[:it]Ti voglio bene, anche quando…
August 2004
Jesus frequently compared heaven to a wedding feast and to a family gathered around the table. In our human experience, in fact, these represent some of life’s most beautiful and serene moments. But how many will enter heaven, how many will take their place in that “banquet hall”?
One day, Jesus was asked this question: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” (Lk 13:23). As he did on other occasions, Jesus went beyond the question and brought his listeners face to face with a choice that must be made, inviting them to enter God’s house.
But this is not easy. The gate is narrow and it remains open only for a while. In order to follow Jesus, we must deny ourselves; we must give up, at least spiritually, our selves, our possessions and the persons we’re tied to. He even says that we must carry the cross as he did. It is a difficult way, it’s true, but with his grace we can all make it.
«Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough»
It is easier to enter when “the gate is wide and the road broad.” Jesus speaks of such a way elsewhere, but this way can lead to “destruction” (see Mt 7:13). In our secularized world, dominated by materialism, consumerism, hedonism, by vanity and violence, so much seems acceptable. We tend to satisfy every need, to give in to every compromise in our quest for happiness.
But we know that true happiness is obtained by loving and that self denial is the necessary condition for being able to love. We need to be pruned in order to yield good fruit. We need to die to ourselves in order to live. It is the law of Jesus and one of his paradoxes. Today’s mentality envelops us like a swift-flowing river and we need to swim upstream: for example, we must give up the longing to possess, we must avoid disagreements on matters of principles and we must not defame our adversaries. But we should also carry out our work honestly, and with generosity, without hurting the interests of others; we should evaluate carefully what to view on television, what to read, and so forth.
«Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough»
For those who let themselves go and for those who choose an easy life and who do not have the courage to face the journey proposed by Jesus, a sad future lies ahead. This too is in the Gospel. Jesus speaks of the suffering of those who will be left outside. It will not be enough to boast of belonging to one’s religion or to be satisfied with living Christianity merely in its traditions. It will not help to say: “We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets” (Lk 13:26). No one can take salvation for granted.
It will be unpleasant to hear the words: “I do not know where you are from” (Lk 13:25). It will mean loneliness, desperation, the absolute lack of relationship, the burning regret of having had the possibility to love and to no longer be able to love. This is a torment whose end it is not possible to see because it will never end: “And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth” (Lk 13:28).
Jesus warns us because he wants what is good for us. He is not the one who closes the door; we are the ones who shut ourselves off from his love. He respects our freedom.
«Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough»
If the wide gate leads to perdition, the narrow one is fully open to true happiness. Every winter is followed by the blossoming of spring. Yes, we must be ready to practice the self denial the Gospel demands, and be willing to shoulder our cross every day. If we accept suffering with love, in unity with Jesus who assumed all our sufferings, we will experience a foretaste of heaven.
This is the way it was for Robert when he went to the final court appearance of the man who, four years earlier, had caused his father’s death. After the sentence was read, the man, together with his wife and father, was desolate. “I felt like going over to him,” Robert said, “overcoming my pride which told me not to. I wanted him to know that we were not enemies.”
“They are the ones who should ask pardon of us,” his sister pointed out. Robert, however, persuaded her and together they approached the “opposing” family: “If this can lessen your pain, know that we do not bear any grudge against you.” They earnestly shook hands with one another. “I had seized the opportunity to look at the suffering of the other person and to forget my own,” Robert later said, “and I felt a great joy.”
