Aug 23, 2018 | Focolare Worldwide
“We are following closely the events surrounding the Coast Guard Ship ‘Ubaldi Diciotti‘, which arrived in Catania and is in two-days stand-off with 177 people on board who are not being allowed to disembark. The umpteenth case, unfortunately, that over the past few months has put a strain on the culture of hospitality that has always been the mark of the Italian people, “says the press release of 22 August signed by Rosalba Poli and Andrea Goller who are leaders of the Focolare Movement in Italy. They support “the need for shared paths at a European level in the search for non-improvised solutions”. But they highlight “the great concern for human events such as people fleeing from hunger, war and death”. And they ask “that the human dignity of those who are in the same condition recognized either in their countries of origin, and in the countries through which they are travelling, including ours where they have now landed.” The communiqué concludes with an appeal to politicians “from all backgrounds; that they put aside disputes between sides and particular interests, and collaborate in the name of our common humanity, which comes before any other distinction or separateness”. See also: “A-mare (o amare) il prossimo” (in Italian)
Aug 22, 2018 | Focolare Worldwide
Fifty years ago we ourselves did not know the origins of our love. We were content to know that we had undertaken a journey which had no end in sight, amazed that our differences could be so balanced, so enjoyable and complementary, so much so that although we were different we felt we were wonderfully equal. We felt we were ready for everything, convinced that no one loved in the way we loved, because we had invented love. Less than a year after that wonderful ‘yes,’ some clouds already began to darken our horizon. Work, tiredness, routine… Yes, we all know that being in love ends at some point. It was then that someone revealed to us that God is the source of every love. God who is love. We should have known all this, because when we pronounced our wedding vows He was there with us and from then on he had even dwelt amongst us. But we did not realise what a gift we had, we did not know what a gift we had, we did not know his presence was part of the package! We realized afterwards, he gives the whole of himself to us asking in return just a small, agreeable, daily contribution: that we love one another with his very own love. Does being in love come to an end? [Yes but] love needs to take its place. Because if faith is, so to speak, an interior virtue, love is its outward, visible fulfilment. Love is greater than anything else: greater than faith, greater than hope. In the Next Life, there is no more need for these two virtues. On the other hand, love remains in Paradise. Love makes of the two one body. Which means one reality that is untouchable and indissoluble. It is a ‘we’’ that is open to the Absolute. Love must reach the paradox of knowing how to become nothing in order to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Only in this way will our love mirror its original plan which comes forth from nothing less than the Trinity. The ‘we’ formed by the couple is the first and living fruit of our love. The complimentarity of male and female expresses itself in a thousand daily gestures of mutual service and tenderness, up to the fullness of bodily intimacy. It is also expressed in sharing space, time and tasks. [The ‘we’ formed by the couple] knows how to go out first of all to their children and then towards others. The ‘we’ is the couple’s characteristic way of evangelizing, placing themselves before others as one example among many, and never as a model of the ideal family, which does not exist. Love is our unique opportunity, even if we feel that we are not perfect, even if we feel we have failed in everything. What matters is to believe that in the present moment we are the right person for the other; and that is what we are in the moment we decide to love them as they are, without any expectation that they will change, putting into action the three ‘magic’ words which Pope Francis teaches: please, thank you, sorry. It is said that today the family is going through the most tragic of all crises. Let us not regret the good old days, if ever such days existed. It is in the family that life is kindled. It is there that we learn to share, to rejoice, to suffer, to know sickness and to face death. Love makes it the most concrete of utopias. Families that welcome children even if disabled, others who adopt them precisely because they are disabled, those who welcome elderly parents, those who open their homes to migrants, those who help their children recover from addiction. In the fifty or more years that we have been together, life has taught us many things. We have cried and we partied. So many times we were wrong, but with his grace and forgiveness, we have started again. Putting our love again and again into the hands of God, who is our love, he has never hesitated, like at Cana to change our poor water into wonderful wine, making it wonderfully available also to those who are around us. And now, despite the fact that over the years our passion has diminished and the limitation of our characters are more evident, we continue trustfully to draw water from God’s unending source, happy to feel we are companions and accomplices right to the end.
