Today, 14 March, the day we remember Chiara Lubich’s departure for Heaven, we publish some of her words, pronounced during the meeting of the “Movement for Unity in Politics” in Bern (Switzerland) on 4 September 2004. A reflection on the kind of ‘love’ necessary for universal fraternity to be possible.
Brotherhood can be achieved only through a special kind of love. It’s a love that is directed to everyone, just as God the Father sends sun and rain on the good and on the bad. It is not a love that is directed only to relatives and friends, and a few other people. It is directed to everyone, and this already requires effort. If we left here having resolved to love everyone we meet, and, if we are Christians, seeing Christ in them, because he will say: “You did it to me,” “You did it to me.” I think that would already be a great step forward because the Christian revolution would spread out from here.
Then this love we need to build fraternity, is not only tolerance, although it is tolerant; it’s not only solidarity, although it is solidarity too. It’s something different because it’s the very love of God. We Christians say it is the love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This love takes the initiative without waiting to be loved; it makes the first move, taking an interest in others (without bothering them, of course). It takes the initiative and does not wait to be loved. Usually people wait to be loved before loving. Instead it is a love which is first… and this brings a revolution. In fact, our Movement has reached the ends of the earth, not because of what we did, but due to a charism from God. If we leave here determined to love everyone, always being the first to love, without waiting…. Well, this is already Gospel life. Do you understand what the Gospel is? This is Gospel.
Then it’s not a sentimental or platonic love; it’s not a fleeting love, but a concrete love, which makes itself one with the person who is being loved. If someone is ill, we feel ill with him or her; if people are happy, we are happy with them; if they have achieved something, we feel their achievement is ours too. It’s a love in which… as St. Paul says, we make ourselves all things to all people, all things to all people, we make ourselves poor, or ill with others. Sharing, that’s the kind of love it is, a concrete love.
So it’s a love that is directed to everyone, a love that takes the initiative, and a love that must be concrete.
Then we should love others as ourselves, as the Gospel says. Therefore, my friend, Eli, who I see there in the hall, is me, because I must love her as myself, like Chiara, as I love myself. Likewise, with Clara: I must love her as myself. I must love this lady as myself; and this lady, as myself, because this is Gospel. This too is a big thing: whenever do people love others as themselves? In a way we almost transfer ourselves into the others in order to love them as ourselves.
It’s also a love which, if lived by several people, becomes reciprocal. Because I love Marius and Marius loves me; I love Clara and Clara loves me. This reciprocal love is the pearl of the Gospel. Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34). He said this commandment is his and new, so it sums up the Gospel, it’s the basis of fraternity. … What can we do to be brothers and sisters if not love one another, as he loved us, he who even gave his life for us?
We should keep these things in mind.
Mindful of what this love is like, to answer the gentleman who asked the question, how should we see our relationship with others? We should see it in terms of dialogue. I must see the other person as someone with whom I should dialogue, but in order to dialogue, I need to know that person; I need to enter into their world. I must not assert myself, but try to understand the other person and let them say what they want to say. … We need to enter into the heart and mind of the other person and allow the other person to be open, let the other person speak. They should feel that we are empty of ourselves and able to understand them. What happens then (in our experience) is that other people understand they are loved and they listen willingly to what we have to say.
The Pope says something very beautiful about dialogue. That we need to share our truth, what we think, but it must be “a respectful announcement”, which means an announcement that respects the opinion of the other person, which has no intention of proselytizing, and does not want to impose on anyone.
This is the dialogue that should be carried out. It’s the basis of our life, of universal brotherhood.
The 40th Ecumenical Conference of Bishops friends of the Focolare Movement which took place in the historic city of Augsburg in Germany, ended on Friday, 1st March. There were 60 participants from 26 nations, representing 29 Christian Churches. “Dare to be One. A call from Jesus to live the future, now” was the title and even more the essence of the meeting.
1518 -In Augsburg (Germany), the Roman Cardinal Caetano, a famous Thomist theologian and the Augustinian monk Martin Luther, professor of Sacred Scripture at the University of Wittenberg (Germany) had a discussion about Luther’s 95 theses on indulgences. There was no convergence. They couldn’t agree. In fear for his life Luther fled during the night.
1530 -The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire led Emperor Charles V to Augsburg, intending to reunite the divided Protestants and Catholics. For the occasion, Philip Melanchthon, a theologian friend of Luther, prepared the Augsburg Confession, a confession of faith intended to bring everyone together. The attempt failed.
1555 – During a further Diet in Augsburg, a Religious Peace was signed which ensured coexistence between Catholics and Lutherans. Each Prince of the Empire established which confession would be followed in his territory, a decision summed up in the Latin expression cuius regio eius religio (whose realm, their religion)
1650 – After the bloody Thirty Years’ War, which also affected Augsburg, freedom of religious expression and the equality of Protestants and Catholics in all public offices were sanctioned. The Festival of Peace was born and is still celebrated every 8th August.