Chiara Lubich
[:it]Il mistero d’amore
Risking my life at the railway terminal in Rome
I was on my way into Rome one day for a doctor’s appointment, when a young man bumped into me as I was getting off the train at the station. He was a young foreigner, and three men ran after him. “Thief! Stop him!” The crowd stopped him and he fell to the ground. When the men caught up to him they began insulting and beating him and kicking him in the stomach. As I watched this brutal scene, I gave a fleeting thought to my serious condition of hypertension. But right away I understood that then and there that boy’s life was more important than mine. I couldn’t give in to the usual way of thinking and pretend nothing was happening. The Gospel I was trying to live demanded much more from me. So I rushed into the crowd, pushing my way through with my bag. I threw myself over the boy to protect him. He was shouting for help and when his aggressors saw what I had done, they decided to stop. “Don’t you all feel ashamed treating him like this?” I asked them. “What serious crime did he do to make you to treat him like this?” “He stole my wallet,” one of them answered. The boy, who was 16 years old, told me he had to steal in order to buy bread. He hadn’t eaten for two days, and was sleeping under a bridge. In the meantime, the police arrived. The boy started to explain that he had fled from his country two years before. His whole family had been killed and he was the only one who had escaped death by hiding under a haystack. Then he came to Italy, a place, his friends told him, where life was much better. The police brought the boy to the hospital and I went along with them. On the way, he held my hand tightly, and said, “Mama, you’ve saved my life. You are my Italian mother.” In the emergency room he was diagnosed with a fractured skull and three broken ribs. After a while a Sister came to tell us that he had to be admitted to the hospital, but that he didn’t have the necessary clothing. I went to buy the things he needed and soon after he was admitted. As I was caring for him, the police officers and the Sister read me his clinical report and asked if I was a relative. I said no. From their eyes I saw that they were both perplexed and moved. “Why are you doing this?” they asked me. I answered that every day I try to love my neighbor, seeing Jesus in him or her, and I felt I couldn’t turn away from difficult situations. The eyes of the Sister welled up with tears and she told me that I had just given them a beautiful lesson in love, because only someone who puts the Gospel into practice is capable of doing something like this. She encouraged me to continue living this way. Before leaving the hospital, and just as I was leaving some money – all that I had on me – for a visit to a specialist and to cover the boy’s needs, the Sister told me not to worry about him. “You’ve already saved his life, now I’ll take care of him.” Even the police officers thanked me for acting as I did, saying that I had risked a lot. Afterwards, justice ran its course, but I know that today this boy lives in a Catholic community and works as a caretaker there, thanks to the Sister I met at the hospital. (M.T. – Italy, from the volume When God intervenes: Experiences from all over the World, Città Nuova Publishing, Rome 2004)
To live in love so as to die in love
Vincenzo (the 4th of 8 children of the Folonari family) was a very lively child, but on the day of his First Holy Communion, something radically changed him. At first, he used to tease his schoolmates, chat in class instead of listening, which got him into trouble with his teacher at times. Then all of a sudden he changed completely; he became like a person fully taken by God. One day, at dinner Vincenzo asked his brothers and sisters, “How old do you want to be when you die?” One answered, “While I’m still young …”, and another, “When I’m 100 years old …”. But Vincenzo said, “I want to die when I’m 33, like Jesus.”
An Ideal to live for
Some years later, in the summer of 1951 at the end of the school year, Vincenzo and two of his sisters went to Dolomite Mountains for vacation. At that time, Chiara Lubich was in the nearby little town of Tonadico. The meetings for adherents of the emerging Focolare Movement was then becoming a regular appointment in the mountains of that side; they were called ‘Mariapolis’ (“city of Mary”). The young Folonaris, who had already met the Movement in Brescia, their home town, got their parents’ permission to have their vacation at San Martino di Castrozza, and they too went everyday to nearby Tonadico. They were placed in different groups and did not see each other all day. In the evening of the first day, as they returned to San Martino by bus, Vincenzo was deeply moved and happy. “Beautiful, very beautiful,” he said. It was as though he had found something which deeply satisfied him, an Ideal to live for.
“You haven’t chosen God, God has chosen you!”
