5 Oct 2005 | Non categorizzato
“Let our cities live again” is the motto of the relay race entitled ‘Run4unity.’ Boys and girls of different languages, cultures and religions have fixed an appointment from 11 to 12 a.m. on Sunday, October 9, in the most important places of their respective countries to ask that universal brotherhood become a reality as soon as possible. The worldwide event is a day dedicated to sports as a way of bearing common witness to building a united world. It involves a number of cities and has for its guideline the Gospel’s ‘Golden Rule’: “Do unto others what you would have others do unto you,” which is present also in the sacred books of the main religions of the world. By walking, running, on skates or on bicycle, the participants all over the world have set as their goal those places where there is tension or which are recognized as landmarks of peace. They will also pass by headquarters of local and international institutions. In Rome the relay race will conclude at St. Peter’s Square with the hope of having a word of greeting from the Pope during the Angelus. Countries of the Northern and Southern hemispheres will offer a sharing of goods by giving the participants the chance to donate thingsthey own, which will then be distributed to the disadvantaged young people in their respective cities or to maintain scholarships for youth in war-torn or poverty-stricken countries.
There will be radio updates in streaming and telephone link-ups in real time from 11 p.m. (Italian time) of Saturday, October 8 to 11 p.m. (Italian time) of Sunday, October 9 with Noumea (New Caledonia), Coimbatore (India), Jerusalem (Israel), Fontem (Cameroon), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Sao Paulo (Brazil), New York (USA). From October 10 to 16, the boys and girls participating will pass the race on to the youth of the Focolare Movement who will celebrate the World Unity Week (www.mondounito.net), a worldwide appointment which includes round table forums, demonstrations, cultural evenings and activities on the subject of peace and unity in all levels of society, with the aim of rendering public opinion and institutions more sensitive to the ideal of a united world and to generating universal brotherhood among all.
30 Sep 2005 | Non categorizzato, Word of
These decisive words fix our lives in God and then, with the light and strength that comes from this, they launch us into the service of humanity. With these words Jesus answers a question posed by a group of Pharisees and some of Herod’s men: were they obligated to pay taxes to the occupying Roman powers? This was a trap set up to trick him. If Jesus would have answered yes, the Pharisees would have accused him of collaborating with the enemy and he might have lost the trust of the people. If he would have answered no, then Herod’s men, who were connected with the Roman authorities, would have said that he was subversive and would have accused him of being a political agitator. Jesus then asked them to show him a silver coin used to pay taxes and to tell him whose image and inscription was on it. They answered that it was the Emperor’s. If it is the Emperor’s, Jesus said, then give to the Emperor what is his. He thus recognized the value of civil authority and institutions. But his answer goes beyond this dimension, indicating what is truly important: to give to God what is already his. Just as the image of the Emperor is on the Roman coin, so too has the image of God been imprinted on the heart of every person: he created us in his image and likeness (see Gn 1:26). We therefore belong to him and must return to him. Only to him should be given the total and exclusive tribute of our lives. What is most important is not paying the taxes due to the Roman Emperor, but giving to God our own lives and our own hearts.
«Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God»
How should we live this Word of Life? By renewing our respect, our sense of responsibility for and our commitment to civic affairs, by honoring the law, protecting life, and maintaining the safety and order of society’s structures: public buildings, roads, means of transportation, and so forth. We can do it, not by taking a back seat but by offering an active contribution, decisive and well-thought-out ideas, proposals, and suggestions on how to improve our neighborhood, city and nation. We can volunteer our services in social and healthcare agencies, and we can increasingly improve the quality of our work. By fulfilling our responsibilities with competency and love we can truly serve Jesus in our brothers and sisters, and thus help the government and society to respond to God’s plan for humanity and to be completely at the service of each human person.
«Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God»
Andrea Ferrari, a bank clerk in Milan, was able to live out this Word of Life in the office where he worked. “Every morning,” he once wrote, “just a few minutes before 8:30, I walk into the office building, punch the time clock and my day at work begins. It’s an odd sort of job; I’m always coming and going, up and down stairs, waiting in front of closed windows, receiving and giving out forms — and I’ve been doing it for years now. If I keep loving always, even when under stress, for example, with letters that have to be written over and over again, I will have done all that is expected of me, because I feel quite certain that Jesus is the one who has chosen this place for me.” “I am a bank clerk,” he would say with simplicity to Jesus, “and I want to serve you as a bank clerk. This is my life, Lord. I want to fill it with Love!” An elderly woman remarked that she always felt Andrea treated her not as an anonymous customer but as a “person.” One day she wished to express her thanks and brought him a bag full of fresh eggs! At thirty-one years of age, Andrea lay dying in a hospital in Turin, as a result of a traffic accident. “Am I to die like this, alone, without seeing anyone?” The nun nursing him responded that one needs to accept the will of God. On hearing these words, Andrea took courage and smiled. “We have learned to recognize God’s will as our ideal, always, even in the small things,”1 he responded, and then he added with his usual wit, “even in front of a red light.” He had obeyed God, and in this obedience of love he returned to God. Chiara Lubich
27 Sep 2005 | Non categorizzato
22 Sep 2005 | Non categorizzato
Dear participants of the 3rd Sportmeet International Congress, I learned that you are gathered in Trent, the city where the Focolare Movement was born, for the Congress entitled “Sport and Joy – Joy runs together with true sport.” I extend a particular greeting to all those present and to all the people of the city who will join you. To you, my ardent wish that this event may contribute to the expansion of “Trento Ardente” (Ardent Trent), a reality always very dear to us. From ancient times, sport has been conceived as a time of rejoicing both for participants and spectators. It is not just by chance that the Olympic Games have endured up to our times Christianity later gave value not only to the men and women who won, but also to the glory rendered to God who created people who are particularly gifted physically (be they individuals or groups), not to mention the contribution of the teachers, trainers and supporters. With Christianity in particular, the losers learned the value of their suffering and defeat, because the Son of God has given value to these. Those who lose may even experience a deeper joy, that which comes from having given: given of themselves in endless hours of training or in co-operating as a team member that when united gives wholly of itself during a public performance. Inner joy, the purest joy can come only from giving, from loving, on the part of the winners (if they strove and won out of love) as well as the losers (if they, too, strove and lost out of love). Sport, then, becomes something true, worthy of being raised up to its dignity in society, something that provides true recreation for people in this very stressful civilization of ours. True sport then becomes an element that generates closeness, brotherhood and peace among peoples and nations. In ancient Greece, all wars were suspended during the Olympic Games. May we not fall short of the example those people set for us. With this wish, I greet all of you again, the youth in particular, whom I wish would experience the joy of true sport. Chiara Lubich
22 Sep 2005 | Non categorizzato
“The growth of sports in society and its consequences,” “Sport and the ambition to succeed and get rich,” “The educational value of the sport models offered by the world today,” “Is happiness found in practicing, or in achieving success in sports?” These issues and concerns of the sports’ world formed the nucleus of discussion in an international Congress entitled ‘Sport and Joy: joy runs together with true sport.’ The event was held in conjunction with the United Nations International Year of Sport and Physical Education. It was promoted by Sportmeet for a United World, which aims at initiating a dialogue with the world of sports regarding the ties that link physical activity, sport and happiness – quite a challenging correlation in our times, when the experience of lasting personal and collective happiness seems to be an illusion.
Experts, educators and people involved in the sports’ world helped define the theme of sport and joy and its sociological, economic, educational and psychological implications.
What is Sportmeet all about? It is a worldwide network of people involved in the field of sports, who aim to help build a more united world precisely through sports activities. Sportmeet is one of the expressions of the Focolare Movement. Forthcoming appointments October 9, 2005: Sportmeet will collaborate with Run4Unity, a planetary relay race promoted by the Young for Unity of the Focolare Movement. The 24-hour race for peace is currently being organized in 10 cities around the world (www.run4unity.org).
15 Sep 2005 | Non categorizzato
Professor Benjamin Barber,
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends,
I still remember very well the second Interdependence day in Rome. I wish I were with you in Paris, though, I’m present with this message.
This third step along our road places the Arts at the heart of Interdependence, for this way of life can build deep relationships among individuals and among peoples.
The encounter of civilizations, now irreversible, has led us far from our old cultural views. We realize now that they were often inadequate or biased because they were deprived of relationships between peoples. This is very good.
But there’s the other side of the coin: many of us were not ready for these changes. A feeling of insecurity prevailed, together with intolerance, caused by the fear that we might lose both our own way of thinking and our deepest values.
It can’t be so.
Among the material and spiritual ruins of the Second World War, my first companions and I discovered that Love is the only Ideal that always remains. This Love is God, who sustains and gives meaning to everything.
This unique discovery led us to start loving the person next to us. Always and everywhere we got an immediate answer from every man or woman of whatever culture, faith, tradition. This is because the DNA of Love lies in the heart of every person, even if it is sometimes hidden.
Looking at the world in this way, we can see we are brothers and sisters of every man or woman we approach, because we are children of the one God, who is Love. If we look back at history we can identify certain occasions when fraternity has been lived. This is what is happening today, here.
Then we can rely on the strength of Love to take up the present historic challenge of multiculturalism.
Love loves everyone; it moves every heart so that a communion of goods may be achieved. It loves the other’s homeland as well as its own, it builds up new structures so that war, terrorism, quarrels, hunger and the thousands of evils of the world draw back.
Love takes an active part in lively dialogues between people of the most diverse religions, based on the « golden rule » – « do for the others what you’d like them to do for you » – present in all the holy books, and it reconstructs the spiritual history of mankind.
Love makes the men and women of this earth able to embrace the whole world, able to offer their own values as a gift to the others, able to enhance the values of the other cultures, in order to work out a global wisdom, which is so necessary today.
Then humankind will live up to a fraternal interdependence, as one family capable of building structures that can express the movement from unity to diversity and vice versa.
I ask God, the source of Love, to help us make this dream come true.
Chiara Lubich
