In early August in Trent, Italy, the Foco School, a Focolare Movement congress for the Gen3 boys and girls, the adolescent generation of the Movement, was held.
A total of 350 participants attended – ages 14 to 17 along with assistants ages 18 and older – from 19 nations with 12 different languages. A little over a week to deepen adolescent themes, experience in depth the relationship with God, discover how the Ideal of unity and universal fraternity is possible to live it and build it day by day despite the threat of wars in various parts of the world. There was also a Festival of peoples where each nation could represent itself through songs, dances, outfits, photos, and local food. A way to learn about each other’s culture and build a piece of a world that is more united and fraternal.
Here are some testimonies.
Sofia, Italy: “I decided to attend the Foco school to have a more intimate relationship with Jesus. From this school I learned the way to always love the people around me. I can better cope with moments of difficulty and pain by feeling closer to Jesus.”.
Veronika, Croatia: “I experienced a united spirit that flows from the desire for peace and community, which is based on prayer and dialogue with God. After listening to the testimonies about the violation of peace, about the struggle to keep peace in oneself, in one’s family, in one’s country, the desire to do everything to keep peace in these places was awakened in me.”.
Naomi, India: “I attended the Foco School to improve my relationship with God. At the end what I took home was how I can take comfort during times of difficulty or pain by thinking of Jesus forsaken on the Cross. But I also discovered the power of reconciliation through confession. I will always try to use my whole self to propagate the Gospel and make my city a place of love.”.
Tomás Portugal: “During the Festival of Peoples, I was proud to show our country and at the same time learn about the cultures of other countries. After this school, I miss everything I experienced there, but I also want to live what I learned there every day.”.
Emanuel, Croatia: “At Foco School, I enjoyed the Festival of Peoples. We were able to learn about different cultures and traditional dishes. I met many friends there and tried various specialties. I would gladly relive this experience 100 more times.”.
Gloria, Brazil: “I have felt changes in my relationship with God. At first I could not connect with Him and feel Him in people, but I know that after all the experiences I have heard and reflections I have experienced, I can easily feel Him in every situation. Also, I have learned to help people I don’t like, to help people with problems and to identify God in everyone.”.
Sarahi, Mexico: “I realized that even though we live in different countries and even on very distant continents, the Ideal of unity can always be lived. It was a very good experience especially to learn about other countries’ culture, food, their clothes, some words and traditions. What I took away from the school is that first of all I stopped being afraid of confession and this made my faith in God grow. Daily Mass has helped me a lot, I hope to continue going every Sunday of my own free will.”.
Sebastian, Croatia: “I liked it when we represented our countries at the Festival of Peoples: everyone showed some tradition of their country. It was a lot of fun when we played soccer in the evening and got to know each other like that. My favorite moment was the final party where we sang and had fun. My life changed after the school, now I try to live the gospel by loving the people around me.”.
Silvia, Italy: “After the school my life turned around and I began to see the world with different eyes. It was the most meaningful experience of my life and made me want to be able to resemble what Chiara Lubich always wanted from the Gen.”.
Anna, Italy: “I highly recommend Gen who have not yet attended a Foco School to do so! You will have a lot of fun, I can guarantee.”.
Jakov, Croatia: “At Foco School, I understood the importance of unity. When I arrived, everyone was welcoming, it felt like one family. Rarely have I experienced this feeling before, maybe never. Also, I understood how to love and want everyone, regardless of who they are and their background. I would like to experience more such encounters, it was an unforgettable experience.”!
Julia, Brazil: “I take home the immeasurable love of Jesus for me and for everyone, as well as the hope and the feeling of wanting a united world to become a reality. Seeing that Jesus loves each one of us and being able to feel his love at Foco School was one of the most beautiful experiences I have had and I will definitely take it with me. I found hope and faith again. Now the challenge will be to bring the love and unity I felt at school into the “real world,” at home, at school, with my friends. But it is the memories and the love of what I learned in that experience that will push me to not give up and to fight for a united world.”!
Maria Teresa, Italy: “I participated in the Foco School as I felt a desire to know more about the origins of the Focolare movement. From this School I take home the hope for a better future for our generation. My life has improved because I have realized that I have to look at it from a different perspective, make every obstacle a launching pad! Being very insecure, I am always afraid to play the violin in public. In fact, when I was proposed to play at the school I was a little unsettled. Then one day there was a talk about how each of us can give to others our own talent or quality, which Chiara Lubich calls a “pearl.” So I decided to give my pearl to others, and while I was playing with another Gen, a group of boys and girls came up to accompany us with singing, giving us support. I lived Luke’s Gospel passage (Luke 6:38) “Give and it will be given to you.”.