It was in Augsburg, a place soaked in history, that, at the invitation of the local Catholic Bishop Bertram Meier, the 40th Ecumenical Conference of Bishops friends of the Focolare Movement took place from 27th February to 1st March. Sixty Bishops from 26 nations participated, belonging to all the great families of Churches: Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Anglicans, Methodists, Evangelicals, Reformed, Catholics of the Latin, Armenian and Byzantine rites. It was the highest number and most universal representation of participants so far, something that stood out for the Mayor of the city, Eva Weber, when she received the Bishops in the City Hall.
From the very beginning, the relationship between these Bishops, including two women Bishops of Churches born from the Reformation, was striking. Every Church was welcomed as it is. A simple spirit of fraternity permeated the days, without disregarding the still existing wounds and points of disagreement. Everything was underpinned by that pact of mutual love that has characterized these Conferences from the beginning and that the Bishops solemnly renewed this year too, promising to share each other’s joys and crosses. This gave rise to what some of the participants described as an original kind of ecumenical synodality.
“Dare to Be One. A call from Jesus to live the future, now” was the bold motto of the conference and, even more, of the journey in which the President and Co-President of the Focolare, Margaret Karram and Jesús Morán also participated. There were three main themes, each illustrated by experiences: receptive ecumenism as an ecumenical methodology that leads to learning from each other; the common call to witness the Gospel in a divided world in search of peace; Jesus crucified and forsaken as a way to face the night of the world and respond to it in a generative way.
One more date: 31st October, 1999. 25 years have passed since the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church signed the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” in Augsburg, recognizing that, on this key point of dissent in the 16th century, there is no longer reason for separation. An Ecumenical Prayer Service commemorated the historic event in the place where the signature took place: the evangelical church of Sant’Anna. The next day a round table explored its impact. The Rev. Ismael Noko, then Secretary General of the Lutheran World Federation, illustrated the humble and tenacious path that made the signing possible and saw the subsequent accession of three other World Communions (Methodist, Reformed and Anglican). Dr. Ernst Öffner, then Regional Evangelical Bishop of Augsburg, told how he had worked with the Catholic Bishop at the time, to involve the local people and that whole city had celebrated. Catholic Bishop Bertram Meier talked about the challenges and opportunities of the journey that we now face.
The current threats to peace and justice were very present throughout the conference. In this regard, the video message on the situation in the Holy Land from Card. Pizzaballa was very important. Against this background, two realities gave particular hope: the development of the ecumenical network “Together for Europe” which involves about 300 Movements and communities of various Churches, and the visit to the Ecumenical little town of Ottmaring (Germany) where for 56 years Catholics and Lutherans of different Movements have given a testimony of unity in diversity, a path that is not always easy and in which new developments have been born from every crisis.
For the future, the aim is to develop the local networks, to connect everyone through regular online events and through newsletters, in view of a future international meeting in two or three years.
Today, January 1st, we celebrate the World Day of Peace. On this occasion, we offer a writing of Igino Giordani (1894-1980) where he recalls how living in peace can make every day Christmas.
Since Christmas is considered by most as one of the grand feasts,more sumptuous than sacred, it would be important to reflect on some of the theme aspects of this event, due to which the history of the world was cut into two sections, pre- and post-. (…)
There is an abysmal contrast between the birth of a powerful figure, as the ancient world dreamt of and the obscure birth of Jesus, ignored by many; it is a contrast which in itself characterises the infinite originality of a Christ-king born of a poor woman in a stable. (…)
The start of his revolutiondoes not foresee arrogance, but humility, to draw the sons of God to heaven, starting from those who ate and slept on the ground: the slaves, the jobless, the foreigners, and the scum.
Liberty and love were born with that infant: his liberty is liberty of love. This is the immense discovery. Universal love that he taught aims to disperse a system of coexistence made up mostly of political power, abuse of authority, idle usury, despise for work, degradation of woman, and corrosive envy. (…)
Life, in peace, would allow us to make every day, Christmas.
And this is the revolution of Christ:to make us be reborn continually against the curse of death. And so the utmost commandment is to love man, which is like loving God. Love the other to the point of giving one’s life for him.
(Igino Giordani,Christmas as a revolution, New City, Rome 1974, n.24, p.18)
On 10th-11th November 2023 a seminar entitled “Expressing God. Chiara Lubich and the mystical tradition of women from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. A journey of many voices” took place in Bologna (Italy) Father Gianni Festa, OP, reflects on its outcomes and prospects.
The seminar featured a polyphony of voices spanning centuries. Protagonists of the female mystical tradition and their writings were the focus of a seminar that, on 10th -11th November 2023 in Bologna (Italy), brought together scholars from diverse disciplines including theologians, linguists, historians, literature experts and archivists. The seminar offered insights and reflections starting from the texts of the mystics, in particular from the 1900s. Diverse female figures, each unique yet connected by commonalities in the way they “spoke and wrote about God”, traits that reveal the path of the Holy Spirit and its unfolding through a plurality of voices, different but in great harmony. We talked about it with Father Gianni Festa, OP, Professor at the Theological Faculty of Emilia-Romagna and member of the Dominican Historical Institute.
