‘Recently I returned to Alexandra Drive and I saw that little balcony again, and that tiny, little flat where we had lived, and I was moved. How could it be that so much light emerged from such a small place?’ – Marina Pracchia first came to Britain towards the end of 1964. She had previously been living in the Focolare community in Florence where she was studying English, and her tutor had suggested a period in England in order to improve her speaking skills. The first Focolare community in Britain had already been opened the year before in Liverpool, in a small flat in Alexandra Drive and Marina joined them in November 1964.

‘In Italy, before I left, people were telling me it would be grey and foggy and cold and miserable in Liverpool! But I absolutely loved it! I loved the cold, I loved the fog and the yellow lights shining through it, because being in the Focolare gave me so much joy!’ – Her speaking skills were soon to be tested to the full! She was asked to take the car to the garage to have the tyres tested. So she decided to use her very best Italian pronunciation and is reported to have said to the man in the garage, ‘Please, could you taste my tears?’

Chiara comes to Liverpool

But it was joy, not tears that characterised Marina’s life at that time: ‘The focolare way of life was everything for me. I got to know the Movement when I was 14, and by the time I was 17, it was already clear to me that God was calling me to be part of a Focolare community. So this way of life was everything for me, it was my life, it was Jesus’s call to follow him on the same path as Chiara. For me, it simply meant loving one another, loving the other girls in the Focolare just in small ways, with small gestures of love. For example, I was the youngest, but I cleaned the house, I cooked meals, I even cooked for Chiara when she came to stay with us!’

Chiara came to visit Liverpool in 1965 because of the many ecumenical contacts that were being made there. While she was in Liverpool, she stayed in the Focolare in Alexandra Drive and that was when she suggested to Marina that she might like to remain in Liverpool rather that return to Florence. Marina was delighted: ‘Our life was made up of loving each other and loving the people that started coming to visit us at that time. I particularly remember the young girls who came regularly to our little flat. They found such a fascination there, they were so attracted, so attracted! But what was it that attracted them? Maybe it was the presence of Jesus among us – he spoke to us, his voice was audible. Many of those young people discovered their vocation at that time. They felt that God was calling them to give their lives to him through the Focolare.’

Read the whole article >>> [New City Magazine – August-September 2024, page 10-11]

Photo: Maria Pracchia and Mari Ponticaccia