14 Oct 2021 | Non categorizzato
A guarantee of love.The certainty that everything in life makes sense. In this sentence from the letter to the Romans (Rom. 8:28), Saint Paul, reveals to us how much every human experience, from the most beautiful to the most complicated, is part of a greater plan, a plan of salvation. The key to accepting this idea is to entrust ourselves to the Father and trust him. The road to happiness I played the violin on the street, not to make money, but because I had realized, playing during the holidays, that it makes people happy. So why not broaden the circle? One day a lady who from her dress, even though’ respectable, looked very poor, listened to me for a long time, apologizing for not being able to put even a coin in my violin case. She was shy when I suggested that she take what she needed, but in the end she accepted some coins: “I’ll buy bread”, she said and left in tears. The next day I played on the same street but put up a sign: “For those in need”. Many took a few coins, but many left banknotes. As I was about to leave, the lady who had given me the idea appeared. I told her what had happened and that if she would accept it, the sum raised was for her. She told me about the financial turmoil that had reduced her family to poverty. Then I met her sick husband and an unemployed daughter who is now my wife. Making others happy is the way to happiness. (O.A. – France) Trust in God On the occasion of the baptisms of our daughters, we usually had very simple parties, wasting nothing, welcoming friends and relatives to our home. Since we always received money as a gift, we allocated a part for a project in favor of newborn babies in an African country. I remember the baptism of our third child: at that time both my wife and I were out of work so it was difficult to decide whether or not to send the money we received (250 euros). Then we trusted in God and sent it. A few months later we heard that they had prayed for that very amount; moreover, that money, which arrived just when they no longer had anything to breastfeed babies, was enough for three months … We were very moved! At that time, not only did we lack for nothing, but my wife, who needed some clothes just then, received a gift of a coat, a dress, a jacket, two skirts and three times as much money! (D.P. – Italy) Memory of a friend A characteristic of my friend Urs was his strong communication skills: with a smile and with stimulating words, he shared personal experiences of his relationship with God. At work, on the train, in a hospital room, during sports or on vacation … every opportunity was good to establish relationships that were not superficial. Many remember his ability to listen, to be close to people, especially to those who suffer. He was an animator in Zurich, of a group of young people involved in an initiative in favour of drug addicts. Thanks to him over 30 of them have recovered and several have approached a life of faith. At the end of his life, when suffering due to a cancer, Urs did not let himself be discouraged. He repeated, “Everything is the love of God, everything, absolutely everything”. And despite such an uncertain future, he was calm and confident. He had two other friends in the same condition and they supported one another. He said: “I have given everything to God without ifs and buts… and he has fulfilled his promises in me: the hundredfold already on earth. I am happy”. These words sum up what he meant to us. (F. – Switzerland)
compiled by Maria Grazia Berretta
(Taken from Il Vangelo del Giorno, Città Nuova, year VII, n.4, September-October 2021)
12 Oct 2021 | Non categorizzato
Although this father could finally afford to buy a house for his family, he did not have the physical ability or financial resources to renovate it himself. The community around him acted. 
