[:it]Mass media, vocazione all’unità dei popoli
[:it]La dottrina spirituale
La dottrina spirituale di Chiara Lubich viene presentata secondo tre grandi momenti:
il primo concentrato sul cuore del carisma;
il secondo sull’originale modalità di vivere e pensare la fede; il terzo sulla visione del mondo nei suoi aspetti più diversi, dalla politica all’economia, dalla filosofia alle scienze della comunicazione.
Come dimostrano i saggi teologici introduttivi, la figura di Chiara Lubich può essere collocata, senza timore di eccedere nella valutazione, accanto alle più grandi personalità della spiritualità cattolica di tutti i tempi.
Il suo insegnamento ha già mostrato lungo gli anni tutta la propria ricchezza, generando libri, discorsi, lettere, interventi. Di tale variegato e ricco messaggio però mancava un’organica articolazione che ne abbracciasse sia l’estensione cronologica di oltre mezzo secolo, sia l’ampiezza degli argomenti trattati.
Il presente volume, che della figura di Chiara Lubich offre la dottrina spirituale, intende colmare tale vuoto.
Gli scritti che lo compongono vanno dal 1943 (anno di fondazione del Movimento dei Focolari) ai nostri giorni, e racchiudono l’intera varietà dei generi letterari nei quali ha preso vita la spiritualità di Chiara Lubich: lettere personali e manifesti programmatici, pagine a stampa e parole sussurrate all’orecchio, magistrali lezioni accademiche e frasi stringate come aforismi, discorsi pubblici e colloqui intimi e personali. In queste pagine non manca nessuno dei numerosi registri utilizzati da Chiara Lubich per esprimere la sua originale interpretazione del cristianesimo.
Curato da un esperto studioso di Chiara Lubich, questo libro è stato rivisto dall’Autrice parola per parola, non senza nuove integrazioni e una significativa presenza di inediti. Al testo si affiancano due saggi sul valore teologico e spirituale, la bibliografia completa delle opere e una rassegna dei principali scritti sulla sua figura, due dettagliate schede sulla biografia e sul Movimento dei Focolari, un indice dei temi spirituali.
Frutto di una competenza e di un amore rari, questo libro è una vera piccola “summa” che consente di conoscere in profondità una delle più suggestive spiritualità del nostro tempo.
The modern challenge becomes dialogue
Dialogue will be the key contribution made by the Focolare at the Social Week in Reggio Calabria, Italy. Lucia Fronza Crepaz was involved in drawing up the document that will be presented by the Movement and, in Reggio, she and Luca Antonini will direct the study group on “institutional transition”. Mrs Fronza was deputy in more than one legislature and in the Focolare she is co-responsible for the secretariat of the New Humanity Movement.
What did you experience when the Italian Bishops Conference asked the Focolare to be involved?
Happiness. At having been called together with everyone else. It was a very Catholic approach to call, or rather to go to each of the offices of the various associations, to gather their expectations, their charism, the different languages. We will bring what Chiara Lubich left to us: the culture of the Resurrection. Not so much in answer to bleak times, but as a hope which rests on the certainty of Jesus’ Pasch, which takes on vast horizons and foresees the possibility of a single human family as the goal of history. And so also for Italy, offering it in these 150 years of Unity, there is this new unity that is born from hope in the Risen Jesus.
From Chiara Lubich you inherited the exhortation to dialogue and to unity. She said: “All will be one if we will be one.” Dialogue in this society that seems so crushed and divided?
Dialogue as intended by Chiara is the reflection of the Trinitarian life of God who is one and three. We never ask why we don’t have an identity, but starting from the strong identity founded on the culture of the Resurrection, you can open a dialogue full of hope. If you aim at the novelty that you find in every person, in every culture, in every religion, you can draw out a thread of hope.
All of this takes place within the framework of the city, which you hold as the privileged setting. Is it also a place for dialogue?
We can look at it as the “landfill” as someone called it, or as a place of solitude, or we can look at the vocation of the city, its need to be where people can be identified. You might ask: What about the new people coming in? Their culture? They belong to the futures of our cities. If our horizons are those of a family of the world, then we can understand that what is happening is already part of this.
Your Focolare group suggest a city-wide laboratory, because the parish embraces only a portion of the city and the diocese crosses city borders. What is this city-wide laboratory?
Even the tiniest cities face all the challenges of globalization: different cultures and generations encountering each other. A city is already a laboratory. The grand theme of interreligious relations, for example, can also fall to a single Christian who meets a Muslim. This micro-dialogue shows that you can already begin – on a small scale – to give answers to the great questions that humankind is facing. This new project can initiate from a parish, from a mayor, from a group of citizens or a group of associations. The city, instead of being a place where everything is exasperating, can become the place of beginnings.
Source: article by Giovanni Ruggiero, Avvenire 24 September 2010
[:it]La città, dimora dell’interdipendenza
Haiti outside the spotlight
It was last 12th of January when a violent earthquake threw Haiti into confusion, causing nearly half a million deaths. On the pages of Action for a United World News the spotlights still shine on areas where the others have been spent, and they contintinue to show how reconstruction goes on in this country which is perhaps the poorest of the Northern Hemisphere. AMU’s commitment, as that of other NGOs, is precious because it continues on after the initial crisis when the attention of public opinion began to wane and frustrate the initial successes.
Through a local organization – Action contre la Pauvreté (PACNE) – AMU, the New Families and Youth for a United World Movements, support a project for building a welcome center for displaced people. The work is already in an advanced stage and moving along with the installation of the utilities, like water. The selection of beneficiaries for the project is in the care of a committee which includes members of PACNE and representatives of the local community, such as the mayor and local pastor. Priority will be given to the most needy persons among those who, having lost everything, have fled to Mont Organisé, the area in which the welcome center has been built. Once these persons are able to return to the city or to more permanent dwellings, the building will be used to welcome the elderly, the sick, or persons who are alone. Everything will be managed with absolute transparency by a specially elected commission. Obviously, the need and the difficulties are enormous and it will take years before the infrastructure and the economic system are able to completely respond to the the needs of the people. For this reason, Amu will continue to evaluate new proposals and projects, which we will continue to report on.