30 Apr 2009 | Non categorizzato, Word of
Edith, a young woman from Sardinia who has been blind from birth, lives in an institution for the blind. One day, the chaplain became paralyzed and could no longer celebrate Mass. Because of this, it was decided that the Eucharist could no longer be kept in the chapel. When Edith heard about this, she asked the bishop to let them keep the Eucharist, for it was the only light in their dark world. He granted her request and also gave her permission to distribute communion to the chaplain and the other residents.
In her desire to help others, Edith also took on the responsibility of preparing a radio program that is broadcast a few hours every week. She uses this program to share with those who are suffering the best that she has to offer—advice, sound thinking and the explanation of moral issues—in order to give them strength. And there is much more that could be said about Edith. Although she is blind, her suffering has given her light.
“As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.”
I could give you other examples as well. There is goodness in the world that often goes unnoticed. Edith lives out her Christianity: she knows that each of us has received gifts from God and she has put hers at the service of others.
Yes, because the word “gift” (which is derived from the Greek word “charism”) does not refer only to those graces that God gives those who govern his Church. Nor does it refer only to those extraordinary gifts that God gives directly to individual Christians for the good of all when they are needed to solve a particular problem in the Church, or in times of serious danger when the existing institutions are not sufficient. Such gifts include wisdom, knowledge, the power to work miracles, the gift of tongues, the charism to generate a new spirituality in the Church, and so on.
These, moreover, are not the only gifts or charisms. There are other, more ordinary ones that many people possess and that are noticeable because of the good they bring about. The Holy Spirit is always at work.
Furthermore, natural talents can also be considered as gifts or charisms. Everyone, therefore, is gifted. You, too.
How should you use your gifts? Try to make them bear fruit. They were not given to you for your own benefit alone but, rather, for the good of all.
“As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.”
There is a great variety of gifts. Since each person has his or her own gifts, each one also has a specific role to fulfill in the community.
Tell me, what gifts do you have? Do you have a degree? Did you ever think, for instance, of setting aside a few hours each week to teach those who need help, those who cannot afford to pay for their studies?
Are you a generous person? Did you ever think of getting together with other people of good will in order to help the poor and the outcasts of society? By doing. this, you could restore a true sense of human dignity to many hearts ….
Are you able to comfort others? Are you good at housekeeping, cooking, sewing or crafts? Look around to see who might need your help.
It’s painful to see how many people are bored because they don't know what to do with their free time. We Christians do not have free time—not as long as there are on this earth the sick, the hungry, the imprisoned, the ignorant, the uncertain, the unhappy, the addicted, the handicapped, … the orphaned, the widowed.
And think of prayer. It is such a powerful gift that we can use at any time, since in every moment we can turn to God who is present everywhere.…
“As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.”
Can you imagine what the Church would be like if all Christians, children as well as adults, shared with others the graces they have received? Their mutual love would become so real, so abundant and so striking that… non-Christians would be able to recognize them as true disciples of Christ.…
For an outcome such as that, don't you think you ought to do all you can to bring it about?
By Chiara Lubich
You can find a complete version of Chiara’s commentary in Words to Live By (New City Press, 1980).
23 Apr 2009 | Non categorizzato
Much more than solidarity “In the dust of Aquila, we saw the best side of human nature”, said Umberto a volunteer and speleologist from the Alpine rescue service, involved in searching through the rubble. “Prejudice, presumption, arrogance disappeared and only the inner purity of human nature remained, innocent as when we were created. There was much more than solidarity: humanity emerged in all its greatness.” A life-changing experience Marta, a nineteen year old civil engineering student at Aquila University, is visibly moved as she tells us: “It is an experience that changes you. Only God remains. I knew it, I believed it, but now I have experienced it. What use was it to plan my life out? Now I live one day at a time, or rather, one moment at a time.” The tremor just before 11 pm on April 5 was accompanied by a huge bang. Marta was extremely frightened. She and her friends had no idea what to do, even though their rented house, built during the nineties, seemed safe. They phoned their parents. All of them seemed to agree that they need not worry, there was no need to overreact, they ought to keep their minds on their studies. How much they must have regretted that advice, even though their daughters survived! Chiara, a twenty-four year old dental student, remembers the tremor at 10.45 pm. She was on the phone with Luisa. They were very scared. Their other colleagues in university accommodation had already left Aquila. They were both alone in different houses, so they decided to stay the night together. “Shall I come there? Or you come here?” Thankfully Chiara went to stay with her friend. Her own house was in a part that was hit the worst. Rebuilding, outside and within Another kind of reconstruction work ought not to be forgotten, that of the enormous number of people traumatised by the earthquake. Panic attacks, anxiety and insecurity, the difficulty of coping with everyday life and making plans, are often accompanied by insomnia and passivity. The symptoms of trauma last for months, and are sometimes permanent. “Learning how to cope with them”, explains Giuseppe Rocco, neurologist and psychiatrist from Teramo Health Service, working with the evacuees, “is quite possible, but psychotherapy and drugs are not enough. A network of relationships is required. With all of these, trauma damage can be reversed.” In this important inner reconstruction, the generosity and warmth of groups, movements and associations can do a lot. We can see this even while the tremors go on. Testimonies published in Città Nuova n 8 on 25/4/2009
21 Apr 2009 | Non categorizzato
Some extracts from a talk by Nedo Pozzi on the figure of “Giordani communicator”, given on 18 April, the 29th anniversary of the death of “Foco”, during the recent congress of NetOne Italia.