“Many people came to help me, and in three days we were able to redo the roof and replace the earth and straw ceilings with plasterboard ones.” These are the enthusiastic words of Janos Kalman, who is Serbian and a Hungarian citizen, a father of three. There is something extraordinary about the work being done on his home. Until recently, he lived in a dilapidated house without water in the middle of unused fields. His dream had always been to have his own property, but he could never afford it. Thanks to an injury payout and the generosity of many, he was finally able to raise the money to purchase a home. This gave rise to another problem, however – it badly needed renovating. “I wished I could have fixed it,” he says, “but I knew on my own I could never do it.” After an accident at work, Janos used crutches for 10 years. Lately he has started walking again, but he still can’t bend one knee. He needed help. This is how the Focolare community got involved, putting into practice the motto ‘Dare to care’ from Youth for a United World. (See unitedworldproject.org/daretocare2021.) “We decided to make a list of the people who were most in need,” explains Cinzia Panero, a member of the Focolare in Serbia. “Some were in financial difficulty, others sick, and still others without a home.” Among the latter was Janos. He says there is still work to do, “but the help I received is a great gift to me.” One other important fact sets this story apart: Janos’ house is located in Vojvodina, an autonomous region of Serbia made up of various ethnic groups (Slovaks, Ruthenians, Romanians, Croats, with the majority Hungarian-speaking). Some people from the Czech Republic contributed to the renovation works as well, collecting money for the necessary material and sending two volunteers to Serbia. They did this with some care. Those who contributed financially, for example, included a personal message addressed to those receiving the amount sent. Those benefiting responded with heartfelt gratitude. It was a gesture that helps to build a sense of family, beyond the distance – true teamwork between different cultures. “In addition to helping someone in need,” said one of the volunteers, “I felt that I was also helping myself get out of my comfort zone.” We can reach out to others to build a home. In doing so, we all become a home.
By Laura Salerno
Watch the video of the experience
11 Oct 2021 | Non categorizzato
We are in times that we must walk together, in the synodal style. In this passage we are asked to put love for our brothers and sisters first, with every brother and sister, but especially with those we work with, study with, live with. All our responsibilities can be … summarized in helping our neighbour. This is confirmed by one of those sentences of Scripture that centre on love and that strike a chord within us: “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Gal. 5:14 NRSV). If that is how things are, then our striving towards holiness means focussing all our attention and all our effort on loving our neighbour. For us, striving towards holiness is not so much about trying to be rid of our faults one by one, as about loving, thinking of others, completely forgetting ourselves. … But we know that whoever loves their neighbour, whoever lives for others, soon realizes that it is no longer they who live, but Christ lives in them. Christ lives in their hearts. And who is Christ? Who is Jesus? He is holiness. We find holiness in Him, whose presence emerges within us because we love. Our holiness comes as a consequence of loving, and we cannot reach it any other way. If we were to seek after holiness for its own sake, we would never reach it. So let’s love then, and nothing else! Let go of everything, even the attachment to holiness, striving only, only, only to love. It’s the only way to be able to make a gift of our holiness to Mary one day. … Let’s set off again, as if today were the first day of our revolution of love, the first day of our Holy Journey. Let’s set off again, not thinking of anything else, because love sums up everything. Let’s try to love every neighbour as ourselves; and do so by “immersing ourselves” in every situation.
Chiara Lubich
https://vimeo.com/623446995 (From LUBICH, C; Edited by Michel Vandeleene, Conversazioni in collegamento telefonico, Cittá Nuova, Roma, 2019, pp. 120-121).
8 Oct 2021 | Non categorizzato
Preparations are underway at diocesan level for the World Youth Day. A journey towards 2023 when young people will gather around the Pope in Lisbon. That’s right. Young people are among those who have suffered most in this period of health emergency. Their external life and outreach were suddenly cut off. They could not go to school, university, work. They were cut off from social life and from friends. But it is also true that young people were the first to set solidarity in motion, to fight for life, to instil hope, to be builders of peace, to care for the environment. Pope Francis listened to them, he heard from them how much they have lived and are living at this time. A few days ago he issued his message for WYD 2021 with an invitation calling for action: “Stand up! I appoint you as a witness of what you have seen”. He says, “When a young person falls, in some sense all humanity falls. Yet it is also true that when a young person rises, it is as if the whole world rises as well”. He challenges them with the story of the young Paul, who while on his way to Damascus to arrest some Christians, was surrounded by a light “brighter than the sun” and heard the voice of Jesus calling him by name, “Saul! Saul”. Almost as if today Pope Francis wants to call every young person by name. And he retraces with them Paul’s path of witness of Christ. In conclusion, he says to them, Arise! Testify with your experience, to the love and respect it is possible to instil in human relationships. Arise! Uphold social justice, truth, human rights. Testify to the new way of looking at things that enables you to view creation with eyes brimming with wonder, that makes you see the Earth as our common home and gives you the courage to promote an integral ecology. Testify that we can always start again and that Christ is alive. “I see this message as a great challenge for us young people,” Klara María Piedade, 27 years old, a young woman from Brazil, confided to me. “I think it is an answer and a confirmation that we really must be responsible in becoming protagonists of the united world, of a more fraternal world”. Klara is one of the young people who this year are at the Focolare’s “Young People for a United World Centre” in Rome. Since last May they have been busy on various fronts in favour of caring for our common home, echoing the Laudato Sì. Dare to care – Dare to take care. This is their programme of which they are the main promoters. “We must be protagonists”, Klara reiterates, “not only in words but with our actions. We will change the world if we take this first step. It is very important to network with those who are already doing something”. The date of the next World Youth Day which will be held in Lisbon, Portugal in August 2023 has just been announced. Meanwhile, in November this year, on the feast of Christ the King, the WYD will be celebrated in all the dioceses of the world. A path of preparation open to the surprises of God, “for he wants to light up our path”.
