A man, a husband, a father; a tireless professional, a Christian: these are just some of the qualities that describe Giulio Ciarrocchi, a married focolarino who, after years of illness, recently passed away. He was a shining example of great trust in that plan that God had in mind for him and his family.
Giulio was born in Brooklyn (USA) to father Andrea and mother Romilda. His sister Maria Teresa was already part of the family. A year later, the family returned to Petritoli, a picturesque town in the Marche region of central Italy. Giulio later studied in Fermo, a nearby city. His father, passed on his love for singing, to Giulio, which led him to compose songs as a young man. He was involved in both the choir and other activities in the village, and had many friends. This was in 1968.69, the height of the student protests. Giulio recounted: “Inside me, everything was questioned. I openly contested everything and everyone, nothing satisfied me”. At the age of 22, he met Chiara Lubich’s spirituality of unity: “It was a very strong light that opened my eyes to evangelical love,” he said. I started with the seemingly simple things, like greeting people: the other was no longer a stranger: Jesus lived in them. Previously I only related to people who had the same interests as me. Now I realized that there were also the poor and the marginalized. For example, I remember a very poor elderly woman, avoided by everyone because she always said the same things and never washed herself. Now when I’d meet her, I’d give her a lift in the car and take her where she needed to go. When she became sick I went to see her in the hospital every day until she died. Then there was a boy with a disability, rejected by his family, who had been recently hospitalized after attempting suicide. I approached him in friendship. Little by little, I helped him to have confidence in life, to reconnect with family members and to find a job. I felt such a great joy and freedom that everything else seemed to fade away”.
In the years that followed, Giulio became deeply involved in the Gen Movement, the youth reality of the Focolare Movement, which led him to make the Gospel his way of life. He was drawn to the values in which he believed and to which he dedicated himself with other young people: justice, equality and friendship.
He graduated in Economics and worked in a Bank. At the age of 26 he met Pina. They married in 1976 and set up home in Ancona (Marche). After three years, they were invited to move to Grottaferrata (Rome) to help out in the International Secretariat of New Families. Giulio applied for a job in a bank in Rome and, as soon as he was successful, Pina and he and the little Francesca and Chiara (Sara was born later) moved to Grottaferrata. It was September 1979.
Giulio presenta il Familifest 1993Giulio con Chiara LubichGiulio e Pina con la famigliaUn incontro del centro internazionale Familgie Nuove con Chiara Lubichcon alcuni focolarini del focolare di GiulioGiulio con amici e focolariniCon alcune focolarine del focolare di PInaGiulio e Pina nel giorno del matrimonioGiulio con alcuni gen, giovani dei FocolariCon le figlie
While Pina, also a married focolarina, worked full-time at the Secretariat of New Families, Giulio, depending on his work, made himself available for various activities: offering assistance at international meetings; sharing, together with Pina, their life experiences and God’s work in them, not only with engaged couples and young couples, but also during Focolare Movement formation meetings for children and young people and conferences with representatives of various Churches. They often opened the doors of their home to welcome families from around the world who were visiting the Focolare’s international centre, an experience that was enriching for the whole family.
In 1993, the FN Secretariat unanimously asked Giulio, with his warm empathy and charming presence, to host Familyfest, the global event held at the Palaeur in Rome.
Pina and he were among the founding members of AMU (Action for a United World) and AFN (Action for New Families). They served on the National Office for Family Pastoral Care of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) for two years.
Suddenly, in May 1995, everything changed. Giulio suffered a stroke. He survived thanks to the timely care he received and his extraordinary determination, facing long hospital stays and exhausting physiotherapy. A few months later, he sent this message to friends:
“The day I entered this clinic, the Mass reading spoke of Abraham being invited by God to leave his land to go where He would lead him. I felt that call was for me. In all these years I had worked hard to find a sense of balance. This illness shattered that balance. I had to find a new one and I asked God where he wanted to lead me. Having to start all over again scared me. But Jesus gave me the answer and the strength to go on.”