Igino Giordani, known as Foco by Chiara and all of us, left this earthly life twenty nine years ago. Giordani was an important twentieth century Italian figure. Just when he was busiest and most well known, an event occurred that changed his life and drew him into a new and totally absorbing spiritual experience
It was his meeting in September 1948 with Chiara Lubich. With her, he established a spiritual bond of unity of exceptional humility and transparency. “All my studies, my ideals, the events of my life seemed to have been pointing towards this… Previously I had searched, and now I had found.”
And from that meeting between Chiara and Giordani in 1948, a radical renewal of life, thought, and social interaction began to flourish in all fields, including politics and the media…
Giordani was a man of multiple talents, but today we will consider him as a communicator at the service of a great ideal: humanity as a family.
His contribution to the media world was impressive. He wrote 4000 articles for 49 different publications, in Italy and abroad, founded various journals, directed two daily papers and ten periodicals, and wrote more than 100 books (almost two per year), which, not including essays, pamphlets, letters and talks amount to 26000 pages, many of them translated into various languages. For thirty years he was active in the cultural and political scene, nationally and internationally, giving prophetic insights into many of the dramas of the twentieth century. He was a gifted writer, but his most effective contribution to the media was with words. He had a talent for beautiful and eloquent conversation that, with subtle irony, conveyed counter cultural ideas of unusual depth.
He was a real artist with words, and a politician who was “naive” and “too Christian”. Here he writes about communication.
“If to be is to think, to live is to communicate”
“The communicator is called to illuminate, not to obscure. ….He ought to renew himself each day, replenish himself with ideas in every moment. …The communicator may have no money in his pocket, but with an idea in his head, and a flame burning in his heart, he is worth more on the market than a financier.”
“Love is everything, without love everything is nothing. Communication can and must nourish this truth, the only lasting cohesive force in society, before fear, the mother of the atomic bomb, gains the upper hand.”
“The communicator is the most direct builder of a new city.”
“Humanity always brings ruin on itself for the same reasons… It says for example, “If you want peace, prepare for war”. For us the truth is different. If you want peace prepare for peace. If you prepare for war, then sooner or later the rifles will shoot by themselves… If we want to achieve peace, we have to begin by building it among us… for peace truly begins from each one of us.” This is what he said in Parliament on 21 December 1950.
And finally, what would Giordani say if we were to ask him what to do?
“Open up your heart like a shell in order to hear the voice of humanity. Enable love and wealth – the good and the goods – to circulate, breaking down the barricades of race and class, the customs posts of the spirit, the road tolls of happiness… See in every person, whoever it is, a brother or sister…”
He issued this challenge in 1961, but it is extremely relevant today. I have to respond to it each morning, each time I meet someone or I sit at my computer to do my (and his) work.
Nedo Pozzi
31 Mar 2009 | Non categorizzato, Word of
Have you noticed how often your life just drags on because you are not living it fully but are waiting for “tomorrow,” hoping it will bring something “beautiful”?
There is, indeed, a “beautiful tomorrow” in store for you, but it is not the one you expect.
A God-given instinct leads you to look forward to something or someone that will be able to satisfy you. You look forward to a holiday celebration, a vacation, or some special encounter; but then when everything is over you are not satisfied, or not fully satisfied. And you start the routine of your life again without conviction, always looking forward to something else.
The truth is that among the many elements in human life there is one that no one can escape: the face-to-face meeting with the Lord who is coming. This is the “beautiful tomorrow” you are unconsciously looking for, because you are made for happiness, and only He can give you complete happiness.
