Social Projects: The Other Side of the Spirituality

A renewed commitment emerged from this second seminar which took place at Mariapolis Ginetta, Brazil on April 12-13, 2014. It was attended by 70 representatives from these agencies, as well as other Focolare agencies involved in social action: New Humanity, Youth for a United World and New Families. Ninety people represented the Economy of Communion, who had met in the days leading up to the seminar.

The seminar strengthened ties at a continental level and came up with a “charter of intent”. It also laid the foundations for the construction of a network linking projects, oranisations and social movements who have in their DNA evangelical brotherhood as a means for the transformation of society.

This objective was also in harmony with the Aparecida Document of the Latin American Bishops Conference, which calls “the preferential option for the poor and excluded” the compass for guiding the Christian community in Latin America and the Caribbean. That is not an exclusive or excluding option but one that sets the priority for the action and the style of Christian life. One significant moment was an open discussion in which Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti, president and co-president of the Focolare Movement took part.   

Conquests as well as sufferings surfaced during the discussion, and a sense of isolation. The solutions, illuminated from the perspective of Jesus’ testament, that all may be one (Jn 17:21), opened a new horizon, not only for the social organisations but for the entire Focolare Movement.

Maria Voce remarked: “You are totally immersed in the charism, in its roots:” what you are doing is exactly what Chiara Lubich and her companions did when they first began in Trent, Italy. They went out to the poor. They kept notebooks in which they wrote down the names and addresses of the needy. Then they came together to find out what each one needed and to pool their resources. It was a network of mutual assistance like yours. Exactly what you are doing here!”   

Then Maria Voce added: “Every social project should serve for the renewal of society, for turning it into a community where you live for a shared goal, where you put in common both your needs and your talents. You give more complete visibility to this action of the charism [of unity], which is not merely spiritual but social. You show it.”

Giancarlo invited everyone to “be mindful of the fact that we are accompanied on this path by many others, from many different fields.” Maria Voce concluded saying: “Everyone has the same goal: the transformation of society, although in different ways. We need to rejoice that in the house of God there are so many callings and such treasure of responses. Each of us is like one tile in a huge mosaic from which we can feel the greatness and the strength.”