{"id":341532,"date":"2012-11-23T04:57:16","date_gmt":"2012-11-23T03:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/2012-annual-luminosa-award-for-unity-for-outstanding-service-to-immigrants\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:08:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:08:02","slug":"2012-annual-luminosa-award-for-unity-for-outstanding-service-to-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/2012-annual-luminosa-award-for-unity-for-outstanding-service-to-immigrants\/","title":{"rendered":"2012 Annual Luminosa Award for Unity: for outstanding service to immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

(from left) Rev. Mario Dorsonville , Marco Desalvo, and Clare Zanzucchi at the awarding ceremony<\/p><\/div>\n

One day, on his way into the Spanish Catholic Center of Washington<\/a>, Rev. Mario Dorsonville, who directs Immigration and Refugee Services at Catholic Charities <\/a>in the Archdiocese of Washington, was stopped by a young man who grabbed him by the arm.\u00a0 He told him that he had a lot of pain in his heart. \u201cLet\u2019s go find a doctor,\u201d Dorsonville told him. \u201cNo,\u201d answered the young man, because his pain stemmed from being an undocumented immigrant, from not being able to find a job. He didn\u2019t know how he could face his children at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking that there is no worse poverty than when we say to people that they\u2019re invisible,\u201d says Dorsonville.<\/p>\n

This is what journalist Marylin Boesch wrote in the opening paragraph of her Living City magazine article<\/a>, published recently, in which she gave a description of the Spanish Catholic Centre in Washington. It\u2019s a so-called \u201clab of faith\u201d where \u201cthese people are visible\u201d. The centre\u2019s mission is to provide the best quality of integrated services to immigrants and refugees in order to bring back hope and dignity to their lives and to make them more confident, respected, and effective members of American society. It does this by providing medical and dental clinics, counselling centres, English classes and job training programs.<\/p>\n

Fr Mario Dorsonville received the Luminosa Award 2012, on behalf of the Spanish Catholic Centre, on 7 November in the presence of more than 250 diplomats, politicians, representatives of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faith and others of no particular faith tradition gathered at The Catholic University of America in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis prize encourages us even more to illuminate the darkness around us through service to our neighbour,\u201d<\/em> said Fr Mario Dorsonville in his acceptance speech.<\/p>\n

As the award was sponsored by the Focolare Movement, during the conferral ceremony, Marco Desalvo and Clare Zanzucchi, Focolare Co-Directors of the eastern region of the United States<\/a>, shared a reflection by the Movement\u2019s founder, Chiara Lubich<\/a> (1920-2008), on love of neighbour<\/a>, one of the pearls of the Focolare\u2019s spirituality of unity: \u201cThe Holy Spirit, enlightening us with his charism, said to us:\u2019 your brother, your sister\u2026 can become your way to God, an opening, a door, a path, a passageway that leads to union with him. And if we have gained this by loving our neighbours, then they are not only our beneficiaries, but our benefactors as well; they have given us the best of what we had hoped for.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 Very much in tune with the experience of the Spanish Catholic Center, this reading strongly resonated in those present, affirming and giving light to their day-to-day work in favour of those in need.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cIt is an active, constant and courageous service that gives dignity to many people of diverse ethnic and social origins who are in difficulty due to various circumstances, thus helping them to become an integral part of society<\/em>\u201d \u2013 wrote Focolare president Maria Voce in her message to Fr Dorsonville.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Luminosa Award for Unity of the Focolare<\/a>, <\/strong>established in 1987, honours persons or associations whose lives and works have given a significant contribution to building bridges of mutual understanding and concern among diverse Christian denominations, major faith traditions and people of good will in all aspects of social life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A million people have been helped over 45 years by the Spanish Catholic Centre in Washington. The award recognises\u201cthe service this Center has given to many ethnic groups, bringing them together and helping them to offer a valid, unique contribution to the life of the city\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":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341532","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\/341532","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=341532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}