Jesus knows how you and I search for happiness blindly; in fact, he warns us:
“Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”
Be vigilant. Be alert. Stay awake. For although there are many things that you can have doubts about on earth, there is one thing that is certain: one day you will die. For a Christian, this means to meet Christ who is coming.
Perhaps, like many others, you intentionally try to forget about death. You fear that moment and live as if it were never going to come. Rooting yourself more and more in this earthly life, you say, “Death frightens me; therefore it doesn't exist.” Yet that moment will come because Christ will certainly come.
“Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”
With these words, Jesus is speaking of his coming on the last day. Just as he was lifted up into heaven from among the apostles, so will he return.
But these words also refer to the coming of the Lord at the end of each person’s life. After all, when a person dies, for him or her it is the end of the world.
Since you don’t know if Christ will come today, tonight, tomorrow, or in a year or more, you have to be vigilant. You have to be like those who keep watch because they know a thief is coming but they don’t know the hour.
If Jesus is coming, then this life is a passing thing. But that does not mean that you should undervalue it. On the contrary, you should give it the highest importance. You should prepare yourself for that encounter with Him by living a worthy life. …
“Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”
You certainly have to be vigilant. Your life is not merely a peaceful chain of events; it is also a struggle. And a wide variety of temptations, such as those regarding sexuality, vanity, attachment to money, and violence, are your main enemies. If you are always vigilant you won't be taken by surprise.
Those who love are always vigilant. Vigilance is a characteristic of love.
When you love someone you are constantly watching and waiting for him or her to come. Every moment away from the one you love is spent with him or her in mind.
For instance, a wife whose husband is away thinks of him as she goes about her work or as she prepares something for him. Everything is done with him in mind. Consequently, when he arrives at the end of the day she is overjoyed to see him.
Similarly, when a mother is caring for a sick child her thoughts are with him even as she rests.
In the same way, a person who loves Jesus does everything with Him in mind, encountering Him in the simple expressions of His will in every moment, and preparing for that solemn encounter with Him on the day when He comes.
Consider what happened on November 3, 1974. At Santa Maria in southern Brazil a religious convention for 250 young people had just ended. Most of them had come from the city of Pelotas.
The first chartered bus left with forty-five people aboard who were joyfully singing, expressing their love for Jesus. As they were travelling, some of the girls started to pray the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, asking Our Lady to help them to be faithful to God to the end of their lives.
A short time later, the brakes failed and the bus went out of control around a curve, turning over three times as it fell a hundred and fifty feet. Six girls died.
One who survived said, “I saw death but I was not afraid because God was there.”
Another one said, “When I realized I could move, I knelt in the midst of the debris among the bodies of my friends, and I looked at the starry sky and prayed. God was there with us.” The father of Carmen Regina, one of the girls who died, said that she used to say: “Dying is a beautiful thing, Papa, because you go to be with Jesus.”
“Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”
The girls from Pelotas were watching because they were loving, and when the Lord came, they went to meet Him with joy.
Chiara Lubich
Published in Chiara Lubich, Words to Live By, New City Press, 1987.
The Word of Life, a sentence of Scripture, is offered each month as a guide and inspiration for daily life. From the Focolare’s beginnings, Chiara Lubich wrote her commentaries on each Word of Life, and after her death last March, her early writings are now being featured once again. This commentary, addressed to a primarily Christian audience, was originally published in December 1978.
28 Feb 2009 | Non categorizzato, Word of
The most absurd thing in this world is this: on the one hand, there are so many confused people, endlessly searching for something, crying out for help in the midst of the inevitable trials of life and feeling like orphans. On the other hand, there is God who is everyone’s Father and who would like nothing better than to use his almighty power to grant his children’s wishes and to satisfy their needs.
It is as if emptiness and fullness were crying out for each other. Yet the two do not meet. The freedom humans have been given is able to do such damage.
But for those who acknowledge him, God never ceases to be Love.
Listen to what Jesus says:
“Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you”
This is one of those statements, full of promise, that we find in the Gospels and that Jesus uses to teach us in various ways how to obtain what we need. […]
Only God can speak in this manner. His power is unlimited and he can bestow all graces, whether they be spiritual or material, possible or impossible.
But pay close attention: Jesus tells you how to present your request to the Father. “In my name,” he says.
If you have even a little faith, these three short words should give you confidence.
Jesus lived here among us and knows our countless needs, and he feels deep concern for us. So when we pray, he wants to be involved. It is as if he were saying to each one of us: “Go to the Father on my behalf and ask him for this and that and the other thing.” He knows that the Father cannot say “no” to him because he is his Son and he is God.
