![Living the Charism: Life and Nature]()
14 Aug 2011 | Non categorizzato
The Psalm says: “Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise.” (Ps 90,12). Wisdom is the mother who teaches us to recognise that which does not pass and all that through eternity has been shown through time. Calm fears, resolve anxiety, fills emptiness, opens hearts to neighbours.
“Sickness has healed me – a mother writes – ,
it has brought me a complete vision of existence which the course of my life had taken from me. Now I seem to know how to love my family.” Love is perpetuated through the ages in the biographies of those who have passed before us and whose stories allow their lives to reach us. This is the communion of Saints.
This aspect highlights the relationship between the person and not only life but also death. Chiara Lubich wrote in 1973: ‘Were I to leave this earth today, and were you to ask me for a final word about what our Ideal is, I would have to say, certain that it would be understood in its deepest sense: “Be a family”. Are some among you suffering from spiritual or moral trials? Be understanding to them, as a mother would, and even more. Enlighten them through your words and through your example. Do not allow them to lack the warmth of a family, but rather increase it. Are any among you in physical pain? May they be our preferred brothers and sisters. Suffer with them. Try to understand their pain completely. Share with them the fruits of your apostolic activities so that they know that, more than anyone else, they have contributed to them. Are any among you approaching their final moments of life? Imagine you are in their place, and do for them what you would want done for yourself, until their very last breath. Are any of you rejoicing because of a success, or for any other reason? Rejoice with them, that their consolation may not fade and their hearts not close, so that their joy may belong to everyone. Are some moving to another place? Do not let them leave without filling their hearts with a single inheritance: the sense of a family, so that they may take it with them wherever they go. Never place any kind of activity, whether spiritual or apostolic, before the spirit of being a family with the brothers or sisters with whom you are living.’
![Living the Charism: Life and Nature]()
7 Aug 2011 | Non categorizzato
The first young woman to follow Chiara Lubich was Natalia Dallapiccola. She once shared the following episode: “One evening, we gathered around a table (the only piece of furniture that survived). Since there was no electricity, Chiara was reading by the light of a candle: “This is my command: Love each other as I have loved you. Everyone will know that you are my disciples by the love you have for each other.” Natalia continued: “Those words fell like gasoline on fire. We wanted to know what Jesus’ deepest desire was, a word that would immediately reveal precisely what he wanted of us. And here was the summarizing phrase, the great discovery of our search.” She concludes: “We said to each other: ‘And so, before going out to school, to the office, to buy something at the market; before going out to help the poor, or even to pray – we must first have among ourselves the same love that Jesus has for us. This is what He wants.’”
Photo ©Adriana Avellaneda
![Living the Charism: Life and Nature]()
6 Aug 2011 | Non categorizzato
[…] Crowds of young people today are joining together to recover the value of religion in their lives, and they draw from this collaboration new energies of renewal in the ordinary workings of society which are threatened by multiple abberations such as the use of nuclear energy, murder, the tyrannies of war, drugs, and pornographic sexual practices.
It could be said that the new consciousness of young people is attached to corpuscles that reduce faith to a reliquary decorously laden with violently charged ideologies, typical forms of externalized force, under the pressure of superficiality. But even from their tangle of politics and anarchism these unattached cells can learn the substance of the faith by looking at the attitude of bishops in countries where freedom is threatened, by looking at the life of believers that are causing a reaction based on convictions, after the lust and fear of violent and fearful rulers have offered a most powerful demonstration that, without faith in God, we do not live, we die. You die spiritually and often physically as we can sorrowfully observe in countries of the Third World.
The task of evangelization is therefore to implant God in the human soul […] If he is everything, then even our actions in this world, for others and for ourselves, are all influenced by his inspiration.
[…] Then the day is not only comprised of acts of labor and human relations and the cult of the human self, but it is enriched in an intimate higher life, a life of the spirit that imparts a dignity on a par with the freedom assured us as sons and daughters of the Almighty. The entire day is His intimate presence who gives us strength in trials, joys and weakness. It unfolds in a spontaneous evangelization, which so much of society is in need of, a society which is not atheistic, but ignoring the Gospel.Bottom of Form
[…] The existence of the Christian is also from God, just as it is for everyone else. Perhaps it is contemplated as something external, gaining, growing, learning, having fun and maybe even with a bit of effort to develop some inner virtue and draw near to God. But the Christian will live only to the degree in which he and she are attentive to their need to channel every action of the day toward the relationship with God, carrying out these actions with a view toward carrying on the Incarnation of Christ.
Every person, even the smallest, ailing, miserable and powerless human beings can yeild holiness, enrich humanity, and strengthen their brothers and sisters. And so nothing is a waste: every thought, every word, every action, within this vision of life created by God, serves to provide us with raw material for the construction of His Kingdom. And the day assumes a priestly value, as an association brought about by man between the life of Heaven and the needs of the earth.