Carlos Mana
6 Oct 2021 | Non categorizzato
A conference held by the Faculty of Theology, Innsbruck, Austria that took place after several years of intellectual and existential preparation 
“Look at all the flowers” is an unusual title for a theological conference and, especially, in such a prestigious context as the Faculty of Theology in Innsbruck which many people identify with the name of Karl Rahner who is buried in the large Jesuit church that divides the two wings of the Athenaeum. It was significant that such a large number of people (about 100) attended this conference in the prestigious Leopold Saal and about 150 more were able to follow online from other continents. This was not an isolated event but the conclusion of a journey that began almost a decade ago on the occasion of an Islamic-Christian conference organised by the Focolare Movement and based on an exchange of experiences of dialogue of life. Two professors from the Austrian theological faculty – Roman Siebenrock and Wolfgang Palaver – present on that occasion showed great interest in this experience of dialogue. In the following months, in contact with the spirituality of the Focolare, they also visited the new Sophia University Institute and the Movement’s International Centre for Interreligious Dialogue. Hence the idea of forming a research group with academics from the two religions to explore aspects of spirituality from the two perspectives developed Since then, every year, at the end of August, this group – called cluster – made up of around twenty people from different backgrounds has met regularly for a few days. From the outset, it was not just an intellectual and academic activity but also an existential exercise that has gradually built up deep personal, cultural, religious and intellectual relationships. In recent years the group’s interest has focused on some of Chiara Lubich’s texts of a more mystiical nature. The passages, including the one that gave the conference its title, have been studied in depth from both Christian (Catholic and Reformed) and Muslim (Sunni and Shia) perspectives. At the end of this process, it was decided to organise an academic conference to share the richness of these reflections. The conference that has just taken place opened up this experience to an academic public. Whilst this event was Germanic in origin – the vast majority of the participants were Austrians, Swiss and Germans and this was expressed in the style, language and categories of thought prevalent in this part of Europe – the spiritual heritage of Lubich was very present and was able to bring together thinkers of different ethnic and cultural origins and both religious and non-religious people: Catholics, members of the Reformed Church, Muslims and Marxists. Stefan Tobler, a theologian from the Reformed Tradition offered a reflection on the passage that gave this event its title. This was followed by other reflections and round table discussions from which emerged the experiences of intellectual and spiritual communion that these Christian and Muslim academics have been living for years. An artist from Geneva who took part in the proceedings noted that the group who took to the stage to perform in different voices were a tangible witness to the communion among the participants. This is something that is rarely found in academia but which characterised the conference. It brought an important dimension: communion of thought and spirit. Moreover, the presence of Catholics, Reformed Church members, Marxists and Muslims offered a remarkable cross-section of schools of thought and of academic but also cultural and religious sensitivities which it is not easy to find in today’s world of strong polarisation even in academic and cultural spheres.