His illness became a journey of rediscovering a relationship with the Father: “I am living a beautiful experience of relationship with God and with the community even if amid physical pain, which, however, I assure you, is truly secondary to the great gifts I have received”.
Giulio never recovered, indeed his condition gradually worsened. His life and that of his family was put to the test, but their unity, especially that as a couple, was so real and inscrutable, so joyful and fruitful that Chiara Lubich herself wanted to affirm it with the words of the Psalm: “In him our hearts rejoice” (33:21).
For seven years, Giulio struggled to continue working at the bank to reach the minimum retirement requirement, deeply grateful to his colleagues for their help and support. Then, finally, a break from work, but not from his commitment, together with Pina, to families around the world, working as long as he was able and then offering and praying until the end, certain that Pina was an expression of the unity between them.
In 2007 another challenge came. Giulio wrote: “I have received the biopsy result: it’s a carcinoma, and I’ll need radiotherapy. I repeat my ‘yes’ to Jesus. Some might say that God has targeted me, since I’ve already lived through 12 difficult post-stroke years. I, on the other hand, believe I am very much loved and I thank him for the privilege of participating in his mystery of love for the good of humanity.”
In May 2025, Giulio and Pina celebrated 30 years of illness. That’s right, celebrated. And not because everything was over now, but because as Giulio commented, “They have been years of grace”. Though his memory had begun to fade, his spiritual dimension remained vibrant. “I live in the present”, he said on 2nd February, 2025, “and I look upward. Jesus tells me, don’t worry, I’m here, right behind you”. And on 25th June, Pina’s birthday, in a moment of clarity, he said to her: “You’ve always managed so well, I hope you will continue to do so even more!” On Giulio’s final day, while waiting for the ambulance after praying three Hail Marys together, he said: “Mary most pure, help us.”
Giulio was a gift for all those who met him. Many messages of gratitude have been received from relatives, colleagues and friends from all over the world.
Giulio had many gifts and many people were enriched by his life, as his daughters shared after the funeral:
“What we would like to share is his ability to recognize beauty. Not surface-level or aesthetic beauty, but the kind you discover by going deeper, when you overcome fear and embrace life with your heart. That invisible, but powerful beauty, which runs through life’s fabric, which is light in pain and joy in illness. This is the beauty to which our Dad introduced us, by involving us in his many passions such as art, photography, music, theatre, travel and the sea… passions that today are also ours and that allow us to have an open and confident approach to the world just like he did until the end. Dear Dad, we’ve often thought that life wasn’t kind to you, but the kindness you didn’t receive, you gave to your life and to ours.
In these last few years, your physical world has shrunk, yet your inner world has expanded, teaching us gratitude for every single day of life”.
La redazione con la collaborazione di Anna e Alberto Friso
This link is to a video-interview produced by the Santa Chiara Audiovisual Centre featuring Giulio and his wife Pina: Falling in love again, day by day.
The General Assembly of the Work of Mary, the Focolare Movement, takes place every five years.
The upcoming one will take place from the 1st to the 21st of March 2026.
It is an opportunity to respond to the vocation of the Focolare Movement: to live for unity. This is one of the most important events: during the Assembly the new governing body of the Focolare Movement will be elected and the work done will provide an opportunity to talk about ideas, proposals and motions that will be the guidelines for the Movement over the next five years.
The preparation process is beginning: we are all called to do our part.
Margaret Karram, President of the Focolare Movement, explains through this video message how we can prepare ourselves in a synodal way.
Here is a video with infographics to better understand what the Assembly is, how it will be carried out and how to prepare for this important appointment.
Come exiled brother, let us embrace. Wherever you are, whatever your name, whatever you do, you are my brother. What does it matter to me if nature and social conventions try to separate you from me, with names, conditions, restrictions or laws?
The heart cannot be restrained, the will knows no limits and by making an effort to love we can overcome all these divisions and reunite as a family.
