{"id":291352,"date":"2006-09-14T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-14T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/today-in-the-21st-century-imitate-the-first-christians\/"},"modified":"2024-05-13T20:38:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T18:38:57","slug":"today-in-the-21st-century-imitate-the-first-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/today-in-the-21st-century-imitate-the-first-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cToday, in the 21st century, imitate the first Christians\u201d."},"content":{"rendered":"

The new way of life and thought that are emerging in the fields of economy, law, communication and politics will be presented during this open day,\u00a0 held at Budapest.\u00a0\u00a0This life is\u00a0 first of all rooted in God, in the radicality of the Gospel, lived in everyday life by thousands of people, who come from different cultural backgrounds and who\u00a0 have encountered the charism of unity of the Focolare Movement. In the forefront, there are the \u201cvolunteers of God\u201d<\/em>,<\/strong> members of a branch of the Focolare Movement, who commit themselves to live for the renewal of society.\u00a0\u00a0Their two days meeting on the 14th\u00a0 and 15th of September,\u00a0 with the title \u201c50 years at the service of humanity\u201d,\u00a0 has begun in a very festive mood.\u00a0 9000 volunteers from all over the world\u00a0\u00a0 are gathered in the most modern Sports Arena of the capital city of Budapest, and they want to go back to the roots of their history and to re-launch their commitment to live for the renewal of society. Budapest 1956<\/strong> –\u00a0\u00a0Their stems are rooted in a\u00a0 dramatic historical moment, that has been emotionally relived during the opening of this meeting: it\u00a0 was November 1956 when the invasion of the Russian troops\u00a0 suppressed the freedom of the Hungarian people.\u00a0\u00a0In the Sports Arena\u00a0 there resounded the voice of Pope Pius XII\u00a0who, at that time, launched\u00a0an appeal in a radio message. \"\"He\u00a0 appealed\u00a0 that\u00a0 the name of God, \u201cthe source of law, justice and freedom, to be brought back to our parliaments, our homes,\u00a0 our offices\u201d.\u00a0<\/em> Those present were\u00a0 also reminded of\u00a0 what\u00a0 Chiara Lubich said to\u00a0 start the adventure of the volunteers: \u201cThere is a\u00a0 society capable of putting aside the name of God, (. . .) of eredicating it from the hearts of men. So there must be a society who is able to give Him his place. There must be authentic disciples of Jesus, an army of volunteers, because love is free\u201d.<\/em> Budapest 2006 –<\/strong>\u00a0In her message, while\u00a0speaking of these beginnings, Chiara Lubich traced the identikit of the volunteer today. And one could see that what she said was in perfect harmony with what Pope Benedict XVI said during his very recent visit to Munich, when he spoke about the challenges of this present historical moment, which more than ever needs God. He said that God should \u201cdetermine our own will and in this way reign in the world\u201d; \u201cjustice and love may become the decisive forces affecting our world\u201d.\u00a0<\/em> Chiara\u00a0 reminded\u00a0 everyone of\u00a0 the goal\u00a0proposed by herself 50 years ago, when she said: \u201cLet there be a block of people of all ages, of all races, from all walks of life, who are bound together by the most powerful bond that can exist: reciprocal love, love that unites Christians\u00a0 in a divine way\u201d.<\/em>\u00a0 This still holds today \u201cin our disturbed societies and yet full of yearnings and potentialities\u201d.<\/em> While claiming\u00a0 that being lay people,\u00a0 the\u00a0 volunteers\u00a0 live \u201cthe normality of family, work and social life\u201d,<\/em> Chiara\u00a0 underlines the \u201ctotality, the freedom and the essentiality\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 of their\u00a0 vocation, which calls\u00a0 them \u201cto\u00a0 imitate the\u00a0 first Christians\u201d<\/em> today, in the 21st century and \u201cto be like the leaven in the bread,\u00a0 building \u2018new heavens and\u00a0 new earth\u2019,\u00a0 renewed by the light of the Gospel\u201d.<\/em> Then, all the important stages of the life story of the volunteers and of their specific vocation were\u00a0 traced. They were reminded\u00a0 of the very first signs that date back to the 40\u2019s,\u00a0 when the Movement began and when Chiara\u00a0 started her spiritual adventure together with her first companions helping the poor. They\u00a0 aimed\u00a0 to solve\u00a0 the social problem of Trent, while\u00a0 sure of the fact\u00a0 that the \u201cthe revolution of the Gospel was the most powerful social revolution\u201d.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Then, the pioneers, among\u00a0 \u201cthe volunteers of God\u201d,<\/em> were presented.\u00a0 They\u00a0 gave witness of\u00a0their great love for humanity and of their ability to build authentic spots of \u201cfraternity in the social field\u201d<\/em>\u00a0at the various places where each one\u00a0 has lived. During these days there will be various witnesses<\/strong>\u00a0 that emerge\u00a0from different situations.\u00a0These will show the\u00a0 effects\u00a0 on social life\u00a0 where\u00a0 the Gospel\u00a0 is lived in everyday life and in different cultural backgrounds. This meeting is held before the Convention of the 16th\u00a0 September, where\u00a0participants will reach the number of 11,700<\/strong>, coming from 92 countries in the five continents. More than 3,800 come from Italy, about 600 from Asia, 170 from the Middle East, more than 1,300 from North and South America, 130 from Africa, 40 from Australia. There will be representatives from: <\/strong>13 Ecclesial movements and New Communities, – christians from various Churches, – followers of\u00a0 Islam and of other religions. Among\u00a0 the state and religious personalities<\/strong> expected to take part there are: Cardinal P\u00e9ter Erd\u00f5<\/strong>, the Primate of Hungary, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, President of the Episcopal Conference, P\u00e9ter Harrach<\/strong>, Vice-president of the Hungarian Parliament, Paolo Guido Spinelli<\/strong>,\u00a0 Italian Ambassador in Hungary, Zoltan Tarr<\/strong>, the general secretary for the Reformed Church, Bishop Janos Ittzes<\/strong>, the President of the Evangelical Church in Hungary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are Chiara Lubich\u2019s words to the \u201cvolunteers of God\u201d during their ‘two days’ meeting at Budapest to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their foundation, while returning to their beginnings and re-launching their commitment to live for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}