Aug 17, 2014 | Focolare Worldwide
“A writing of Chiara Lubich (1) speaks to me of the Church and makes me understand the priest as part of the living reality of the Church. Actually, Chiara Lubich’s meditation speaks of the individual Christian, but it also speaks, indeed even more so, of the Church. Today, perhaps as never before, the credibility of the priestly service depends on how much the individual priest is rooted in a vital unity, in a form of life in which priestly service becomes a common witness by having the Lord Himself, the One Priest, in our midst. If a priest must specialize in something it must be in communio, unity. The spirituality and lifestyle of the priest is unity. Living in communion with Jesus among the members of His Church and being a concrete expression of God reaching out to humanity: this is his task. And the accomplishment of this depends decisively on the measure to which Jesus’ Testament, contained in His Priestly Prayer, is fulfilled: That all may be one (cf Jn 17:21). For Jesus Christ is present in the Church and this can be experienced wherever believers are united in His name, whenever they love one another as He loved us (see Jn 13:34). The world will believe when it sees the Church living unity through mutual love. We said before that today’s world is seeking a mystical dimension and concrete commitment. Very well, to live together with our gaze fixed on Jesus in our midst, in a constant commitment to have Him in our midst and thus to bring Him near and far: this is what it means to be a priest today. The priest today? Is that not saying too little? Perhaps it would be better to say: priests today, united to one another, with Jesus in their midst.” (1) Chiara Lubich, Essential Writings, New City Press, New York and New City, London (English translation), 2007. See also: Klaus Hemmerle: The Priest Today (1) (2) (3) Forthcoming event “Networking” 19 August 2014 – 22 August 2014 A meeting promoted by the Focolare Movement for young priests, deacons, seminarians and young people attracted to the priesthood.
Aug 9, 2014 | Focolare Worldwide
“If it is true that only by comparing him to Christ that a priest can be understood both in his greatness and in his smallness, in his mandate and in his frailty, if it is true that the priest relives in space and time the deprivation that Christ filled in Himself, then no words can better express the priestly life than those of St. Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20). These words hold true for every Christian just as the text of Chiara Lubich we quoted applies to all Christians. For in Baptism, the decisive ontological event that regards our person has already taken place. There is no longer the “I” that asserts itself against God and which must consequently die. Rather, it is the “I” which, having died with Jesus Christ in God makes room for Him, for God Himself, for Jesus Christ within us. I belong to Jesus Christ. Dying again and again in each moment in Him, so that He may live in me, this is the true way to find ourselves, to reach self-fulfilment. To say “you” to Jesus each time I say “I”: this is the way of sanctification which has its origins in Baptism. It is in this way that I can remain in continual contemplation, in continual union with God; and it is also under this condition that God-Love, who in Christ gives Himself to humanity, can give Himself to our times and communicate Himself to the men and women of today. There is no truer model for accomplishing this than Mary. She looks at God alone and at His will and receives Him completely within herself. Thus she gives Him to the others, gives Him to the world. The gratia plena is also the Theotokos, the God Bearer and Mother of God. Now, if a priest is a person who is mandated to àgere in persona Christi, this mandate cannot be limited to merely carrying out sacramental acts for which, in the strict sense, this mandate was given. The sacramental acts, the carrying out of priestly ministry will become a witness in the measure that the priest corresponds with his entire life to those acts. Therefore, the more deeply the priest lives out his Christianity, his Baptism – the more Marian he is in the sense explained above – all the more will Christ the Priest shine forth in him. Being priests by being totally Christian! Living Christ the Priest totally, by living Mary totally – her self-giving, her serving! The priest must give himself to God completely. Nothing else should fill his life, not possessions, demands or things he can be left to dispose of. That part of the human heart which could be kept apart for the most beautiful, noble and sacred human sentiments must be kept free for Jesus Christ alone. His hands must be empty and hold nothing other than Christ, thus enabling the priest to give Jesus Himself to others. He must be united with Jesus alone, and thus to have greater freedom.” (to be continued) See also: Klaus Hemmerle: The Priest Today (1) (2) Forthcoming event “Networking” 19 August 2014 – 22 August 2014 A meeting promoted by the Focolare Movement for young priests, deacons, seminarians and young people attracted to the priesthood.