Aug 22, 2018 | Focolare Worldwide
Aug 20, 2018 | Focolare Worldwide
The Paper Mill, former factory at the periphery of Turin, northern Italy, thanks to a development process no longer looks like an abandoned facility. After which, it turned into a place of vitality and fresh air, thanks to the Turin Summer Campus organised by Youth for a United World, from 28 July to 6 August. A newly launched event, ideated to bring the outskirts towards the centre, and which saw an alternation of educational moments and concrete action. The strong point was the participation of the children of the zone, of different nationalities and cultures, who, with the youth of the Campus with simplicity and fun, created a recital, the outcome of the commitment and cooperation that arose during the artistic workshops (recycle-painting, music, theatre, dance, singing). A wealth of talents that upheld the cultural diversities in the neighbourhood, considered not as a motive for social discrimination, but for dialogue and exchange of ideas. Also the themes faced in the educational sessions triggered reflections which called the youths to become active citizens, opening debates on intercultural dialogue, end of life, “green” engineering. In Rome the Summer Campus 2018 was held in the spirit of fun and commitment. The activities proposed in the Corviale district – a kilometre-long building known as the “Snake” – were various types of music workshops, murals and clay activities for the kids, and discussions on current issues, with the participation of experts, to reflect on the daily news and challenges: the peripheries, “grassroots” lawfulness, acceptance of the migrants from the social and juridical standpoints, participation in political life, the uselessness of war and media manipulation, origin and cause of new conflicts. Besides the district associations, also some of the 8,000 families living in the “Snake” opened their doors and recounted their stories of suffering and hope. That which, at first glance seems to be an important building, and the end of which is invisible to the eye, seems to be a beehive of identical homes and windows, from inside is not scary: this is what the young people of the Campus felt, thanks to the encounter with people, countenances and stories which enabled all to go beyond the borders and prejudices, and above all the cement wall each carries within. The youth of the campus, children and families of Corviale worked together to prepare the final celebration in the district parish. It was an occasion to demonstrate the fruits of the workshops but also to build a chain between the realities, often diverging, of the territory and rediscover a sense of community and family. The main path of this campus which ended on 11 and 12 August, at Circo Massimo in Rome, with the meeting of the over 70,000 pilgrim youths from all over Italy, with Pope Francis, then in St. Peter’s, with the Mass and Angelus. The pope invited each one not to be “couch potato youths,” not to aspire tranquility, but take the risk of bravely pursuing their own dreams. The experiences lived in the peripheries of Turin and Rome were engines that pushed each campus participant to take the first steps along this path, challenging but necessary, to make their own dreams a reality.
Aug 20, 2018 | Focolare Worldwide
“This year we held our Youth Camp in Mafikeng, South Africa, precisely contemporaneously with the Genfest in the Philippines, with participants from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho and South Africa. The presence of young people from various countries was in itself a visible sign of our desire to overcome the personal and cultural confines.” Mafikeng (Mafeking, up to 1980) is the capital, as well as a commercial centre of the North-west province, founded in 1885 as the British military outpost.It is currently an important stopover on the railway line from Cape City to Zimbabwe. “It was very interesting and funny to discover how our cultures differ and how we can still love one another in our diversities. I have learned many things -wrote Teddy, from Zambia –which I don’t want to keep to myself,but share with my brethren. The Youth Camp – says Nkosiphile from Zimbabwe – opened my eyes. I just can’t wait to put into practice all I have learned.” 