Some months later, Vincenzo moved to Rome to attend university. He immediately got in touch with the Focolare. On the Eve of Pentecost, he made a pilgrimage on foot to the shrine of Our Lady of Divine Love to ask her for a sign that would help him understand his vocation. The next day, when Chiara saw him, she reminded him of a sentence of Jesus: “You haven’t chosen God, God has chosen you!” From then on, everybody called him “Eletto,” which in Italian means “Chosen”.
In a letter to Chiara he wrote: “I have chosen God, nothing else but Him alone.” He also told her that he wanted to give his inheritance to the Focolare Movement (which included 80 hectares of land where years later, the little town of Loppiano came to life) adding, “although I have no merit because I received it for free.”
A life spent giving the Ideal of unity to young people
One of Eletto’s characteristics was his special relationship with the children of the Movement. Chiara had entrusted the boys to him. In fact, during the Mariapolis of Fiera di Primiero, they were always all around him. He would go hiking with them or they would put on skits together.
Whenever Eletto talked with Virgo, his sister, who was entrusted with the girls, he used to say: “Can you imagine what would happen if the Ideal would conquer all boys and girls, all the young people?”
That smile among the waves
July 12th, 1964 was a Sunday. Gabriele, a boy who knew Eletto, went to the focolare. Eletto invited him to go on an outing, and since it was a very hot day, they decided to go on a boat ride at Bracciano Lake (Rome). About 200 meters from the shore, Eletto who loved sports, especially swimming, jumped into the water and held onto the boat with both hands. “The water’s very cold,” he told Gabriele. Then Eletto suddenly turned very pale. The waves started getting bigger and suddenly one of them pulled the boat away from Eletto’s grasp, first one hand and then the other. The boat slid several meters away. “Come here, come here, come closer!” Eletto cried out to Gabriele, but Gabriele did not know how to swim nor row a boat. The powerful waves kept pushing the boat farther away. “Soon I could hardly see his face among the waves. I called out to him, I cried for help, I told him I could not move the boat any closer.” Gabriele recalled. “’I’m going to shore, I’m going to shore,’ Eletto shouted. Then he turned. I saw him for a few seconds more: his face was lit up by a bright smile,” Gabriele said. Then Eletto disappeared, swallowed up by the lake. His body has never been found; Bracciano Lake had become his “blue” tomb.
To live in love so as to die in love
On July 19,1964, Chiara wrote: “Eletto was so good, so alone, so humble that he belonged much more to God than to us. Maybe it was for this that God called him to himself. Now he is with Jesus whom he loved, and with Mary and all our friends who are in Paradise. He considered himself the least, but he has become the first.
My God, what an abyss this life and this death are that each one of us has to face. Give us the grace to live in love so as to be able to die in love.
Eletto’s last act was an act of love. That means he was used to loving, because otherwise in those moments one cannot but think of oneself.
‘Eletto, pray for us in heaven now, we who are praying for you. We are certain that God, in his love for you, has taken you at the right time. You loved him in your life; you had nothing else but him and Mary.
You have arrived where we too must come. Pave the way for us, Eletto, and prepare us a place (…). Now that you see what really counts, as you were used to doing while you were here on earth, help us not to stray from the road and help us to live in charity as you have done.’”
The GEN Movement
Not only the adults were dumbfounded by his sudden death, but also the children and the youth he had been following. Chiara wrote, “They, too, have gone through a trial, a tremendous and irremediable one. Let us hope that from this trial something will come to life in the Movement for them, too, for God’s glory and for the Church’s greater beauty. Eletto would have desired nothing more.” A few years later, the Gen Movement was born, which now counts thousands of young people and children from all over the world.
Commemoration at Trevignano
On July 12th, 2004, 40 years after Eletto left us for Heaven, a day long meeting will be held at Trevignano, a town along the Bracciano Lake. It will start with Mass at 11 a.m. at the Church of Santa Maria Assunta which towers above the little town. The meeting is expected to end at 5 p.m.
For further information call: tel. 06/94315300; 06/9412419
e-mail address; gen2m@focolare.org; centrogen2f@focolare.org