{"id":305690,"date":"2017-11-28T01:10:18","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T00:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/maria-voce-to-dialogue-means-taking-risks\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:35:54","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:35:54","slug":"maria-voce-to-dialogue-means-taking-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/maria-voce-to-dialogue-means-taking-risks\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Voce: \u201cTo dialogue means taking risks.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Alpha_Omega_cover\"<\/a>The keyword is \u201cjourney\u201d<\/strong>, because \u201ctruth is sought through journeying\u201d. Maria Voce, or Emmaus <\/a>as she is known in the Focolare, became animated as she described Pope Bergoglio\u2019s vision of ecumenism. Her eyes lit up when speaking about an ecclesial reality which truly has unity as its vocation. Such was the route undertaken by Focolare founder Chiara Lubich. It is one of the very few movements born in the Catholic Church which embraces the faithful of other churches<\/a>. It is indeed a rarity in times of fragmentation. \u201cI think that true Catholicism is what God perceives it to be: a gathering of communities each having their own identity. I imagine the moment will come, because it must come, when everyone will be one. Jesus asked for this. Therefore not just one Catholic Church: it could be Catholic in the sense of universal, but not a single Roman Church or a single Church of Constantinople.\u201d Your words came across almost as a provocation<\/strong>. \u201cOf course, they\u2019re provocative!\u201d Maria Voce replied. It was clear that in her \u201cprovocation\u201d she felt supported by the Argentinean Pope. On 3 June, the last Sunday of Pentecost, the Pontiff convened the charismatic Catholic and non-Catholic movements. Before the meeting had even started, the Pope specifically asked for Maria Voce. A priest went looking for her and she joined the group of leaders sitting on the stage. At the end of his speech, the Pope approached her and, to her great surprise, took her by the hand: \u201cCome, Maria …,\u201d he said without adding anything else. And they left the assembly together. \u201cFrom the first moment of his election, when he appeared on the balcony to greet the crowds and introduced himself as a Bishop and not as a Pontiff, I understood that it was already a sign of his ability to relate to other churches.\u201d \u201cJorge Mario Bergoglio,\u201d Maria Voce recalls, \u201chad a living experience of ecumenism with other churches in Buenos Aires. Considering that time, Maria Voce identified the seed of what happened as a consequence during his pontificate, which reached its utmost expression with the Pope\u2019s presence, almost a year ago, in commemorative celebrations held in Lund (Sweden) which marked the 5th centenary of the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther. \u201cSomething immense happened in Lund, when two Church leaders at the same level of authority met and signed a joint statement.\u201d The challenge is to follow the Pope\u2019s example and join in the \u2018spirit of Lund\u2019. \u201cIf John Paul II will always be remembered for the \u2018spirit of Assisi\u2019, the present Pope should be remembered for the \u2018spirit of Lund\u2019.\u201d

\"Alpha_Omega_MariaVoce_ecumenism\"<\/a>

Ottmaring, Germany: Mar\u00eda Voce during a meeting with a group from the Evangelical Church on 1 novembre 2009. Photo courtesy of Alpha y Omega<\/p><\/div> This optimism has its limits<\/strong>. Maria Voce acknowledges that \u201cunfortunately\u201d among Catholics there still exist attitudes of the past. There are those who think that \u201cthe Church is us\u201d and all the others are excluded. This outlook, which has been carried on through time, has brought about a sort of spiritual fatigue. \u201cWe have slowed down history. It\u2019s not that we are in a state of inertia in a practical sense, but perhaps, out of fear, we have slowed down the historical processes. I would not say this of the whole Church, but it is true of many of its members.\u201d \u201cWe are brothers and sisters bonded by Baptism; they live the same Gospel that I live. Who am I to say that someone is of less value than me in front of God? The Pope is giving great impetus to this.\u201d How to proceed?<\/strong> According to Maria Voce it can be done in many different ways. Among these is to re-evaluate the great men and women in the history of the Church, such as Luther. Another way is to value the martyrdom of Christians irrespective of their church, and to look for ways to express one\u2019s faith in ways \u201cmore acceptable to all\u201d. But, above all, it means to live our shared faith concretely, because the new stage in dialogue promoted by Pope Francis is carried out by journeying and not by standing still. It is a risky endeavour, however, and one of the challenges is lack of formation. As the leader of a wide-ranging movement which has taken root worldwide, Maria Voce points out an obvious flaw in Catholic catechesis. \u201cIt\u2019s right to ensure good formation, but we have to take risks; if we don\u2019t take risks, we cannot move forward. This is the path of the extraordinary ecumenism the Pope is progressing. We feel we must help this ecumenism become a lived experience and down to earth.\u201d It is not about creating confusion, or losing one\u2019s identity<\/strong>. Rather, it\u2019s about taking part in occasions, such as liturgical ceremonies, while avoiding confusion, in which our voices can be raised in shared prayer. In this regard she emphasizes: \u201cAre there still things to do on this journey? As long as there are places in the world where Christians fight each another or try to dominate one another, or are divided, then there is much left to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christian dialogue is not easy, but it\u2019s important to take risks. According to Maria Voce there are walls which divide us which need to be climbed. Some extracts from an interview by Andr\u00e9s Beltramo \u00c1lvarez for the Spanish journal \u201cAlfa y Omega\u201d.<\/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-305690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305690","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=305690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}