Roberto Catalano
5 Oct 2021 | Non categorizzato
Memories of Anna Fratta (Doni) from Lucia Abignente, an Italian Focolarina who joined her in Poland for several years. A life of complete “giving”, true to the name given her by Chiara Lubich. “An abyss of humanity”, “a ‘maestro’ of life”, “a small great woman”. Just three of the many reactions to the news that Anna Fratta, known throughout the Focolare Movement as ‘Doni’, reached the house of the Father on 24 September 2021. She herself would no doubt feel rather uncomfortable about these epithets, shying away as she did from any kind of praise. She was always measured in her own words, which, few as they were, came out as ‘distilled’ wisdom. Her temperament, reinforced by her life experiences, made them such. The youngest of six, in her childhood she was no stranger to the dimension of suffering, particularly when she lost of one of her sisters. From a very tender age, she already began to pose profound existential questions about the meaning of life, and gradually drifted away from belief in God, seeking her answers elsewhere. Later on, the study of medicine, which she undertook in a spirit of rebellion, showed itself to be providential. She found herself fascinated by biology, which had a significant impact on her interior progress. In nature she discovered a relationship of reciprocity and of service she could not explain, a law of love which she came to understand one night. “After a dramatic and painful interior struggle” she described how she accepted “there is a Being who contains love within”. It was a decisive turning point, followed by her meeting with God in the charism of Chiara Lubich. Not long after this, Doni perceived that God was calling her to follow Chiara in the way of the Focolare. Doni was among the group of Focolarini doctors who, at the invitation of the Catholic Church, went behind the ‘Iron Curtain’, where she lived for thirty years (1962-1992), firstly in the DDR (former East Germany) and then Poland. She worked silently and effectively in bringing Focolare communities to life there, following their growth and progress with awe and gratitude to God. From this region which suffered from lack of liberty and the impossibility of regular contact with the Focolare Center in Rome, Italy, she was then transferred right to its heart, living in Rocca di Papa, Rome, as part of Chiara Lubich’s own community house. With Chiara, she shared profound, luminous, eventful years, accompanying her at an international level and then, with great love and dedication also through the last part of her earthly journey. The design of God on Doni continued through her wise contribution as General Counsellor for the aspect of “spirituality and prayer life” of the Focolare Movement. At the same time, alongside Gis Calliari, Eli Folonari and others of the first Focolarine, she lived total self-giving in welcoming countless visitors to Chiara Lubich’s home, transmitting the light of the daily life they had shared with Chiara. Later she moved to the Focolare little town of Loppiano, Italy, due to an illness which progressively reduced her physical capacities. A profound interior coherence linked all her actions. “Love, we know, disarms. Our speaking was such that anyone could listen, friends and enemies alike,” she recalled, aware that in those years behind the Iron Curtain, the secret Police followed them assiduously. “Love, love, only love, and filling my suitcases with this love. It’s all I’ll be bringing with me!” she wrote in recent years, as she prepared herself for the final journey. No wonder then, that her professional activity had earned the respect of the authorities. In the DDR she was awarded three medals in honor of the work she did and for the “collective” she built up. Even clearer how her life transmitted the love of God to many. Perhaps the secret lies in her constant intimate relationship with Mary, particularly in the Desolation and ‘yes’ at Golgotha opening her arms and heart to humanity. This was the example Doni followed. On 15 September back in 1962, just after crossing the Berlin Wall, she wrote, “There’s nothing to lean on here. And if you don’t keep your gaze on Mary at the foot of the Cross, you’ll fall down. There are times I feel like I’m suffocating and the only thing to do is pray to Mary. It’s the only way so that slowly, slowly the emptiness becomes a fullness, and the pain is transformed into peace. These are the most beautiful, most precious moments of the day, because in suffering I find an ever more intimate and profound relationship with Mary, and through her with all her children”. Maybe here lies the secret of her fruitfulness, of her life of complete “giving”, true to the name Chiara Lubich gave to her – Doni (“gifts” in Italian).
Lucia Abignente
