Venezuela: Dominga’s Open Canteen

Nov 30, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide, Senza categoria

For several years now Dominga, a volunteer of the Focolare Movement of Valencia (Venezuela), has been managing an open canteen for the elderly in her neighbourhood. The iniziative was born to allow the elderly people living in poverty to have a balanced diet in a welcoming environment. The elderly already arrive in the morning and they can stay with people of their age, playing dominoes or watching television, but above all to be in an environment where they are looked after with care. Dominga is always attentive towards all the elderly who come to the canteen and, when one of them stops coming, she personally goes to visit him or her, often finding them in a pitiful situation and unable to move. Lately the foodstuffs to prepare the meals were no longer arriving regularly; so much so that the elderly wanted to organize themselves to go and complain to the regional government and to tell them that at the canteen they not only received food but were also listened to and loved personally. In the meantime, a new coordinator for the canteen was just appointed. As soon as she arrived, she removed some of the elderly from the list of those allowed to come to the canteen, saying that when she did her inspection they were not present and so money was being spent for people who were not making use of this service. Dominga, pushed by the love for these people, firmly explained that the elderly who were being removed from the list were precisely those who were the weakest and most in need, because of their serious health problems she would ask their relatives to bring the meals to their homes. The list of the coordinator would also have been used to include those in it in a new pension scheme of the national government, and so not being ont he list meant that a grave injustice would be committed. Once a destitute person came to the canteen hoping to receive some food. Naturally meals are given only to those who are registered, but Dominga felt that she couldn’t close the door in his face. In fact, she had learned, listening to the story of Chiara Lubich and her first companions, that in every poor person there is Jesus. So she invited this poor person to her house, where he was able to wash himself, she offered him some clean clothes and finally she gave him something to eat. Dominga shares: “One day two men were fighting among themselves, I tried to calm them down but I wasn’t able to do so. I remembered a sentence that I heard in Church: “Where there is peace and love, God is there”. I shared this with them and immediately they fell silent and calmed down”. In these past few weeks there have been some difficulty regarding the documents of the Declaration of Profits that the canteen, as a non-profit organization, must prepare. The procedure is quite complicated. Recently a sensitive person, who came to know that the elderly were well treated at the canteen, offered to help Dominga to deal with the complicated documents, each time she needed help.

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Jesus Forsaken: A Light for Theology

Nov 27, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide, Senza categoria

At the opening of the Academic Year of the “San Roberto Bellarmino” Religious Science College on November 25 in Capua City, near Naples, Maria Voce held a Lecture on one of the main points of the spirituality of unity, “Jesus Forsaken, A Light for Theology”. There were Bishops of the different dioceses of the Campania region present. The president of the Focolare Movement outlined “the salient aspects”, since – as she affirmed herself – “we cannot present briefly all the wealth of the doctrine of Jesus Forsaken in the spirituality of Chiara Lubich.” Here is an excerpt of her Lecture:

«I would like to begin with a quotation of a letter that Chiara wrote to a friend way back in 1946. An emblematic quote, which says:

“Look …, I am a soul passing through this world.

I have seen many beautiful and good things and I have always been attracted only by them. One day (one indescribable day) I saw a light. It appeared to me as more beautiful than the other beautiful things, and I followed it. I realized it was the Truth.”

Jesus on the cross. He came on earth to bring back people (who had distanced themselves from God because of sin) to a full communion with Him. He took upon himself every negative aspect of their life: sufferings, distress, desperation, pains, sins…, making Himself, the Innocent One, similar to human sinners. “In order to bring the human person back to the Father’s face, Jesus not only had to take on the face of a human being, but he had to burden himself with the ‘face’ of sin”[i], said Pope John Paul II.

Let’s go back to the beginning of the Movement, in 1944, in the midst of the World War. On one particular circumstance a priest told Chiara that, for him, Jesus’ greatest suffering was when he cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). Right away Chiara concluded: if that was the peak of his suffering, it was certainly also the apex of his love for us. Since then, together with her first companions, and later with all those who would have followed her Ideal, she felt called to become the “answer of love” to that cry.

Jesus Forsaken was therefore revealed to her as “the living proof of God’s love here on earth.”

This is well stressed in a famous “song” of praise and thanksgiving dedicated precisely to Jesus Forsaken and that spontaneously sprung forth from her heart:

“So that we might possess the light, you lost your sight.

To acquire union for us, you experienced separation from the Father.

So that we might have wisdom, you made yourself ‘ignorance’.

To clothe us in innocence, you became sin.

So that we might hope, you almost despaired…

So that God might be present in us, you felt him far away from you.

