{"id":341410,"date":"2012-09-25T11:38:55","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T09:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/maria-voce-the-challenge-to-live-a-charism\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:07:39","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:07:39","slug":"maria-voce-the-challenge-to-live-a-charism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/maria-voce-the-challenge-to-live-a-charism\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Voce: The challenge to live a charism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Three halls linked together<\/strong>, 3000 people and live streaming \u2013 these things show the tremendous sense of expectation caused by the launch of a book-long interview with the Focolare Movement<\/a>\u2019s President<\/a>, Maria Voce<\/strong><\/a>. She gave a full response to questions across the board from the journalists Michele Zanzucchi and Paolo L\u00f2riga (respectively the director and the chief editor of the twice monthly magazine Citt\u00e0 Nuova<\/a>). \u2018What are the focolarini thinking after Chiara Lubich<\/a>\u2019s death? Are there progressives and conservatives? Do they seek positions of influence in the Church and in politics? Are they just superficial \u201chail fellow well met\u201d types who smile too much?\u2019<\/strong> The title of the book, La scommesa di Emmaus<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, translates as Emmaus\u2019s Challenge. It was previewed and presented on 22 September in a conversation between the Focolare President and Lucetta Scaraffia<\/strong> (historian and leader writer for the Osservatore Romano)<\/strong> and Marco Politi<\/strong> (author and leader writer for Il Fatto Quotidiano<\/strong>). Scaraffia and Politi were eager to grasp the opportunity of speaking with Maria Voce in person and the interview ranged over the most varied topics: how the Movement can cope with developing a public image after a period of going unnoticed; the need for the Focolare to be involved with big issues such as the promotion of the laity; ecumenism<\/a>; inter-religious dialogue<\/a> and dialogue with people with non-religious convictions<\/a>; women; euthanasia; the family; work; Muslims in Europe; Chiara Lubich\u2019s charism as a woman seen as a gift for the Church; the diminishing number of focolarini making a radical life choice in comparison with the numbers of people in the whole of the Movement; and still more items. \"\"Maria Voce seemed to feel she was in her own living room with a couple of friends.<\/strong> She was unruffled and replied without hesitation and with clarity: \u2018We are not suffering the sickness of trying to hide ourselves, we just don\u2019t think it important to seek publicity for ourselves. We would prefer, in fact, people to get to know whatever positive things we manage to inject into human affairs. As Maria Voce I don\u2019t feel that I have significant things to say, but as the Focolare Movement I do.\u2019 \u2018Lay people don\u2019t need encouragement,<\/strong> rather they need to be left free to act in the Church context with greater trust,\u2019 she says in the book. This statement, particularly appreciated by Scaraffia, was the basis for reflecting upon the laity and upon women: \u2018Chiara liked to say that women have, as their specific characteristic, a greater capacity for loving and suffering. This is seen most clearly in motherhood. And so I would say that women have, in a particular way, the capacity to build the family…. In a Church that wishes to be more and more a family, to be communion, the summary of all the aspirations of humanity, women have an important role. But, as Chiara always said, I am convinced that women and men are equally responsible before God. In the Gospel it is written: \u2018There is neither man nor woman, neither Jew nor Greek\u2019 and so the important thing is that both women and men should become what they should be, that is, Christ in the Church.\u2019 After a musical break<\/strong> Marco Politi suggested that \u2018a focolare of dialogue<\/strong>\u2019 (that is, a space to discuss in the spirit of the Focolare) should be set up. Here there would be the possibility of reflecting regularly upon the big questions. Maria Voce fired back, \u2018This is a challenge more than a question. It would be more in keeping with our style, our way of doing things, because it wouldn\u2019t be so much sharing big ideas together, but experiences, as has been done lately, for instance, in the two-day \u201cLoppianoLab<\/strong><\/a>\u201d. The witness we would like to give is of our relationship with the person next to us, not with great systems of thought.\u2019 \"loppianolab_018\"On the \u2018question of the construction of mosques, for example, I believe that the most important thing is that Muslims feel they are welcomed and understood by Christians also in their way of expressing their religious life.\u2019 Maria Voce continued saying that the Movement does indeed think about the big questions, according to its own style, which brings people together, in a living experience. \u2018For instance, in a school, in a hospital, people from the Movement get together and they share their experiences of doing things in a Christian manner. From life itself there comes about a reflection that generates the specific initiatives to be taken together and an outline of the thinking behind them that can then also be offered.\u2019 \u2018The charism in itself has the answers. The questions change according to the times. New questions demand new ways for formulating the answers which, nonetheless, are present in the charism.\u2019 On ecumenism: \u2018I believe it is a difficult journey. It\u2019s shameful for all Christians to be divided. If we are aware of it, we suffer. And all of us sharing in the same suffering cannot but make us do what is needed to overcome the division. Like this it is possible that steps towards unity, despite the effort, will be made. To reach unity it is necessary, for all of us, to know how to lose things, and this costs. We believe that the Movement\u2019s role is precisely to put itself into the crack of this division.\u2019 \u2018We must keep on the journey! I believe it is something we all have to search for together.\u2019 On the small number of focolarini<\/a><\/strong>: \u2018Precisely because it is a radical choice, being consumed in unity \u2013 which means loving one another, losing oneself completely in the other, so that God may be among us \u2013 is a demanding choice and not everyone is called to it, even if the choice of God is made by everyone in the Movement.\u2019 And in conclusion: \u2018What interests us is that the idea of universal brotherhood should progress. It is God who guides history, so we shouldn\u2019t be afraid.\u2019 The hour passed in a moment. Among the three of the stage and the 3000 in the hall a sympathy had been built up and no one wanted to disturb. But by this time \u2018Emmaus\u2019s challenge\u2019 had been offered and had been accepted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of the program of LoppianoLab, a business expo organised jointly by Citt\u00e0 Nuova Publishing Group, Lionello Bonfanti Industrial Park, Sophia University Institute and the township of Loppiano, the book-interview with Maria Voce, Focolare president, was launched.<\/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":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341410","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\/341410","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=341410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}