Focolare Movement

Genfest: A Work in Progress

Feb 4, 2012

A weekend to bring preparations ahead for the great event being promoted by youths of the Focolare at the end of August. Youths from more than 40 countries have already signed up.

“The Genfest’s main message will be: Unity. This is why we chose the title, “Let’s bridge,” recounts 23 year old, Philippino, Ark Tabin. The construction of a bridge is to be used as a metaphor for the construction of authentic relationships which is the main theme of the program that will take place in the Sport Arena of Budapest (with a seating capacity of 12,500) and on the bridges that cross the Danube River, from 31 August to 2 September 2012. Orgainizing the event is already an experience of unity which is based on the constant effort to welcome and listen to the other. This leads to true dialogue and deep relationships. A new phase of this experience will unfold this 11 and 12 February with seventy youths who will gather in Sassone, Italy to prepare the 10th edition of the program. “Although we’ve been awaiting them for a long time, we also feel that this shouldn’t be just another event, even if it’s a great event, but that it should mark another step on a journey, a point of arrival and a point of departure in the building of a United World. There is a need for this testimony of unity nowadays. We can’t turn back,” recalls 23 year old Brazilian, Thyrseane Tupinamba who is on the central organizing comittee of the Genfest, together with other youths and adults from a variety of countries – the United States, Hungnray, Argentina, italy, Brazil. . . Youths seventeen years old and older, from more than forty countries have already signed up to attend the event in Hungary. A preview of the program is available on the web page: www.genfest.org You can find the Genfest page on Facebook in English, Portugese, Polish, Spanish and Italian. Follow us there!

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to Newsletter

Thought of the day

Related post

A precious legacy: Chiara Lubich’s ‘Paradise ’49’

A precious legacy: Chiara Lubich’s ‘Paradise ’49’

The first presentation of Chiara Lubich’s book ‘Paradise ’49’ took place on the 22nd of May 2026 in the Paul VI Hall at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. The book is a collection of writings in which the Foundress of the Focolare Movement bears witness to and shares her mystical experience from the years 1949 to 1951.

Chiara Lubich: “Do you know where we are?”

Chiara Lubich: “Do you know where we are?”

It is the 16th of July 1949. Chiara Lubich is in Tonadico, in the Dolomite Mountains in northern Italy, for a period of rest together with some of her first companions. They are joined there by the Honourable Igino Giordani, whom Chiara called Foco. On that day, Chiara and Foco sealed a Pact of unity, a prelude to the spiritual and mystical experience that Chiara would live between 1949 and 1951. This period is known as “Paradise ’49”, the writings from which have recently been published in a book (for now in Italian). In the introduction to the book, the theologian Piero Coda offers some insights “For a theological reading” of the text. Here is an extract, relating specifically to the Pact of the 16th of July, together with a short video of Chiara Lubich from 20 December 1999, in which she shares this experience of light with the Gen, the young people of the Focolare Movement.