You do not go to the Father on your own behalf, but on behalf of Jesus. You become simply his messenger.
There are many Christians who pray in this way and who could tell you of the countless graces they have received that show that, in his fatherly love, God watches over them every day.
“Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you”
At this point, perhaps, you may say to me, “I have asked over and over in the name of Christ but with no results.”
That is possible. I mentioned before that there are other passages of the Gospel in which Jesus invites us to ask for what we need. In them he gives further explanations that you have probably overlooked.
He says, for instance, that we obtain what we request if we “remain” in him, and that means to remain in his will. […]
It is possible that you may ask for something that doesn’t coincide with God’s plan for you, something that he doesn’t consider useful to your life here on earth or in heaven, or that he even considers harmful. How could he, your Father, grant your prayer in this case? He would be betraying you, and that he will never do.
Therefore, it might be useful for you to make an agreement with him before praying, and to say: “Father, I would like to ask you this in Jesus’ name–if you think it is in order.”
If the grace you are asking is in harmony with God’s loving plan for you, then you will see the truth of the words:
“Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you”
It could also be that you ask for graces without any intention of conforming your life to what God demands. Do you think that in this case it would be fair for God to grant what you request? He doesn’t want to give you only a gift; he wants to give you complete happiness, and you can possess it only if you live the commandments of God, and his words. It is not enough to think about them, or even to meditate on them; they must be lived.
If you do this, you will obtain everything.
To summarize, would you like to obtain graces?
Ask for anything you want in the name of Jesus, intending, above all, to do God’s will and to obey his laws.
God is very happy to give us graces. Unfortunately, we don’t very often give him the chance.
An integral version of this commentary has been published in: Chiara Lubich, Words to Live By (New City Press, 1980).
31 Jan 2009 | Non categorizzato, Word of
What do you think of this? These words make extreme, unheard-of demands! Yet, that Jesus who said that marriage is indissoluble and commanded us to love everyone, and especially our parents, that same Jesus is now asking us to put into second place all the beautiful affections we have here on earth, lest they become obstacles to our direct, immediate love for him. Only God could ask so much.
Jesus wants to tear us away from our natural way of living and wants to bind us to himself above anything else so that he can bring about universal brotherhood on earth.
Therefore, wherever he finds an obstacle to his plan, he “cuts,” and in the Gospel he speaks, in a spiritual sense, of a “sword.”
He calls those who have not known how to love him more than mother, spouse, and life itself, “the dead.” Do you remember the man in the Gospel who asked if he could bury his father before starting to follow Jesus? Jesus answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead” (Lk 9:60).
Perhaps you might be afraid when confronted with such a demand. Perhaps you would like to limit these words of Jesus to his own time, or address them only to those called to follow him in a special way.
You are mistaken. These words hold true in every age, our own as well. They apply to all Christians, including you. In today’s world you will find many opportunities to put this invitation of Christ into practice.
Is someone in your family opposed to Christianity? Jesus wants you to bear witness to him or her with your life and, at the right moment, with words, too, even at the cost of being ridiculed or slandered.
Are you a mother whose husband is asking you to have an abortion? Be obedient to God and not to humans.
Does somebody want you to join in an activity whose goals are suspicious or even wrong? Break off with him or her.
Has a relative offered you money obtained illegally? Maintain your honesty.
Does your whole family encourage you to enjoy the many things that the permissive world has to offer? You need to break with this so that Christ's presence in your life will not withdraw.
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
Are you from a family of non-believers? Did the fact of your conversion to Christ provoke division? Don’t worry, for this is the result of living the Gospel. Offer God the anguish in your heart for those you love, but don’t give up.
Did Christ call you to himself in a special way, and is now the moment when the total gift of yourself demands that you leave father and mother or even your fiancé?
Make your choice. There is no victory without a struggle.
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
“… and even his own life.”
Do you live in a place where persecution is a fact and where being a Christian puts your life in danger? Take courage. At times our faith can ask even this of us. For the Church there is never a real end to the age of martyrs.
Each one of us, in the course of his or her life, will sooner or later have to choose between Christ and everything else in order to remain an authentic Christian. So your turn will come too.
Don’t be afraid. Don’t fear for your life. It is better to lose it for God than to lose it forever. Eternal life is a reality.
Don’t be afraid for your family either. God loves them. If you are able to put him first, one day he will come and call them with the powerful words of his love, and you will help them to become, with you, true disciples of Christ.
By Chiara Lubich
An integral version of this commentary has been published in: Chiara Lubich, Words to Live By, New City Press, 1980.