Elena, Italy: “At the end of this school, I take home what I understood during a day dedicated to Jesus in his pain, abandoned on the Cross. It also affected me deeply because, thanks to the testimonies of the Gen, I was able to understand how to overcome pain through love.”.
Tomás, Portugal: “I brought home the discovery of Jesus forsaken, the power of prayer, as well as confession. I will carry God’s love wherever I go, I have strengthened my faith, I have learned a lot from this school.”.
Video in Italian. Activate subtitles for other languages
The whole Genfest experience – from ‘Phase 1’ to ‘Phase 3’ – is a tangible witness that you young people believe in, and indeed you are already working, to build a united world. These were days of extraordinary graces for all of us; we put ”care” into practice in various ways: – in Phase 1, through service to the poor, the marginalised, those who suffer most, and we have done this by living reciprocity, the typical way of living communion of the charism of the Focolare Movement; – in Phase 2, in sharing life, experiences and cultural riches; – and then, in Phase 3, we have experienced the extraordinary generativity of communities, which are also an intergenerational space for formation and projects.
Someone told me about the creativity that each community has developed and the interesting workshops in which you have participated (which you just told me about).
“From Genfest I take my community home with me,” one of you said, “it is something practical that continues. A chance to live the Genfest experience on a daily basis’.
You felt that you were protagonists in the construction of these communities, and you want to continue to “generate” ideas and projects. It has given me joy to know that some of you have said that you have rediscovered the meaning of your profession, and that you now want to live it in the name of a united world.
We have walked together during these days, with a style that Pope Francis would call ‘synodal’ and not only among you, young people, but with adults; with people from other movements and communities; with people from different Churches and Religions and people who do not identify with a religious belief. This network greatly enriched the Genfest!
The presence of some bishops who experienced Genfest together with us was also very beautiful.
Now Genfest does not end! But it continues in the United World Communities where we will remain connected both globally and locally
I am sure that when you arrive in your countries and cities, you will understand where you would like to get involved, according to your interests and your studies or your professions: in economics, intercultural dialogue, peace, health, in politics etc.
In these days you have had the experience of living these “communities” in “unity”; a reality that will continue. This will be your training ground in which you will learn and you will train to live fraternity.
When I was your age, I was very struck by an invitation Chiara Lubich made to everyone:
“If we are one, many will be one and the world will one day be able to see unity. And so? Establish cells of unity everywhere” (1) – perhaps Chiara, if she were alive today, would call these cells of unity, “United world communities” – she invited us to concentrate all our efforts in this.
That is why now, I would like to ask you something important: please, please do not miss this unique opportunity, it’s a unique opportunity that we have lived here. God has knocked on the door of the heart of each one of us, and is now calling you all to be protagonists and bearers of unity in the various spheres in which you are engaged.
Yesterday as I was leaving, someone stopped me, one of you who was here in the hall, and said I have to tell you something, please can I tell you something important. She said it was the first time she had participated in a Genfest and she didn’t know the Focolare Movement, and she said: “I want to tell you, you should do much more because this movement isn’t well known, you should do more but not as you have been doing up to now, you need to do more because this Movement, this idea of fraternity, needs to be known by many more young people.” So I asked her if she could help us and she wants to commit herself. But now I hope that all of us are committing ourselves to doing this.
Of course, as you heard before, it will not all be easy and we cannot deceive ourselves that difficulties will not come… but in this Genfest you yourselves have announced: ‘a God who is different, abandoned on the cross, you have said abandoned on the cross, all divine and all human, asking questions without answers’ and for this, a God who is close to all of us. It will be by embracing every suffering, our own or that of others, that we will find the strength to continue on this path.
So let us go forward together with a new hope, convinced more than ever that a path has now been mapped out.
And, something beautiful that the Chinese writer, Yutang Lin, says: “Hope is like a road through a field; there has never been a road, but when many people walk there, the road comes into existence”. I think that in this Genfest, this road has begun to exist, So, let’s walk, and this road will be there in front of us.
So I greet everyone, have a wonderful time to those of you who will be attending the post-Genfest and safe travels to those returning home!
Ciao to everyone.
Margaret Karram
(1) Chiara Lubich, Conversazioni in collegamento telefonico, Città Nuova, 2019, p. 64.
Twenty-three organisations – Catholic communities and institutes – spread out across Across 112 hectares of land, have chosen to live an experience of communion between charisms. This experience in Fortaleza (Brazil) has been known for 24 years as Condominio Espiritual Uirapuru (Spiritual Condominium Uirapuru) or CEU, an acronym which means ‘heaven’ in Portuguese.