So that heaven might be ours, you felt hell.

To make our time on earth happy, among hundreds of brothers and sisters and more, you were expelled from heaven and earth, from human beings and nature.

You are God, you are my God, our God of infinite love.”

This infinite love that Jesus crucified and forsaken had for every human being on earth transformed all sufferings, filled up every emptiness and redeemed every sin. Our separation from God was annulled in the re-established communion with Him and among us.

Thus, Jesus Forsaken contains the key to penetrate and give an answer to the deepest mystery that envelops the life of the human being and the whole of humanity: the mystery of pain, of suffering.

This is a great mystery that deeply touches Chiara’s heart:

“Jesus on earth… – she wrote with feelings – Jesus our brother… Jesus who dies between thieves for us: he, the Son of God, sharing a common life with others. ‘… if you came among us, it was because our weakness attracted you, our wretchedness moved you to compassion.’ Certainly, no earthly mother or father waiting for their lost children or doing everything to bring them back could equal our Father in heaven.”

From the mystery that Jesus lived on the cross, Chiara saw a light emanate, able to illuminate and to give meaning to every experience of pain and abandonment that a human person may live. She speaks of this with simplicity, confiding that, since Jesus Forsaken manifested himself to her, she seemed to discover him everywhere:

“He himself, his face and his mysterious cry seemed to colour every painful moment of our life.”

“Darkness, the sense of failure and aridity disappeared – wrote Chiara. – And we started to understand how dynamically divine is Christian life that knows no boredom, cross, suffering, only those that pass, and makes one enjoy the fullness of life, which means resurrection, light and hope even in the midst of tribulations.”»

Youth Festival in Burkina Faso

Nov 7, 2013 | Focolare Worldwide, Senza categoria

“At the moment when the Youth Festival was to begin in the beautiful and modern grand open theatre of Bobo-Dioulasso, the electricity failed . . . and there were 420 of us!” The Youth for a United World then shared what happened during those first uncertain moments of the joy-filled event that took place on October 19, 2013, which they had organized in Burkina Faso. Electrical energy is distributed by region in the city, and precisely at the hour of the Youth Festival a blackout had been scheduled for that area. “When we realized this,” the young people recount, “we ran to the Electrical Energy Society of the country and, fortunately, when we told them about our gathering they immediately restored the power for the event.”

Omar, one of the Muslim Youth for a United World recalls, “The period leading up to the event was also quite beautiful, as we were preparing it. It took four months of working together and overcoming our diversity.”

Finally the day arrived. “The surprises began early in the morning at the press conference,” Liberta explains. “We found ourselves with nearly 150 people including the Vicar General and the Assistant Mayor of one of the cantons of Bobo-Dioulasso, and there was television and radio coverage.”

>Omar continues: “Also the 420 people who attended the event were a surprise, because even important concerts hardly ever reach that number.”

The young people included Muslims, members of the Saint Egidio Community, Christians from several Churches and representatives from traditional religions. Also present were the Episcopal Vicar, the Assistant Mayor, the Governor’s representative, President of the Association of Protestant Churches and that of the Assembly of God Churches.

“A beautiful dialogue was created among actors and the public; a family atmosphere, also through the experiences that were recounted by the Youth for a United World. We read what Maria Voce had written in her greeting, with her invitation to spread a culture of peace and unity around us so that love will triumph over hatred and war disappear. Her words were listened to with much attention by the young people.”

The programme contained song, dance and choreography not only by the Youth for a Untied World, but also by the Titiama artistic group and by Protestant youths. Mrs. Toussy, a famous singer in Burkina Faso, intoned the song Let us love one another, then a singer from Togo presented one of his songs.

>The speech by one young Muslim man was very moving, the son of an Iman and ex-president of the Burkina Muslim Community, who encouraged everyone not to r give up in the face of difficulties that can arise in the relationship between Christians and Muslims. He concluded saying: “The Focolare Movement is a river of love where there is no proselytism, but only desires to create a world of brotherhood.”

“I find myself in front of something here that goes beyond my thinking; I never imagined it would be this beautiful, or I would have invited all the young people of my Church,” said one Pastor. Everyone left filled with joy, and desirous to bring forward the ideal of fraternity that leads to peace and unity. “Working together, we have realized that this fraternity is too beautiful to keep among ourselves,” commented one young woman from the Saint Egidio Community.

National television broadcasted portions of the event several times on news broadcasts, and the radio continued for several days to broadcast portions of the concert.

“Now,” the Young for Unity enthusiastically explained, “we want to get to work, to continue to collaborate and build dialogue among us, in this atmosphere of openness to each other. At our next event we want to fill the stadium.”