The Spring festival (春節, 春节, chūnjié) or lunar new year (農曆新年, 农历新年, nónglì xīnnián), known in the West as Chinese New Year, is one of the most important and most heartfelt Chinese traditional feast, wherein the new year is celebrated according to the Chinese lunar calendar. The celebrations will start on 16 February and continue for about two weeks up to the Lantern Festival, with numerous activities, shows and markets. On the eve, the families convene for the “dinner gathering,” the most important meal of the year. On this occasion, various generations hang out at round tables to savour food and time together. Every street, house or building is decorated in red, the festival’s main colour. Praying together in a temple during the New Year is believed to be a wish for good fortune for the new year that is about to start. In Shanghai thousands of people crowd in the Longhua Temple, the city’s biggest temple. In Loppiano, the international town of the Focolare where many inhabitants come from the Far East, there will be celebrations for the start of the year of the Dog with a party on Saturday, 17 February, which will be an occasion to delve into the cultures of Asia through games, art, music and dance.
The international conference for engaged couples held in Castel Gandolfo (Rome) has just ended. It was organised by the New Families Movement of the Focolare, and attracted the participation of 65 couples. Besides addressing the issue of personal choice and identifying and overcoming crises in relationships, with a special focus on communication, affection and spirituality, what impressed most were the real-life stories shared by couples. One example was the experience shared by Massimo and Francesca from Rome, married for 17 years, both managers in a Telecom company and the latter, also a teacher of Italian to foreign students. Francesca:According to the doctors, we would not be able to have children, and even if there would be a pregnancy, the certainty of success would not be assured. It was a sentence without appeal. After a prior moment of distress, a reassuring conviction made its way: fertility lies not only in a biological capacity, but in being able to generate love around you. So we continued to bring ahead, with unchanged enthusiasm, the initiatives that had accompanied the choices we had made in our youth to work for others. We would also be open to life, albeit the fear of serial and traumatic miscarriage. Two years had not passed when we discovered that we were expecting a baby. As foreseen, the pregnancy was difficult, and progressed despite the verdicts of the doctors who continued to remind us of the serious risks entailed and the care we had to take. In those difficult moments we prayed to God, the author of life, which made us even more conscious of the preciousness of that little bundle which wanted to grow inside me despite the severe opinion of the doctors. The doctors were astounded when at the end of term, Alessandro was born very healthy, and I too was well, though they even told us: now you have a child, do not dare venture beyond. Massimo: Instead we were still open to life and after a few years, a new pregnancy came up, followed by a new wave of amazement, skepticism and recommendations of the doctors. At the advanced stage, there was a suspicion of the Down syndrome, to be ascertained through an amniocentesis. Once again, despite the trauma of this news, we felt that the certainty of God’s love was stronger for us and our baby, to whom we wanted to give an unconditional welcome. Those were months of fear and distress which we again overcame by targeting not to remain entangled by the suffering but to live it as an occasion to love one another and all around us. At Matteo’s birth they told us that he did not have the Down syndrome, but a heart malformation which required hospitalization until when he could be operated, at four months of age. Francesca: In those four months, the fatigue, and above all the inability to face the pain of an innocent child, brought moments of misunderstanding between us. That propensity to love one another at times seemed to disappear, also because I wanted to stay in the hospital with Matteo and Massimo at home with Alessandro or at work. We saw each other only in the ward and often a wrong word sufficed to flare up. Massimo: One evening, after visiting them in the hospital, upon saying goodbye in the corridor both of us felt the need for a sincere, beneficial, heart-to-heart dialogue. We understood that among the many worries, the only one which should be heeded was that of loving each other. And even now, when the inevitable daily tensions seem to take the upper hand, we go back to remembering those moments of light in which also as a family, suffering has regenerated us to a truer love.