Margaret Karram and Jesús Morán, President and Co-President of the Focolare Movement, stopped off at Fortaleza during their trip to Brazil to meet the Focolare communities. There they were able to take part in various meetings with different charismatic realities in the Church. At the CEU they met leaders of other communities, including Nelson Giovanelli and Brother Hans from the Fazenda da Esperança, Moysés Azevedo from the Shalom Community and Daniela Martucci from Nuovi Orizzonti.
Through the organisations that form the CEU, it carries out various activities to support and protect the individual, from vulnerable children who have suffered abuse and sexual exploitation to young people and adults living on the streets or suffering from addictions. The union of the charisms present is an expression of the love that makes it possible to develop activities to restore and enhance human dignity, particularly for those who are most in need.
‘The CEU is the realisation of a dream that Chiara Lubich promised Pope John Paul II in 1998, to work for the unity of Movements and the new communities,’ said Nelson Giovanelli, founder of the Fazenda da Esperança and newly elected president of the condominium. The charism of unity, spread by Chiara Lubich, is the inspiration for fulfilling the mission for the different communities present. Jesús Morán added: ‘If there is one place where an experience of the Church can be understood, it is here at the CEU. This is the Church – many charisms, both large and small, all walking together to make the Kingdom of God a reality”.
There are 230 people who live in the CEU, including children and adolescents, young people and adults in recovery, and over 500 volunteers. Last weekend, the Obra Lumen community organised a meeting entitled ‘Com Deus Tem Jeito’ (With God there is a way), which has taken 250 drug addicts off the streets and sent them for therapeutic treatment in various partner communities, such as the Fazenda da Esperança. The area also provides a stage for cultural activities aimed at social reintegration through art, such as the Halleluya Festival of the Shalom Community, which brings together more than 400,000 people each year.
The Genfest, an event organised by the young people of the Focolare Movement, is also currently taking place in Brazil. ‘Together to Care’ is the motto for the Genfest which comprises an international event in Brazil and over 40 local Genfests in various countries around the world. Each one will begin with an initial phase in which the young people will be able to have an experience of volunteering in and solidarity with various social initiatives, including the CEU. Between 12 and 18 July, a group of 60 young people participating in the GenFest were able to get to know the different communities and get involved with different activities. ‘All these communities are already involved with caring for marginalised and vulnerable people. Our proposal was to join them, as a bond of unity. The more we gave of ourselves, the more we were open to others, the more we discovered our essence, who we were,’ said Pedro Ícaro, a GenFest participant who stayed at the CEU for four months with young people from different countries.
‘When this communion of charisms inflames the hearts of our young people, they will be able to transform the world. This is the aim of the events we organise at the CEU, like GenFest,’ said Moysés Azevedo, founder of the Shalom Community.
‘Start Here and Now’ is the latest single from international band Gen Verde. A hymn of unity, strength, courage and joy featuring two youth music groups: Banda Unità (Brazil) and AsOne (Italy). ‘All of us, together with our diversity, are invited to go beyond borders to build a world where care, love, justice and inclusion are the answer to pain, the horror of wars and divisions,’ explains the band.
What is behind the song?
‘The new song is in itself a ‘beyond borders’ experience because of the way it was produced,’ the band continues. The vocals were recorded in three different parts of the world and the video was also shot in three different locations: Loppiano and Verona (Italy) and Recife (Brazil).
The project includes the participation of two youth music groups that share Gen Verde values. Banda Unità is a Brazilian band and AsOne is a band from Verona, Italy. These groups also want to share, through music, the values of peace, dialogue and universal brotherhood.
‘Start Here and Now’ has an intergenerational and intercultural mix,’ continues Gen Verde. “This single stands out for its highly engaging rhythm and powerful lyrics, sung in different languages, to bring out the creative process inspired by interculturality and the commitment to universal brotherhood that is emphasised in the international Genfest event”.
Gen Verde played this song for the first time in Aparecida, Brazil, together with the musical groups Banda Unità and AsOne on 20 July 2024 during Genfest, the Focolare Movement’s global youth event. This edition was entitled: ‘Juntos para Cuidar – Together to Care’.
The third phase of Genfest 2024, held in Aparecida, Brazil, included workshops organized by so-called United World Communities – meeting places where young people can share their talents and passions. These communities offer the opportunity to discover talented people, concrete forms of commitment and initiate actions and projects aimed at building a more united world, which seek to respond to the local and global challenges of today’s world; to activate processes of personal and collective change; and to grow fraternity and reciprocity in all dimensions of human life. An important feature of these communitites is that they are the fruits of work between people of different generations.