Don’t you recognise me? Nature placed you elsewhere, made you different, within other borders, you may be German, Romanian, Chinese, Indian… You may be yellow, olive-skinned, black, bronze, copper-toned… but what does it matter?
What does it matter that you are from a different country? When this small, still-glowing globe consolidated, no one could have imagined that for such accidental outgrowths, people would kill each other for ages.
And even today, in the face of our political systems, do you think that nature ever asks our permission to express itself through volcanoes, earthquakes or floods? And do you think it cares about our disparities, appearances or hierarchies?
Unknown brother, love your land, your fragment of the shared crust that supports us, but do not hate mine. Under all the trappings, under the all the social classifications, no matter how codified, you are a soul that God created as a sister to mine, to that of every other person (there is only one Father) and you are like every other person who suffers and perhaps you cause suffering, who needs more than he possesses, who falters, who gets tired, hungry, thirsty, sleepy, like me, like everyone else.
“Unknown brother, love your land, your fragment of the shared crust that supports us, but do not hate mine. (…) In you I recognize the Lord. Free yourself and even now, brothers that we are, let’s embrace. “
You are a poor pilgrim following a mirage. You believe yourself to be the centre of the universe and yet you are nothing more than an atom of this humanity that from millennia to millennia struggles more through sorrow than through joys.
You are a speck, brother, so let’s join forces instead of fighting. Do not be proud, do not isolate yourself, do not accentuate the marks of differentiation devised by man.
Didn’t you cry when you were born, as I did? Will you not groan when you die, as I will? Whatever its earthly shell, the soul will return to be naked, equal. So come. From beyond all seas, climates, all laws, from beyond every social, political or intellectual compartment, from beyond all boundaries (man knows only how to circumscribe, divide and isolate) come, brother.
In you I recognize the Lord. Free yourself and even now, brothers that we are, let’s embrace.
Martine was on the metro in one of the main European cities; all the passengers were absorbed in their phones. She thought how the people may have been connected virtually but were really trapped in isolation and said to herself, ‘Are we no longer able to look each other in the eye?’
This has become an everyday experience, especially in societies which are rich in material goods but increasingly poor in human relationships. However, the Gospel always offers its original, creative proposal, to “make all things new”[1].
In the long dialogue with the lawyer who asked Jesus what to do to inherit eternal life [2], Jesus replied with the famous parable of the Good Samaritan: a priest and a Levite, respected figures in the society of the time, saw a man assaulted by robbers and lying on the roadside, but they passed him by.
But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.
To the lawyer who was very familiar with the divine commandment to love one’s neighbour [3], Jesus gave the example of a foreigner who was considered to be a schismatic and an enemy. The man saw the wounded traveller, but he allowed himself to be moved by compassion, a feeling that comes from within, from deep in the human heart. So he interrupted his journey, approached the man and took care of him.
Jesus knows that every human being is wounded by sin and his very mission is: to heal hearts with God’s mercy and gratuitous forgiveness, so that they too may be capable of closeness and sharing.
‘…To learn to be merciful like the Father, perfect like him, we must look at Jesus, the full revelation of the Father’s love… Love is the absolute value that gives meaning to everything else… and finds its highest expression in mercy. Mercy helps us to see the people we live with each day in a new light, in our family, at school, at work, without remembering their faults and mistakes. It helps us not to judge, but to forgive the wrongs we have suffered. Indeed, to forget them’ [4].
But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.
The final and decisive response comes as a clear invitation: ‘Go and do likewise’[5]. This is what Jesus repeats to anyone who welcomes his Word: to become a neighbour by taking the initiative to ‘touch’ the wounds of those encountered each day along the paths of life.
To live evangelical closeness, first of all we must ask Jesus to heal us of the blindness of prejudice and indifference, which prevent us from seeing beyond ourselves.
Then, from the Samaritan, we can learn the ability for compassion which moved him to put his own life on the line. Let’s imitate his readiness to take the first step toward others, his willingness to listen to them, to make their pain our own, free from judgment and from the anxiety of ‘wasting time.’