Robert Chelhod (centre) with the focolarini in Aleppo
Robert Chelhod was born in 1963, in Aleppo, Syria. He is now stationed in Italy at the headquarters of AMU (Action for a United World) close to Rome, to take stock of the social projects and the organization of aid. In 1990 he returned to his country of origin to open the first Focolare centre, and remained in Aleppo for 18 years before going to Lebanon in 2008.What do you remember about Syria? “The regime has not blocked progress. I saw a blooming at all levels: Syria was once full of tourists, and the economy was at its peak. Before the war the minimum wage was $500, and now, just to give you an idea, it is $50. The apex was in 2010. With the Arab spring in 2011, internal problems started which led to the war.” What was your idea of the war in Syria, seen from Lebanon? “I would have wanted to be with my people, but I couldn’t leave Lebanon at that moment. The biggest pain was to see the Syrian refugees enter Lebanon. I knew those people! They were honest people, hardworking, and would have been a resource for the country.” In January 2017 you returned to Syria, a month after the liberation of Aleppo. “I stayed at “home” for three months, in a restricted circle. Only after three months did I pluck the courage to go out to see the most beautiful part of the city razed to the ground. Seeing again those places I had always “boasted” of, or rather, seeing that they no longer exist, was a shock. When I went to the old Suk for the first time, where you see only rubble, someone explained: “the rebels entered here, and here the army came…” I thought of all the people who died in that place. I felt I shouldn’t judge even those who have destroyed my city.”How did you find the people on your return? “Discouraged and disappointed. But also with the desire to move on. All feel the exhaustion of the past years, the living conditions, but at the same time the determination to start again.” What can we do for Syria today? “For those who have faith, continue to pray. And you can bet with the Syrians that the country is alive. We need support in Syria. Not only from the economic point of view, which is certainly vital, but in believing that with us, this country, the cradle of civilisation, can be reborn. That peace is still possible. We need to know that the world feels our suffering, that of a country that is disappearing.”You coordinate onsite the social projects funded through AMU. How does this come about? “The projects range from aid for food to schooling. Then there is healthcare aid since public healthcare is unable to meet the minimum standards of assistance due to the lack of doctors, medicines and instruments. Besides help for families, there are more stable projects: two after-school organisations in Damascus and Homs with 100 children each, Christians and Muslims; two specific healthcare projects for the treatment of cancer and for dialysis; and a school for the deaf and dumb children, that was already operating before the war. These projects offer the possibility of work for many local youths. The employment issue is fundamental. We are dreaming in the near future of the possibility of working on microcredit to relaunch the activities. Aleppo was a city brimming with merchants who today would restart, but the initial capital is lacking.” Instead many continue to leave… “The exodus, especially of the Christians, is irreversible. The reason is the insecurity, and lack of jobs. The Church suffers in this land which was a land of Christians before the arrival of Islam. And it is trying to do what is possible to help and support all this. But there are few resources. Most of the youths are in the army. You may find some university students, or kids. But the 25-40 age bracket is inexistent. In the city of Aleppo, the estimated further drop of Christians is 140,000 from 130,000, while many Muslims have arrived, evacuated from their destroyed cities.” What impact does this have on interreligious dialogue? “In Aleppo the Christians considered themselves somewhat like the élite of the country. With the war, since the Muslim zones were hit, many took refuge in the Christian zones. So the Christians opened out to the Muslims, and had to accept them. The Latin Bishop Emeritus of Aleppo, Bishop Armando Bortolaso, during the war told me: “Now’s the time to be real Christians.” At the same time the Muslims have got to know the Christians personally. They were touched by the concrete help. There are negative and positive aspects. The positive one is that this war has made us Syrians closer with one another.” Source:Citta’ Nuova Magazine
