Trip to Canada 2011
16 March 2011 – 18 April 2011
Women in Religious Life, adherents of the Focolare: 40 years of history
Participants will come from all over the world to celebrate 40 years since the first recognition by Pope Paul VI for this section of the Focolare Movement.
“Deepen your acquaintance and unity with your respective founders in an atmosphere of fraternal charity” was the path that Paul VI indicated at a public audience on 14th April 1971, naming them “Religious adherents to the Focolare Movement”.
Since then numerous women from around the world and from different religious congregations and secular institutes met every year for formation and updating. These moments together allow for an ever profounder communion and deeper acquaintance with the points of the Spirituality of Unity.
“Present since the beginning of the Movement, the women religious, whose various spiritualities became ever 
more harmonious and glowing in the light of a common brotherhood, gave us the possibility to contemplate religious families, orders, and congregations as flower beds in the magnificent garden of the Church where all virtues have blossomed and flourish”, stated Chiara in her acceptance speech for an Honorary Degree in Theology of Consecrated Life.
The theme of the meeting in Castel Gandolfo will be the Will of God. Theological, spiritual and social elaboration will be followed by a rich exchange of life experiences by representatives of different vocations in the Movement.
As a response to present day challenges in society, special attention will be given to interreligious dialogue.
The focus point of the event will be a solemn thanksgiving celebration followed by a series of experiences about the beginnings of the movement.
There will be a special artistic moment inviting everyone to walk together towards “sainthood”.
50th anniversary of the Focolare Movement in North America
More about visit to Canada and United States – March-April 2011
In North America, the seeds of the Focolare Movement’s Spirituality of Unity were sown right back in the 1950’s. It was only in 1961, however, that the first Focolare was born when three courageous young people arrived in an immigrant neighbourhood in New York with one aim: to put the Gospel into practice. Since then this way of life spread thanks to the silent effort of hundreds of others who these young people met and who made the Focolare Ideal their own: the Ideal of contributing to bringing about Jesus’ prayer, “Father may all be one” (Jn, 17, 21)
“I was deeply struck by this country; it made a beautiful impression on me”, Chiara Lubich wrote in 1964 during her first trip to New York, “This country seems particularly suited to the spirit of the Focolare. There is no air of ethnic superiority, but rather a distinct sense of internationality. There is simplicity. At mass I prayed for the Movement in this continent and I hope that God listens to my prayer because I am praying for the diffusion of His Kingdom... ” Chiara later returned to the USA, making a total of 7 visits.
Making this event especially meaningful, the Focolare Movement’s president Maria Voce and co-president Giancarlo Faletti, pay an official month-long visit to North America. They will meet the various Focolare communities and friends of the Movement in different cities throughout three nations.
- March 19-20, Toronto: Weekend of dialogue and celebration with Focolare members from all over Canada, and a solemn Mass celebrated by Bishop William McGrattan, marking the 3rd anniversary of Chiara Lubich’s death
- March 21-24, Montreal: Meeting with Canadian bishops. Evening of 23:with the community of Montriol
- April 2 Poughkeepsie, NY: Encounter with U.S. Focolare members
- April 3, New York: Solemn Mass of thanksgiving celebrated by Archbishop Timothy Dolan at St. Patrick’s Cathedral at 2:30pm.
- April 5, New York: Cultural event at Fordham University, with four panels: “The Spirituality of Unity—a Gift for Our Times”; “The Economy of Communion”; “Personal Fulfillment in a Communitarian Spirituality”; and “Love of Neighbor and the Law”
- April 7, Washington, D.C.: “E pluribus unum”, a program open to the public featuring a multiethnic, multireligious community coming together as one people in the service of unity, at Caldwell Hall, Catholic University of America
- April 10, Chicago: Interreligious meeting
- April 11, Chicago: Evening theological presentation at DePaul University
- April 16, Santo Domingo: Celebrations with the Focolare communities in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico
[:it]Una festa ecumenica per Chiara[:de]Ein ökumenisches Fest für Chiara[:es]Ecumenical celebration in honour of Chiara Lubich[:fr]Une fête œcuménique en l’honneur de Chiara[:pt]Uma festa ecumênica para Chiara[:zh]為盧嘉勒舉行大公合一的慶典
More than a thousand people were in attendance at the Civic Theatre in Trent for the international ecumenical day dedicated to Chiara Lubich on this third anniversary of her death. The gathering held on March 12, included representatives from twenty churches: cardinals, bishops, metropolitans, and pastors. There were also politicians and people from the world of culture and the arts.