The internalization of Christianity in the modern soul, therefore, is not so much a question of institutional reforms […] as it is a matter of “metanoia”, a continual daily rebirth in entering more deeply into the mystery of God, where the soul is immersed in His strength which is love.”
Città Nuova, n.13, 10/07/1977, p.29.
31 Jul 2011 | Non categorizzato, Word of
These words are part of a passage through which the author wants to demonstrate the infinite superiority of Jesus’ sacrifice compared to the sacrifices made according to the old Law. Those sacrifices offered to God were animals or things external to the human being, but what Jesus did was different. His intense love led him during his life on earth to offer the Father his very own will, all of himself.
“Behold, I come to do your will.”
These words provide the key to understanding the life of Jesus. They help us to grasp its deepest aspect and the golden thread that runs through all the events of his life on earth: from his childhood, the years of his private life, the temptations, his choices, his public life, all the way to his death on the cross. In every instance, in every situation, Jesus sought only one thing: to fulfill the will of the Father. And he accomplished it in a most radical way; that is, he never did anything outside of what was expressed in that will, and he refused even the most striking suggestions that were not in full agreement with it.
“Behold, I come to do your will.”
These words help us understand the great lesson that the whole of Jesus’ life offered. That is, that the most important thing to do is to fulfill not our own will, but the will of the Father. It means being able to say “no” to ourselves in order to say “yes” to him. True love of God does not consist in beautiful words, ideas and feelings, but in effective obedience to his commandments. The sacrifice of praise that he expects from us is to lovingly offer him the most intimate thing we possess: our will.
“Behold, I come to do your will.”
How can we put this passage into practice? This is also a sentence that emphasizes the fact that the Gospel goes against the current in so far as it goes against a very basic human tendency: to fulfill our own will, to follow our own instincts and feelings. This sentence is also one of the most annoying for modern men and women. We live in an age that exalts the ego and celebrates individualism. Freedom is seen as an aim in itself, and self-satisfaction as the fulfillment of the person. Whatever gives pleasure is considered the guideline for making one’s decisions and the secret to happiness. But we all know well the disastrous consequences that the pursuit of this culture leads to. A culture based on satisfying one’s own will stands in complete opposition to that of Jesus, which is totally oriented towards fulfilling the will of the Father and produces the wonderful effects that he promises. Let us try to live this passage by choosing the will of the Father, making it the guide and motivating force of our whole life, as Jesus did. We will thus set out on a divine adventure, for which we will be eternally grateful to God. Through it we will reach sanctity and enkindle the love of God in many hearts. Chiara Lubich
30 Jul 2011 | Non categorizzato
True happiness, that can be seen on people’s faces, in their eyes, in their actions. It takes root in the depths of a person and unleashes buried energies that can no longer be still. It’s a contagious and liberating joy that helps us to see the events of life correctly. It was the same story for everyone in the early days of the Movement, everyone who drew close to the Movement followed this same track. It’s what happened to Graziella De Luca in Massaia Hall, in Trent, where the newly-born Focolare community would meet. “As Chiara spoke, with the eyes of my soul I could see a very great light and I realized that this light was God, endless Love. The understanding was simultaneous to the light. Saying “I realized” implies a lapse of time. It was an immediate understanding. It was God, infinite Love, satisfying my soul, there was no emptiness left inside me. It was what I had always been searching for.” The experience of being loved by God and responding with love is the common plot of every story that is shared in environments where the Focolare is at work. Whether in small sharing groups or in the large public gatherings promoted by the Movement, it is a thrust toward universal brotherhood that begins in the place where you live in the present moment: in the family, at school, at work, even on a hospital bed. It’s this natural personal and communitarian spreading that leads to a deep inculturating of the Gospel and of the charism of unity in every continent and country. Stressing how our age is called to live unity, Chiara Lubich wrote: «(. . .) if it is lived, its reflections on society will quickly become obvious. And one of these will be mutual esteem between States, between peoples. This is somewhat unusual. We have become strongly accustomed to seeing the boundaries between peoples, fearing the other’s power, unless to join powers for our own benefit. But we think it difficult to act – since popular morality has never reached this point – only out of love for another people. But when the life of the Mystical Body is so developed among individuals who actually love their neighbours – black or white, red or yellow – as themselves, it will be easy to transplant this law to between States. And we’ll witness a new phenomenon, for love either finds or makes us similar, and nations will learn from what is better in the other and each people’s virtues will be put into motion for the enrichment of all. Then there will truly be unity and variety and a new people will blossom in our world which, though child of this earth will be formed by heavenly laws, and be called “People of God”».