“I was only 12 when I met Chiara Lubich. If it hadn’t been for this friendship with her and for the charism of unity, I would not have persisted in such a strongly competitive environment full of quagmire. I have a deep gratitude for all those with whom I shared this challenge.” Fernando Muraca began his work as a theatre director and author after his university studies in Rome. After the success achieved in the direction of some episodes in two TV series, the debut in the world of cinema came along with a capital C. Among his most recent works we find “La Terra dei Santi” (The Land of Saints), an intense film on the role of women of the Mafia in Calabria, which received numberless awards and recognitions. Before a very attentive audience, Fernando recounted his story. “One evening, I received an email from my friend, Giampietro, a missionary in Brazil. A long time ago I had shot for free, a documentary to collect funds for his community which engaged in saving women, men and children living under the bridges of São Paolo. In his email he asked if I was willing to leave my job for some years to document what was happening there. His mission then also addressed people who had fallen into the drug trap. The approach without prejudices and based on evangelical love, had already saved 10,000people destined to certain death. It was a result that really had to be documented.” Fernando continued – “In this email, Giampietro explained a backstory. A very rich man, after having put someone on his trail and having discovered who he really was, had decided to offer him half of his wealth. Having made a vow of poverty, Giampietro could not accept. But he had one wish: that I should go to Brazil to document the work of his mission. And so that man offered to pay for all the expenses, including the house bills in my absence.” Fernando smiled: “It seems like a movie, I know, but it really happened.” And he continued: “I discussed it with my wife and our kids. It was a matter of leaving my work for two or three years, getting out of the business, putting my career at risk, with my wife having to attend to the family in my absence. She said she was ready to make this sacrifice if it would help to divulge the suffering of those people. And my eldest son said, ’Dad, we cannot look away.’ Also my friends encouraged me to accept. My film was just about to be shown in the cinemas, and I had to leave after 15 days. Pure folly. The feature film had a small distribution circuit. Without my presence to promote it, it may have died and I would have burnt my only chance for a career in the cinema world. But my son’s answer ‘We cannot look the other way’ was decisive for me.” “At the start, in São Paolo, it was almost impossible to shoot the film on the lives of people living under the bridges. They detested being photographed, much less filmed! To make them understand that I didn’t want to exploit their image I had to act like the missionaries. I also started to sleep under the bridges, to share their day, and in this way, they accepted. After a month, I returned to Italy for a break. The impact had been hard. I had to reflect about the material I was shooting and reorganize a new and longer trip. Meanwhile in Italy, all that I had foreseen really happened. Without funds for the promotion and without the presence of the director, my film was quickly disappearing from the cinema halls. Then came an unexpected event. In Rome, on the last day of the projection, an important film critic showed up. The day after, on a national newspaper, in both the online and paper editions, two very positive reviews were published. They began sending the film to the film festivals in Italy and abroad. It won many prizes, some of which were very prestigious. Three years have passed since then. Upon terminating the work in Brazil, I started once again to take hold of the reins of my life. I didn’t shoot other films, but have many coming up on topics I had never had the courage to deal with. I wrote two novels and an essay on the experience of the “incarnation” of my ideals in art. I also developed a project to dedicate myself to the youth. In this “trade” one needs comfort, encouragement, and also reference points.” Chiara Favotti
For the Catholic Church and other Christian Churches, the season of Lent is about to begin. Lent is a period of the liturgical year, which comes just before the celebration of Easter. It lasts from February 14th to March 29th in the Roman Rite. Lent is seen as an invitation to conversion toward God. It lasts for 40 days, a number that occurs rather often in the Bible – in the Old Testament, for example, Israel spent 40 years in the desert, the great flood lasted 40 days, Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Sinai, and Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert. In the Roman Rite Lent begins with the rite of ashes, in which the priest or minister places a pinch of blessed ashes on the heads or the foreheads of the faithful, symbolizing the fall of earthly existence and one’s commitment to a penitential life.
