{"id":306590,"date":"2018-10-24T23:10:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T21:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/a-gathering-of-diverse-beauty\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:38:23","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:38:23","slug":"a-gathering-of-diverse-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/a-gathering-of-diverse-beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gathering of Diverse Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In the heart of Europe<\/strong> with its 7.8 million inhabitants within a territory of 41 thousand km, Switzerland<\/a> is a small country with a broad variety of languages, cultures and religions which has also been held up as a model of successful integration. The spirituality of unity<\/a>, which is particularly congenial to a social fabric oriented towards relationships and acceptance spread rapidly in this land ever since 1960 and caught on quickly. Many successive spiritual intutions regarding the development of Focolare spirituality are linked to the summer holidays Chiara Lubich<\/a> spent in the Swiss valleys. A centre of formation has been operating in Baar since 1975<\/strong>. It is open to all and has become, over time, the heart of the Focolare town of \u201cEckstein<\/strong>\u201d (cornerstone) where several small businesses operate. The centre offers opportunities for contact and encounter not only among Catholic and Reformed Christians. \"\"<\/strong>At the end of September a meeting was held for around 400 men and women Religious, first at City Hall which is not far from the Centre. The group was restricted to superiors and persons in positions of responsibility, with the behind the scenes assistance of Focolare members. The participants were members of eighty communities<\/strong>, including a dozen from the Reformed Church and an Orthodox community, as well as members of Secular Institutes, Movements and Ecclesial Families. \"\"\u201cIn today\u2019s world we have to help each other to stand together, to not look at the barriers between us, not our differences that must nevertheless be preserved<\/strong>. But we have to do in such a way that all our differences shine in one grand experience, in the footsteps of Christ and of our founders.\u201d These were the words of Cardinal Jo\u00e2o Braz de Aviz<\/strong>, who attended the meeting. In one interview, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Consecrated Life<\/strong> explained: \u201cAll the structures that form the Church \u2013 Religious, Hermits, Monks, Nuns, Brothers, Sisters, Secular Institutes \u2013 all of them are seeking a common life. In today\u2019s culture everything has drawn closer together.\u201d \u201cAt this moment in time,\u201d he explained, \u201cwe are in need of a path that we can take together<\/strong> and, even we who belong to Orders, Congregations and Consecrated Life, need a tool, a way of life that draws us together in all ways. This is not the path we took at first, that of an individual spirituality, that is preserved. We need to move on to \u2018looking\u2019 together, to looking at the other with the same attentiveness with which we look at ourselves. All of this we are just beginning to learn, including us cardinals…\u201d He concluded: \u201cI wish that all of us, in this moment, would sum up all of our beauties and form one grand unity<\/strong>, remembering what Pope Francis<\/strong> says: \u201cUnity is not built [by] destroying, but harmonizing the diversity.\u201d It\u2019s a path that at times causes fatigue, because we have to learn to go out towards the others, \u201cthe first move we have to make is to go towards the other,\u201d as the Pope points out. If we don\u2019t go out of ourselves, we remain at the centre. This is beginning here in Switzerland, with simplicity, as if we were all at the School of Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A gathering for Religious from various Churches, movements, communities and ecclesial families was held at the end of September with a contribution from the Focolare Movement. An Interview with Cardinal Jo\u00e2o Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for the Consecrated Life.<\/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":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306590","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=306590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}