Aug 2, 2014 | Focolare Worldwide
«The youth of today will be the leaders of the tomorrow. From the questions and often impetuous desires of young people, from their opinions and sometimes impatient and exaggerated demands, we can understand something of what is going on in the minds of people in any given epoch. Those who are very much in contact with today’s young people, come up against two tendencies which seem to be contradictory: on one hand young people want closeness, equality and spontaneity, so that whoever is distant or too high is neither accepted nor understood. They want people who have something to say, not to be too different from them but to have an inside-knowledge of their situation. In short, they don’t want these people to feel that they are above everyone else in some way, with their answers come down from somewhere on high. At the same time, however – and this is the other tendency – we discover in young people a great thirst for originality, the need for a model they can hold up in front of them, an Ideal they can follow which is convincing and a way of life. Young people want to draw their lives from depths they themselves are not able to reach, from a source they feel cut off from. They are looking for someone who is very close to them and at the same time someone “who comes from the land of distant waters” to make them drink. They are looking for someone who is both like them and at the same time completely different. They are looking for someone who is small and at the same time someone who possesses a greatness without which life is dull, frivolous and empty. In a sense broader than that of a specifically religious or Christian context, we could say: young people, indeed, humanity today, is attracted both by: action and a mystical dimension, nearness and authority, brotherhood and mandate. Couldn’t this be nostalgia for Jesus Christ? For the Son of God who comes to us as the Son of Mary, for the Messiah who belongs to the carpenter’s family? Yes. And this nostalgia for Jesus Christ is also a nostalgia for the priest: for that priest, whose message becomes credible by means of his personal life, and who gives witness to this message through his own experience, by what he says and what he brings, even though his ultimate authority comes from Jesus Christ Himself. The priest in himself is a man like any other; he must never elevate himself as if he were somehow higher or better. But it is also true that Jesus Christ has imprinted Himself upon the priest. Jesus chose the priest and sent him out to bring His presence near to men and women, to witness to Him and transmit His life, and message. There is something different in the priest, but this difference can be justified only because of Jesus Christ and for Him. Thus, courage is needed, courage to differentiate oneself and courage to be near; courage to live in contemplation and courage to serve with simplicity and humility; courage to climb Mt Tabor and courage to wash the feet of one’s neighbour: this is the figure of the priest today. And this figure meets the desire of our times, the nostalgia for Jesus Christ who comes from the Father in Heaven and at the same time, lives the everyday life of ordinary people. To live Christ, to live his mission, to live his authority close to Mary, the Handmaid of the Lord – this is what it means to be priests today. In a word: the priest, the response of God to our times; the priest – the man of our times […]». (To be continued) Klaus Hemmerle: The Priest Today (1) Forthcoming event
19 August 2014 – 22 August 2014
A meeting promoted by the Focolare Movement for young priests, deacons, seminarians and young people attracted to the priesthood.