“We’re all enjoying this surprise together,” said Focolare president Maria Voce as she joyfully commented on the news of Pope Francis’s visit to Loppianoon May 10, 2018. The surprising news has raised great enthusiasm among the members and adherents of the Movement throughout the world, beginning with the town of Loppiano that will welcome the pope. Loppiano is located near Florence, Italy. It was the hope of Focolare foundress, Chiara Lubich, that it would be a real city, with schools, businesses, training centres, universities and business parks. It’s a “special” place a laboratory of community Gospel living. A thousand people from 65 countries of all ages, backgrounds and religions live in Loppiano. They strive to build universal brotherhood through daily practice of the Gospel and Loppiano’s “law” of mutual love. It’s a place for putting into practice the charism of unity – which is the spirituality of the Movement – and for responding to Jesus’s testament: “that all be one” (Jn 21). It was sensational news for the little city: “One second after the announcement by Maria Voce,” they tell us from Loppiano, “the news spread among the residents of the little city and was spread on the social networks around the world with a shower of joyful and surprised posts; it was like an atomic explosion that just blew us away.” At the announcement of the visit, Maria Voce remarked: “We’d like the pope to find the people of Chiara who live the Gospel and are bound to each other solely by mutual love, so that he sees a reflection of the Trinity on earth in the little city.” As for preparing the visit, she pointed out that only a hundred days remain to live and intensify our prayers “so that everything goes as well as possible and there won’t be any insurmountable obstacles; but mostly to intensify our life of Gospel love so that we can really be the living Word.” The Focolare president was also overjoyed about the pope’s visit tothe Nomadelfia community, founded by Father Zeno Saltini in Grosseto, Italy. The pope will visit them before he visits Loppiano: “We know that the pope isn’t only visiting Loppiano. His visit to Nomadelfia is scheduled for the morning. Since we’re geographically close, our two communities have been linked by years of friendship and we have in common the same belief in the centrality of the Gospel and the commitment to universal brotherhood and working in favour of the least of these.In recent times many joyfully recall the participation of a group of young people from Nomadelfia at the annual youth fest held in Loppiano on the 1st of May, which has traditionally drawn teenagers to Loppiano from all over Italy.
Our Lady appeared to Bernardette, under the aspect which humanity more expected: The Immaculate Conception, whose purity shines over a dumpsite to signify that it is she who purifies the world from the composite putrefaction in which all its values rot away in her purity. Mary, daughter of the common folk, born in a humble village of poor people, appeared to Bernardette, daughter of labourers in a humble village of mountaineers. This was at a time in which the recent proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception promulgated by Pius IX in 1854, had crudely bared the contrast between the Ideal of purity, incarnated by the Mother of God and transfused in the doctrine and practice of Christians, and the reality of a degradation in unbridled vice and passions promoted by materialistic and positivistic philosophical trends, favoured by politics aimed at demolishing the Church’s ethics to destroy the dignity of the person. The urgent value of that apparition was immediately consolidated by the miracles at the grotto of Lourdes, with which the divine Mother helped numberless sons on earth to recover bodily health and pureness of soul. And the value grew and increased after the urgency was understood by the Christians who saw that the water freed people from physical illness together with the moral one: Mary, water arising from the Eternal, purifies human blood to free it from all ugliness. The Pope (Pius XII), in his Encyclical for the centenary celebration, highlighted the actuality of the healing action through which the virgin, who is stainless Purity, increasingly rises against the corruption of customs and ideas, advocated with the instruments of art, politics and example. Mary, dressed in white and blue represents the Ideal of Life against Death which is preceded by vice. The New Eve, if the old one gave in to the Enemy already at the first encounter, she rises since her conception, when from the merits of the newborn Son she drew forth the privilege of Immaculateness. With her he entered into human existence, a new element: absolute purity, humanity without a stain, and that divine health which mankind needed most to stop their moral and intellectual decomposition. The Immaculate Conception thus means the most radical – divine – strike of the rod to reverse the course of history heading for dissolution. The significance of the apparitions and miracles is easy to see and was thus expressed to an unschooled and gross girl and is universal (and therefore diffused among gentry and classes of every place and category). Pureness is an essential, preliminary condition of life and coexistence, for all and for always: but especially for our time, in which we thought of exalting the physiological value of the flesh, degrading it to perversions against nature.Master of life, the Church offers the Immaculate to the peoples as the ideal of beauty without shadows: as Mother and Virgin she transmits God to us; she gives us Jesus who, as the “Way, the Truth and Life,” is the Health of mankind. Igino Giordani, The meaning of Lourdes, New City, n.3, 5.2.1958, p.5.
