
- in the second cycle, several specialisms have become separate subjects (trinitarian ontology, political studies, economics and management, taken in the wider context of a culture of unity’s human and sociological implications);
- the success of the doctoral cycle and beginning of a post-doctoral ‘school’;
- innovation in teaching methods (‘inter’ and ‘trans-discipliniarity’) and formation for the whole person, and an educational programme;
- inter-cultural and inter-religious openness;
- synergies in research and various forms of collaboration, in the immediate vicinity, nationally and internationally.
The news of the renewal of Piero Coda’s term of office reached the University Institute in July. The decree by the Congregation for Catholic Education had been expected. It was dated 11 July 2012 and sent to Maria Voce, President of the Focolare Movement and the Institute’s Vice-Chancellor. The Congregation’s initial appointment in 2008 had been at the request of Chiara Lubich herself, slightly earlier in the year, on 12 March, just two days before her death.
The election of the President has a specific procedure with a clear purpose: to protect both the total academic autonomy of the Institute and its essential link with the Focolare Movement, while the appointment by the Vatican dicastery overseeing university education emphasizes the Institute’s academic nature.
What are the priorities for his second term of office? Piero Coda replies: ‘The things I am most concerned about are faithfulness to the idea behind the Institute and the growth of a spirit of fraternity animating the various parts of the academic community; the development of its academic project along the lines we have been called to discern and interpret; and the commitment to establish, both realistically and prophetically, a place where it is possible to exercise and to learn the novel approach, the art of ‘thinking together’…
‘The true director is the Spirit of the Risen Jesus who blows and illumines what we strive to do, having dropped all our defences, ready to welcome him with freedom and listen to him with intelligence. Isn’t this what “Sophia” really is? Something so divine because it is so human, and at the same time, something that fascinates, something we wish to love and share with everyone who, in any way, we are called to walk together with towards the united world already beginning to emerge among the contradictions of our times?’