{"id":307778,"date":"2021-02-10T03:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T02:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/gods-providence-sharing-in-eastern-europe\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:42:02","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:42:02","slug":"gods-providence-sharing-in-eastern-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/gods-providence-sharing-in-eastern-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"God\u2019s providence: sharing in Eastern Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Focolare communities in Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia, where they\u2019ve been experiencing the joy of giving freely to help those in difficulty<\/em> \u201cOur communion of goods began by observing the early Christians. We saw that there they had a communion of goods, and as a result there was no one who was poor among them… \u201cSo you could say that the formula is this: if the whole world were to implement the communion of goods, then social problems, the poor, the hungry, those without a legacy, etc., would no longer exist.\u201d This was how Focolare founder Chiara Lubich, when she launched the Economy of Communion project in 1991, explained the origins of the \u201ccommunion of goods\u201d in the movement, both material and spiritual. In 1943 in Trento, the war had destroyed the city, and many had lost their homes, jobs and families. Faced with such despair\u2014and in light of the words of the Gospel they meditated on in the shelters\u2014Chiara and her early friends decided to take care of those most in need. \u201cOur goal was to implement the communion of goods as much as possible in order to solve the social problems of Trento. I thought, \u2018There are two or three places where the poor people are… Let’s go there, let\u2019s bring what we have, let\u2019s share it with them.\u2019 Simple logic, really: we have more, they have less. We will raise their standard of living so that we will all reach a certain equality.\u201d Eighty years later, the communion of goods is still a vibrant reality in the movement. Each person gives freely according to his or her possibilities, often expressing gratitude for what they\u2019ve received. Experiences are multiplying all over the world. \u201cI went to buy 10kg of wheat for my chickens,\u201d says one person from Croatia. \u201cThe man who sold it to me did not want money. I donated what I had saved for the communion of goods, which is extraordinary in this pandemic.\u201d Of course, it’s not always possible to donate goods and money. Still, the commitment reinforces the value of the gesture. \u201cI recently sold some wine to a neighbour. He gave me more money than he had to, and he didn’t want any change. I gave it for the communion of goods, but it wasn’t easy; I had to overcome my human way of thinking.\u201d The experience of receiving after giving often happens. It is the evangelical \u201cGive and it will be given to you\u201d (Lk 6:38) that Chiara and her early friends tangibly experienced. \u201cWe helped some families who had lost their jobs because of the crisis caused by the pandemic, donating food, medicine and school supplies,\u201d they write from Macedonia. \u201cIt was little help, but one of them told us that it was enough to eat for two weeks. Shortly after, another family made a donation that covered their expenses. Everything was circulating.\u201d The joy of giving and the joy of receiving happens frequently. In Serbia, the communion of goods reached a family with children where father and mother are sick and unemployed. They live off the produce from their garden, and to pay the bills, Toni helps out in the parish. \u201cWhen we went to bring him money, he was borrowing to buy wood. We explained to the family where the help was coming from, and they were moved because they felt that God, through us, \u2018had looked their way.\u2019\u201d The communion of goods, after all, is nothing more than an instrument of divine providence. <\/p>\n

Claudia Di Lorenzi<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Focolare communities in Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia, where they\u2019ve been experiencing the joy of giving freely to help those in difficulty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"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-307778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307778","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}