Live streaming from Loppiano, 21 June at 3.30: http://live.focolare.org/loppiano

“Thank you, Eletto!” A journey through history and reflections on Eletto Folonari’s life, on the development of Loppiano which from October next will be celebrating its first 50 years of life, and the Gen Movement which he accompanied on its very first steps. In a letter to Chiara Lubich, Eletto wrote: “I have chosen God for ever and only Him! Nothing else.” He goes on to tell her that he wants to give all the goods he had inherited to the Focolare Movement – including the 200 acres on which the town of Loppiano (Florence) now stands – adding: “It was of no credit to me that I owned them, I was given them for free.” One of Eletto’s characteristics, in addition, was his relationship with the children and young people of the Movement that Chiara herself had entrusted to him in the early ’60s. “Why do we want to say thank you to Eletto?” – the gen that are organizing the event on 21 June in Loppiano ask – “First of all, for that Yes to God, an unconditional yes that is at the origin of what the Eternal Father has since worked through him, that is the birth of the first of the 33 towns of the Focolare Movement and the Gen Movement now spread throughout the world.” Yes, because this was his fundamental quality: Eletto knew how to place himself completely at the service of the divine will as Igino Giordani, who was his first biographer, so well expressed. In the conclusion to his 1965 book which simply bears the title “Vincenzo Folonari”, Giordani writes that his best known virtue was humility and that he: “… remains an example of the apostolate of modern lay people (…). It is basically the type of holiness that is required today in a democratic society, community-based, but which has been desecrated on a global scale: evangelization from the inside, without any props, motivated by love alone (…). ” The afternoon (live streaming starts at 15:30) offers a journey through history and reflections on Eletto’s life. There will be family members present and some of the first “popetti” (as children were called in the local Trentino dialect) who participated in the first Mariapolis’ in Fiera di Primiero (Dolomites) and whom Eletto looked after and loved. There will also be music and dances from different countries and the presence of many Gen, witnesses to the life and influence of the Gen Movement from the ’60s to today, all over the world.