In theater boxes, audience and on stage were faces of Greek and Russian Orthodoxy mingled with the testimony of Anglicans, Syrian Orthodox, Catholic, Reformed. The music intertwined with the chants from the Arab world of the Far East without any traces of syncretism. Indeed, the unique identities of each group of persons were preserved and undiminished, but the passion proposed by Chiara Lubich, for over fifty years, “that all be one” was strongly shared beyond every differences.
Many of the messages that arrived from religious authorities of the various churches had quite a very familiar tone, like the one from Bartholemew I, Patriarch of Constantinople. His greeting was filled with the affection which has characterized the long friendship that has linked the Patriarch to the Focolare: “Chiara has taught us a method for recomposing fraternity, relationships of genuine sharing that are capable of dispelling indifference.”
“The day-to-day relationships and the widespread diffusion of dialogue were a fundamental contribution to the ecumenical movement,” underscored Cardinal Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for the Unity of Christians, as he expressed a personal concern: “counterpositioning that at times is manifested between an ecumenism from above and an ecumenism from below.” Maria Voce echoed the cardinal’s criticism: “ecumism from below and from above, they must walk together. If theological breakthroughs are not accompanied by true reciprocal relations from below, then these breakthroughs will not be greatly efficacious; whereas, if there is an ecumenism from below they will be important and longlasting.
Starting today, at the Mariapolis Center in Cadine (Trent), an ecumenical school will begin with 400 persons who will delve into the life of the Word and the themes of the day. There will be a celebration for Centro Uno which is celebrating its 50th anniversary of ecumenical action, which will offer an occasion to strengthen the dialogue of life.
Still in Trent, the journalist Franco de Battaglia presented his new book, A Trento con Chiara Lubich, which is dedicated to the sites of the Focolare Movement’s birth. It is a type of guide book for apparantly insignificant corners of the city which actually served as the cradle of the spirituality of unity.
A Charism of Light – video interview with Chiara Lubich
Charism of Light
Chiara: I often talk about love but really it was a charism of light. Right from the start I could see that this spirit would spread all over the world. Even at the beginning we prayed for this. It was the feast of Christ the King and the reading in the Mass said: “Ask and I will give you all the nations as your inheritance”. I told my companions that we would reach the whole world. And we have. We prayed that we might be instruments to carry this spirit of love and light throughout the world.
I was continuously under the action of this light which guided me on what to do, on how to act, on our way of working, of praying, of studying, of communicating, on how our homes should be, our way of dressing. And then later, on the expansion of the Movement in the continents, on how to organize the Movement and become a people. I foresaw all of this. I would say to my companions in our first focolare: “There will be a new art, a new form of politics, everything will be renewed”. That’s probably why I didn’t even realize that the war had ended. I was so absorbed by this charisma which was flowing out into the Movement.
The light which came was from another source although I saw my own thought within it. Everything happened gently. The light which came was from another source although I saw my own thought within it. Its touch was gentle. God doesn’t crush you because grace refines our nature, it doesn’t destroy it. All my earlier formation was useful because grace raises up our humanity. I wasn’t in the slightest frightened. no! Sometimes people say: Imagine all that responsibility….I don’t feel any responsibility. If God wanted to create this Opera, let Him do it!
But you know it’s still like that with this light. God guides me. I am guided by this charism which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. I see, I speak and I communicate it and then it comes about. But it’s not me. It’s God using me. He chooses.
We had to fulfil the prayer of Jesus: “May they all be one”, that is, one family and it’s happening. Of course when I am in the next life, others will continue to carry everything even further ahead.
If I were to leave an inheritance, it would be Jesus in the Midst. Love one another as Jesus has loved us. Be ready to die for one another. Be a family. That’s what I’d say. That’s what it’s all about.
Source:
“Face to Face” – Video interview with Chiara Lubich by Sandra Hogget, Charisma Productions 2002. Copyright: Centro Santa Chiara Audiovisuals