Simultaneously with the event in the Philippines, was also the one held in Albania, with about 120 participants consisting of Christians, Muslims, agnostics coming from various parts and cities of Albania, together with youths from Skopje (Macedonia) and a young girl from Stuttgart. “Like a weft, going from local to global realities, we held four workshops in the field of civil economy and culture of lawfulness, besides themes on prejudice, interpersonal relationships and the social networks, in the presence of Italian and Albanian experts. We visited the homes of disabled and homeless people, and got to meet some ecumenical and interreligious realities of the capital, Tirana. The visits to the cathedral, accompanied by the bishop of the Orthodox Church of Albania, the Mosque and the National Centre of the evangelical Churches were followed by a “flash mob” of all the youths at Parku Rinjain the city centre. Genfest was accompanied by moments of celebrations and prayer, in a joyful atmosphere. It helped to connect the youths from the north and south of the country, and let them experience the international features of the new generations, who inherently tend to overcome all confines. A characteristic that stood out was that of working together with the Church in Albania in the preparation for the Synod of the youth, besides being an important step in reestablishing many relationships with Christians of other churches and Muslims, who now want to continue this path of dialogue.” Bragança, in the north-eastern part of Brazil, is the city where the Genfest was held for 300 young people from various cities of the State of Parà, which hosts a big section of the Amazon National Park. “For many of them – they wrote – it was the first contact with the Focolare communities. The programme consisted of some social projects in the city, like the Fazenda de la Esperança, a hospital, an ecumenical group, and other activities that helped us toenter into the real spiritof this event. So we illustrated the “Mundo Unido Project” and the proposal of Manila, “Paths of unity.” On the opposite bank of the Amazon River estuary in Macapà, there was another Genfest which gathered 140 young people. “It was a unique experience which we were able to concretise thanks to the support of all the members of the Focolare. Despite the difficulties, we believe that our objective, “beyond all borders,” has been reached.
Aug 15, 2018 | Focolare Worldwide
They attended all the World Meetings of Families, since the one held in Rome in1994. And at this year’s gathering in Dublin, they will share their testimony at the Pastoral Congress. They are Anna and Alberto Friso, once responsible for New Families, a branch of the Focolare Movement. They speak to Vatican news about the challenges faced by Christian families in today’s world, and of their expectations for the Meeting in Dublin which will have as its main theme Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia (The Joy of Love). You paricipated as a family in all the World Meetings – a full quarter of a century! What has changed over the past 25 years for Christian families, in your opinion? Anna: The accent put on the new generations, the fact of no longer believing in “forever.” The challenge we must embrace is to get young people to perceive that love is an essential component of life and that it is a wellspring of happiness that married people bring. Turning to marriage doesn’t mean losing your freedom, but obtaining the possibility of a happy life! Alberto: Two things in particular characterize today’s society: individualism and relativism. There seems to be a lack of coesion in front of these two tendencies, the unity of the couple. This has meant that we Christians, we Christian families have to look deeper into God’s plan to see in what way He has called us to live in his image and likeness. As a family that has given such a long witness of Christian living, what would you feel like saying to a young couple that is stepping into marriage concerning eternal love? Alberto: What we feel like saying is: Keep in mind that the love between you that you felt in the first moments you felt these sentiments growing, is of extraordinary importance – eternal! It’s a spark of the deep value that will lie at the basis of your life, for the rest of your life, even when the storms come, and, it’s God’s love. Therefore, it’s not the two of you that get married, but the three of you, because Jesus will be with you! And, thank God, this means answers. The young people themselves become testimonies of this! Anna: The challenge is to not allow yourself be challenged by the dominating culture that focuses on feelings, personal rights that prevail over the other’s rights, or even over the value of the couple itself. God’s plan for marriage has this seal of happiness that it is possible bring to fulfillment precisely because it’s a very part of the person’s destiny, part of the DNA of every human being! In Dublin, The Joy of Love will obviously play an important role. What is this post-synodal exhortation giving to Christian families, and not only Christian? Alberto: Most particularly, it urges us to give witness to Christianity especially through the way we live, the way we give witness to God’s love. When it comes to the world, it’s not so much that we have to defend a ideas, ways of thinking, or a particular value; we have to give witness to the fact that God is Love and that love lies in the depths of the human heart, even hearts that are going through the darkest crises. Anna: We’ve experienced this so so much, precisely because of its luminosity and also its concreteness that doesn’t come to terms with the doctrine, but is able to comprehend and give a hand to those who have been wounded by life. And to these people, most especially, it is able to offer the hope of finding a way to happiness even in the midst of problems. Its beauty lies in its being a hymn to love. Inside this document we can see all of the Church’s tenderness. I believe that it is really a gift for new generations of newlyweds. Source: Vatican News, August 10, 2018