Jul 26, 2014 | Focolare Worldwide
“If you are looking for a seismograph that can register the vibrations of our world today, can know the positive and negative developments of the consciousness of our times with its imminent dangers and new experiences, look at the priest. In a certain sense he is the heart of Our Lord, placed by God Himself in the heart of humanity with this calling to be completely available to the Lord and sensitive to all people, with whom he is called to make himself one and be close to; but this availability also involves a great vulnerability. Whoever deals with a theme such as The Priest Today – an essential question for the life of the Church in our times – finds himself faced with countless theories, experiments and projects. The documents of the Second Vatican Council and the 1971 Synod of Bishops, the talks and letters of recent Popes, especially our present Holy Father, John Paul II all offer support and mark out the way. But they do not dispense us from making the personal effort of carrying them over into our own lives so that they may be comprehensible for others and express a shining witness for all people, both within the Church and outside of it. With the directives of the Church in my heart and keeping my eyes fixed on the experiences and problems of humanity, I sought an image that could shed light on the figure of the priest today – who is he? How does he appear to us? In my search I came across a text that can provide that answer to the question about the priest’s identity today, even though it does not mention the priesthood at all. This is the great attraction of modern times: to penetrate to the highest contemplation while mingling with everyone, one person alongside others. I would say even more: to lose oneself in the crowd in order to fill it with the divine, like a piece of bread dipped in wine. I would say even more: made sharers in God’s plans for humanity, to embroider patterns of light on the crowd, and at the same time to share with our neighbour shame, hunger, troubles, brief joys. Because the attraction of our times, as of all times, is the highest conceivable expression of the human and the divine, Jesus and Mary: the Word of God, a carpenter’s son; the Seat of Wisdom, a mother at home.[1] This text of Chiara Lubich speaks to me of our times and highlights the priest as God’s answer to our world today. This text speaks to me of Jesus Christ and makes me understand the priest from this point of departure: Christ. This text speaks to me of being a Christian – and reveals to me the life of the priest from this point of departure: the life of an ordinary Christian. This text speaks to me of the Church – and shows me the place and meaning of the priest within the Church.” (To be continued)
[1]. Chiara Lubich,
Essential Writings, New City Press, New York and New City, London (English translation), 2007, p. 169. Forthcoming events:
19 August 2014 – 22 August 2014
A meeting promoted by the Focolare Movement for young priests, deacons, seminarians and young people attracted to the priesthood.
May 28, 2014 | Focolare Worldwide
Ruth Pfau is a medical doctor who generously devoted her efforts and service to Pakistan, working for peace in a way that has reached far beyond feild of health assistance. Evangelical Bishop Christian Krause called her a Christian woman who has “overcome the abysses between men and women in a society dominated by men; between rich and poor, between tradition and modernity, between foreign cultures.” She is a religious sister who has brought the experience of Christ’s love to people of all backgrounds and religious convictions,” said President of the Pakistan Bishops Conference, Archbishop Joseph Coutts, as he thanked her in name of the Pakistani Church. With the help of the German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Association (DAHW) Ruth Pfau has built a hospital in the city of Karachi. Because of her work in the management of leprosy and tuberculosis she was appointed Secretary of State by the Pakistan government. For more than twenty years she has been working in collaboration with the Christoffel Mission offering assistance to the blind, and gaining the esteem of a nearly entirely Muslim society. Appreciation for this woman who was born in 1929 was also expressed by the Bishop of Aquisgrana, Heinrich Mussinghoffe and by Focolare president Maria Voce, who called her a “witness of God’s love and builder of a more just and fraternal society.” Every two years this award is conferred by the Focolare Movement in honour of the spiritual patrimony of Hemmerle. What does Ruth Pfau have in common with the theologian Klaus Hemmerle who was once bishop of Aquisgrana and a contemporary of Ruth? Television journalist and theology professor Michael Albus answers this question in the keynote address he gave at the Dome Church of Aachen (Aquisrana) where the award ceremony was held on May 8th. “She had the courage to dare to take the plunge, to decide to help without hesitation, wherever there was need: without theoretical, political or even theological justification. And without asking – as happens in our capitalistic world – how she would be repaid.” This is what these two people have in common, along with their desire to build “a Church that salvages God in the world, from dying of cold,” as St Martin reminds us. Then Ruth spoke: “We can help one another to be better people and full of humanity,” she stated. For her, one sign of this humanity is “wasting time.” She was taught that lesson during her time in Asia. You very rarely find it in a hospital or house for the elderly in Germany. For her, this signals a loss of humanity. She was pleased to accept the award because it gave honour to this “wasting time”, although the motivation for the award highlighted her ability to “build bridges and create unity through her radical devotion to the poor, based on her faith which she lived with strength and conviction in an environment charged with conflict.”