This is what happened to a young woman from Korea: ‘I tried to help a teenager who wasn’t from my culture and whom I didn’t know well. Even though I didn’t know exactly what to do or how, I found the courage to try and to my surprise, by offering that help, I found that my own inner wounds had been healed.’
This Word offers us the golden key for living out a Christian humanism. It makes us aware of our common humanity, in which the image of God is reflected and it teaches us to courageously overcome the limits of physical and cultural ‘closeness.’ From this perspective, it becomes possible to expand the boundaries of ‘us’ to the horizon of ‘everyone’ and to rediscover the very foundations of social life.
[1] Cf. Rev 21,5. [2] Cf. Lk 10, 25-37. [3]Dt 6,5; Lv 19,18. [4] (C. Lubich, Word of Life, June 2002, in Words of Life, edited by Fabio Ciardi, Città Nuova, Rome, 2017, p. 659).. [5]Lk 10,37.
Every day we see a great deal of suffering all around us and this can make us feel overwhelmed and helpless if we do not draw upon deep human values. Sometimes, however, the answer arrives on WhatsApp. This is whath appened to a community that tries to build unity in a small town in Italy: “…In the hospital where I work there is a young man, a foreigner, who is completely alone and dying. Maybe someone could spend a few minutes with him, to bring some dignity to this situation?” This request was a shock: the responses followed quickly. The messages from those who were with the man in his last few hours said, “At his bedside we immediately saw that he was receiving care at the right time and that it was attentive and loving. Really there was nothing for us to to do except be there: he was in a coma and could not benefit from our presence.” Was staying at the man’s bedside unnecessary and a waste of time? In those few hours a small community, inside and outside the hospital, accompanied and brought meaning to that situation. Who knows if a mother will be able to mourn that son in his own country. Surely his “passing” was not in vain for those who could love that young man who was no longer unknown. Compassion is a feeling that comes from within, from the depths of the human heart. It makes us capable of interrupting our busy daily routine of schedules and appointments and take the initiative to approach others and gaze at them with care, unafraid to “touch” their wounds. Chiara Lubich explains it with striking simplicity: “Let us imagine that we are in their situation and treat them as we would like to be treated in their place. Are they hungry? We think – I am hungry too. And let’s feed them. Is that person experiencing injustice? I am suffering injustice too! And let us offer words of comfort and share their sorrows: let’s persevere until they feel enlightened and uplifted. We will slowly see the world around us change.“1. African wisdom also confirms this in a proverb from the Ivory Coast: “The person who welcomes a stranger hosts a messenger.” This Idea offers us a method of living out true humanism: it makes us aware of our common humanity in which the dignity inherent in every man and woman is reflected. It also teaches us to courageously go beyond the understanding that “closeness” is determined by physical and cultural contexts. Thinking in this way, it is possible to expand the boundaries of “us” to the horizon of “all” and rediscover the very foundations of social life. When we feel we are succumbing to the impact of the suffering all around us, it is important to draw upon the help of friends who share our views and accompany us through life and so allow ourselves to be healed. Let’s remember, as psychiatrist-psychotherapist Roberto Almada says, “If the good people give up the battle because of fatigue, our common humanity will run the greatest of risks: value impoverishment.”2.
1. Chiara Lubich, The Art of Loving 2. R. Almada, Il burnout del buon samaritano, Effatà editrice, 2016
THE IDEA OF THE MONTH is currently produced by the Focolare Movement’s “Centre for Dialogue with People of Non religious Beliefs”. It is an initiative that began in 2014 in Uruguay to share with non-believing friends the values of the Word of Life, i.e. the phrase from Scripture that members of the Movement strive to put into practice in their daily lives. Currently, THE IDEA OF THE MONTH is translated into 12 languages and distributed in more than 25 countries, with adaptations of the text according to different cultural sensitivities. dialogue4unity.focolare.org
