Maria Voce in Latin America: 20 March 2012 – 25 April 2012
Visit of Maria Voceand Giancarlo Falett to the Focolare communities in South and Central America.
Le nuove virtù del mercato, nell’era dei beni comuni
L’uomo pacifico non ignora la lotta
Concluding talk by Maria Voce
In these two hours we had a way to emerge ourselves, not only in “Chiara’s thought on the young people,” as the title could make us think, but to penetrate, nearly to relive, an extraordinary experience which we want to see grow. The experience that Chiara’s life passed on shone forth a particular light when it composed a second generation in the bosom of the Movement. That is, second, in relation to the first generation of people who founded the Movement with her. A new generation: it didn’t exist before, but from a certain moment onwards it came about. What have we admired today? Certainly, Chiara’s relationship with this new generation: that special relationship that she established with young people of very different formations, cultures, backgrounds, societies and historical eras. It was a relationship which, whether she was meeting small groups or stadium crowds, Chiara always extended to all young people of the world. And in a totally special way, I think, we were inwardly engaged by the reciprocity that this way she loved generated, and brought about in the young people just as much love, trust, hope and concreteness. In fact, Chiara gave them everything, all that light and those universal, concrete and demanding horizons that God opened wide to her. So, she accompanied these generations of young people closely, allowing them to live this experience directly. Hers was, or rather, is total, absolute trust. Total, as the total trust she felt God had towards her. Trust, which was also certainty that young people are made to contribute in first person to world unity: the dream of a God who makes history with us. From here came the unconditioned hope which has been deposited in them. Chiara knew how to dare; to dare to look in Heaven to know what to build on earth. From here she got the courage to place in front of our hearts, before placing in front of our eyes, the model for relationships which guarantees fruitfulness. Therefore, in order to describe the existing relationship between the first and second generation she makes us look up, to the relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity. This is a Paradigm which represents the maximum openness of love from both parts, the most evident demonstration of what is giving and receiving; receiving and giving. She was always inspired by this relationship and invites all of us to embody this model. Chiara did not hesitate to speak to the young people about a “revolution.” Revolution: meaning a complete change that is the effect of living with trust and without calculating Jesus’ words. From this came all objections to more reduced and impoverished ways of living. She even invented a new language which fascinates. Like when she indicates “the universal being” as the model for young people today, a Jesus who offers us the key and the capacity to transform suffering into love, and because of this, to embrace humanity with its contradictions fearlessly. Today, all of this passed through our soul, our mind and it was renewed in our heart. It was witnessed to us by pragmatic people, young people of yesterday and today, who with faithfulness, without escaping from pain, with commitment and imagination, have built and still build a new world on the rock, brick by brick. It’s a very precious inheritance that we have in our hands. It is a legacy which will continuously be enriched with the alternating of new generations. Therefore, let’s take this day as a stepping-stone. Today we have not “remembered” or “celebrated,” but, once more and all together, we let ourselves be engaged by the grace of the charism. Chiara from Heaven thinks of us as one body and, I dare say, she already sees us like this. Let us feel newly and all together invested by her trust to face the new challenges which await us and to be a current of love in humanity. In this way we can bear witness to the revolution of the Gospel lived-out; we can be a seed of Paradise spread all over the world, a multicoloured and pluralistic people which decidedly contributes to “that all may be one,” universal brotherhood, with all those who do their utmost for the common good. We owe it to Chiara and the charism that she transmitted to us. We owe it to humanity which we love.» 
With Chiara: a constellation of generations
With Chiara: a constellation of generations
Young people of today, yesterday and tomorrow, and people of every age, on 11 March were in Castel Gandolfo, for an afternoon dedicated, on the fourth anniversary of her death, to Chiara Lubich and the new generations. There were witnesses from the earliest times of the unique rapport that the founder of the Focolare built up with the generation inspired by the protests of ’68 and who had not hesitated to follow her on the path of a different revolution: that of the gospel. Together with her first companions there were those who had never met Chiara personally but who today are working throughout the world to realize the project of universal brotherhood proposed by her charism. They come from places as far apart as Vietnam and Argentina, the United States and Hungary – indeed, in Hungary from 31 August to 2 September there will be the next Genfest, a worldwide youth meeting. 
A message of revolutionary potential was proposed in six scenarios by the young people that afternoon. The first was dedicated to the theme of change, characteristic of the times both then and now. All expressed their gratitude to Chiara – from Valerio Ciprì who gave voice to the longing of the protests in the 70s that inspired the musical group Gen Rosso, to Antonios from Egypt eye-witness to a revolution under way in his country. Among them was Pasquale Ferrara, now a diplomat involved in various peace projects, and Joao Braz Avis, recently made a Cardinal, called to Rome from Brasilia to head the Vatican Congregation for Religious Life. 
Freedom and justice were made concrete by a different way of looking at material goods that, as Chiara herself recalled in one of the numerous videos that were seen (all of them still up-to-date), ‘cannot move of their own accord.’ But giving time and goods is not the only way of ‘building an earthly paradise’ as Chiara urged in the 70s. This was demonstrated by several people. Giuseppe Milan has given a ‘communitarian’ character to courses held by the Science Department of Padua University, where he is head; Emanuele Pili is a student at the Sophia University Insititute, which has set up an interesting cooperation with Emanuele’s original University of Genoa; Patience Molle, an engineer and the first woman to head the Ministry for Public Works in Cameroon, in her administrative activities has respected the law and been faithful to the values that as a young person she imbibed from the Focolare; and Maria Chiara Campodoni at thirty years of age is town councillor with special responsibility for Sport in Faenza, near Ravenna, Italy. Another milestone was Chiara’s legacy and the tremendous value of suffering – a starting point for other goals. This was expressed in a moving way by Beppe Porqueddu, who was confined to a wheelchair after a motorbike accident when he was eighteen. He has found that his disability has been a ‘spark of social transformation’ in a world that seems to reject any limitation or illness. Today he is a rehabilitation technician and an instructor for workers in the field of rehabilitation. Even though it is rooted in the vision of God as love, Chiara’s message is not addressed only to Christians. On the stage there were also Habib, a young Muslim man; Metta, a Buddhist, who observed how this vision helped her to ‘come closer to the truth’; and Andrea ‘a non-believer more than an atheist’, who laid great emphasis upon the welcome and acceptance he had found. 
The afternoon was concluded by Focolare President Maria Voce. She put into light that ‘we have not done an act of remembrance or of celebration, but we have live’ and that Chiara was handing on again ‘here and now’ her message to young people. Young people who are called to welcome it and to put themselves on the line by committing themselves: ‘We owe it to the charism and the humanity.’ 12-03-2012 by Chiara Andreola – Source: Città Nuova