My family is composed of me, my sister and my mother who raised us on her own. We went through some very critical moments. My mother tried hard to find work. Then there was some friction with the landlady, because we didn’t have money for the rent. It was quite a heavy cross for my mother to manage the little money she earned. Therefore, the support we received through the Focolare Movement’s New Families Association was very important. Then the Centro Rincón de Luz was opened on the south side of our city, Cochabamba, in which scholastic support was being offered ever day, along with a hot meal, to children and teenagers who attended the local school. That centre was a huge help to me. It made me smile again and gave me some important formation. We were like one big family where our teachers were often like second parents. Thanks to the people who had faith in me, I can proudly say that I completed my course of study with good results and am in my first semester of university.I’ll soon be a professional, and I’ll try to extend some of the help I received to the to the children who are now at the centre. I’d also like to open a place for the people who live on the streets, helping them to find a way forward. I now know that you can change the life of a child and point him or her in the direction of a better life. That’s why I’m asking everybody to help: Together we can do it! In my case, the most important thing wasn’t just the financial support, but the faith they had in me, which has been a seed of hope, a spark of light that’s lit not only in the children, but also in their parents. Source: Teens
What can we do for Syria today? “For those who have faith, continue to pray. And you can bet with the Syrians that the country is alive. We need support in Syria. Not only from the economic point of view, which is certainly vital, but in believing that with us, this country, the cradle of civilisation, can be reborn. That peace is still possible. We need to know that the world feels our suffering, that of a country that is disappearing.” You coordinate onsite the social projects funded through 
“I was only 12 when I met 
Fernando smiled: “It seems like a movie, I know, but it really happened.” And he continued: “I discussed it with my wife and our kids. It was a matter of leaving my work for two or three years, getting out of the business, putting my career at risk, with my wife having to attend to the family in my absence. She said she was ready to make this sacrifice if it would help to divulge the suffering of those people. And my eldest son said, ’Dad, we cannot look away.’ Also my friends encouraged me to accept. My film was just about to be shown in the cinemas, and I had to leave after 15 days. Pure folly. The feature film had a small distribution circuit. Without my presence to promote it, it may have died and I would have burnt my only chance for a career in the cinema world. But my son’s answer ‘We cannot look the other way’ was decisive for me.” “At the start, in São Paolo, it was almost impossible to shoot the film on the lives of people living under the bridges. They detested being photographed, much less filmed! To make them understand that I didn’t want to exploit their image I had to act like the missionaries. I also started to sleep under the bridges, to share their day, and in this way, they accepted. After a month, I returned to Italy for a break. The impact had been hard. I had to reflect about the material I was shooting and reorganize a new and longer trip. Meanwhile in Italy, all that I had foreseen really happened. Without funds for the promotion and without the presence of the director, my film was quickly disappearing from the cinema halls. 
“We’re all enjoying this surprise together,” said Focolare president 
My family is composed of me, my sister and my mother who raised us on her own. We went through some very critical moments. My mother tried hard to find work. Then there was some friction with the landlady, because we didn’t have money for the rent. It was quite a heavy cross for my mother to manage the little money she earned. Therefore, the support we received through the Focolare Movement’s New Families Association was very important. Then the Centro Rincón de Luz was opened on the south side of our city, Cochabamba, in which scholastic support was being offered ever day, along with a hot meal, to children and teenagers who attended the local school. That centre was a huge help to me. It made me smile again and gave me some important formation. We were like one big family where our teachers were often like second parents. Thanks to the people who had faith in me, I can proudly say that I completed my course of study with good results and am in my first semester of university.I’ll soon be a professional, and I’ll try to extend some of the help I received to the to the children who are now at the centre.