Continuing the experiences of the previous phases of Genfest, in this third phase the youth were able to participate in workshops in different areas, whose methodology was based on fraternity and dialogue, as a proof for projects and actions that can now be developed in the “glocal” sphere (local projects with a global perspective). Activities were held in the areas of economics and work, cross-culture and dialogue, spirituality and human rights, health and ecology, art and social engagement, education and research, communication and media, and active citizenship and politics. The teams responsible for running the workshops were composed of young people and professionals who worked intensively for months to organize these activities.
From now on, Communities will have a working method that consists of three steps: Learning, Acting, and Sharing. The first (to Learn) is an in-depth exploration and analysis of the most current themes and issues in each community, with the goal of identifying problems and presenting solutions. The next phase (Take Action) is the implementation of actions with primarily local impact, but with a global perspective. Finally, in the third phase (Sharing), it is proposed that the community promote spaces for ongoing exchange and dialogue between initiatives, with the aim of strengthening the global collaboration network. An application-the United World Communities WebApp, -has been created as a tool for sharing ideas, experiences and news, as well as promoting collaborative projects.
“God has visited everyone’s heart.”
Al termine della terza fase del Genfest, le Communities hanno presentato in modo creativo le loro impressioni e alcuni dei risultati delle attività svolte nei giorni precedenti. Da questo lavoro è nato il documento “The United World Community: One Family, One Common Home”, che sarà il contributo dei partecipanti del Genfest 2024 al “Summit of the Future” delle Nazioni Unite del prossimo settembre. Secondo i giovani che hanno presentato il testo, esso non è un documento conclusivo, ma vuole essere un “programma di vita e di lavoro” per le varie United World Communities, oltre che una testimonianza da presentare al “Summit of the Future”.
“With our communities we don’t want to make demands, formulate slogans or complain about political leaders,” the young people said. “Instead, we seek to name our common dreams, dreams of a united world. Personal and communal dreams, which will guide us in our activities in the coming years.” They concluded, “We hope that by living them, ‘together’ and step by step, they will become signs of hope for others.”
Margaret Karram and Jesús Morán, President and Co-President of the Focolare Movement, also spoke at the conclusion of Genfest 2024. Jesús Morán said that although the experience of care has been the most lived experience in human history, it is not the one that has been reflected on the most.
This has begun to change, as was demonstrated at the Genfest, in which care emerged as a response to the need for human dignity. In this sense, he concluded, it is important that young people remain connected to this global network of generative communities. Margaret Karram, for her part, said she has seen throughout the Genfest experience that young people have given tangible witness to their faith and are already in action to build a united world. Regarding Phase 3 in particular, she emphasized the richness of this experience because of its creativity, intergenerational and intercultural imprint, and the fact that, through the communities, there is a concrete possibility of living the same Genfest experience in one’s daily life. She concluded by calling on the young people to be the protagonists of these communities, the foundation of which is unity. “Please do not miss this unique opportunity that we are experiencing here: God has visited the heart of each of us and is now calling everyone to be protagonists and bearers of unity in the various areas in which they are involved”.
We have just heard stories of peace that were expressed in the most varied forms: songs, prayers, experiences, real projects.
All this strengthens in us the confidence and hope that it is possible to be peacemakers. Pope Francis says that we must be ‘artisans of peace’ every day. And to do this we need perseverance and patience to be able to look with love at all the brothers and sisters we meet on our path.
From this Genfest we have learnt that peace begins with me, with small gestures of care for others, for our peoples and for creation.
So where can we start?
We have said it several times in these days: by breaking down all the barriers that divide us, so as to live for fraternity. And this we can do:
by discovering that our common humanity is more important than all our differences;
then by being ready to forgive and to make gestures of reconciliation. Because to forgive means to say to the other: ‘You are worth much more than your actions’.
And as we did in the first phase of Genfest, let us continue, even when we return home, to be artisans of peace in our relationships, taking the first step towards others. Love will inspire us what to do, and to whom we should go.
Let us forgive without waiting for the other person to ask for forgiveness.
May this Genfest be the moment of our YES TO PEACE.
We must never feel alone again. In these days we have seen and certainly we have experienced the power of ‘togetherness’, Juntos.
Let us be united with all those who are living and working for peace. The communities we are going to build in Phase Three are already a possible way forward.
Open your eyes to visions of peace! Speak a language of peace! Make gestures of peace! For the practice of peace leads to peace. Peace reveals itself and offers itself to those who achieve, day after day, all the forms of peace of which they are capable.(*)
Open, speak and act.
So: let us not be at peace until we bring about peace!