Anna Maria Rossi, Padre Gianni Festa
Father Festa, together with the Chiara Lubich Center and the Sophia University Institute, the Theological Faculty of Emilia Romagna organized this seminar. You worked very hard to make it happen. What is your impression at the end of the proceedings? What were the most interesting aspects that emerged?
The first interesting aspect which is indisputable, is that this Conference placed Chiara Lubich, her theology and her spirituality in a much broader context than that in which it has been interpreted up to now. Connecting her with the tradition of female writing, both medieval and contemporary, has given new light to aspects of her theological and spiritual teachings. The second thing is the opening of research towards contemporary female mysticism, which is little studied, apart from the most well-known personalities, whom we also included, such as Etty Hillesum, Simon Weil and Adrienne von Speyr. But the mystical writing of women in the ‘900s is not as popular or studied as much as that of the middle ages or early modernity. This led to difficulties in finding speakers. The third important aspect was the collaboration between academic institutions fostering dialogue and cooperation on themes of theological research. This communal effort was really important and positive.
The presentations highlighted some of the unique characteristics of the personalities presented but also the common aspects that emerge from their texts and that unite the various mystics despite different eras and contexts. How do you think these experiences can become a testimony of life and a testimony of God? How can they still speak to people today?
What has always struck me when studying, in particular in my case, the Middle Ages, was the absolute tenacity of women in resisting regression to a condition of minority or marginalization, despite prejudices and preclusions. The mystics have consistently sought to affirm their relationship with God, to articulate and manifest it. Communicating it, “expressing God” and the distinctive way women do this, has a very important and timely impact which resonates with Pope Francis’s teaching. The female magisterium should coexist with the male magisterium, not in opposition but because they are the two lungs of the Church. I believe this is a crucial aspect.
Chiara Lubich: according to you, in the panorama of female mystical thought, what are the most characteristic and original aspects of her “expressing God” and what emerged from her works of mystical experience?
I knew little about Lubich, but also after listening to the presentations, I think that two characteristics of her writing and teachings are very clear, almost unequivocal: first of all the profound roots of Chiara’s writings within a robust tradition. This is undeniable. Chiara Lubich is not naive in her statements, in her reasoning and in her writings. I sensed this spiritual and theological, culture which can be felt in her writings. Secondly, and perhaps because I am Dominican and therefore also linked to figures such as Catherine of Siena, I was very struck by the ecclesiological and communion aspect of her spirituality. This is an element that I have also observed in contact with the Focolare Movement itself, communion, unity, ecclesial dimension; a departure from the excessive individuality in favour of sharing that has been present since the first experiences of Lubich.
What study and research perspectives can this seminar open up?
Undoubtedly it is a step towards greater openness, an expansion of studies on nineteenth and twentieth-century women’s writing. Therefore, it will be necessary to equip ourselves on the linguistic and theological fronts, to be able to study these figures that are too marginalised, too forgotten and unknown. Furthermore, I believe that, with regard to the Chiara Lubich’s teachings, it would be important to better explore certain writings of hers from an exegetical, theological and spiritual perspective, such as the text that was consistently discussed during the seminar, “Paradise ‘49”.
“Expressing God: Chiara Lubich and the female mystical tradition” is the title of a conference that will take place from 10th-11th November 2023 in Bologna (Italy).
A seminar dedicated to what it means to “express God in a female way” will take place on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th November in the Salone Bolognini of the San Domenico Convent in Bologna. Its title is, “Expressing God. Chiara Lubich and the female mystical tradition from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. A journey with many voices”. The organizers are the Theology Faculty of Emilia-Romagna (Fter), the Chiara Lubich Centre and the Sophia University Institute. The seminar aims to offer insights and reflections on the question of mystical language with particular attention to the mysticism of the twentieth century and with an attentive ear to the language of women.
One of the organizers, Father Gianni Festa, a Dominican professor at the Fter, has said that it will be a real journey, “in a page of the history of female mysticism that has not been greatly explored”.
How can language express the intimacy of an experience with God? How did the mystics, starting from the medieval tradition up to the 1900s, ensure that words could preserve such an experience and recount it to the world?
These are all questions that will be examined in the context of this seminar starting from historical, literary and linguistic analyses that testify, as Father Festa told us, “that to express God in a female way means to express Him in a different way and that is why it is absolutely necessary to understand the feminine language which expresses God and which tells of mystical experience”.
The speakers of the seminar will explore this theme, starting from the twentieth-century figure of Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement. Father Festa said, “The experience of Lubich will be connected on a diachronic level to important figures of the medieval mystical tradition such as doctors of the Church like Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila, but above all to other experiences and mystical writings of the twentieth century, some of which are well known, such as those of Etty Hillesum and Madeleine Delbrêl while others are less so, such as Sister Maria, the great mystical friend of Don Primo Mazzolari. The question of mystical language and the theology underlying female mysticism will be explored and the individual paths of this experience will be identified”.
For more information, contact the FTER secretariat or consult the Chiara Lubich Centre website. To participate in the event, you can register for the two days in the specific “Events” section on the FTER website.
From the spirituality of unity to the generative pastoral care of the Church; from the encounter between young people and Jesus to the leading role of the Holy Spirit in the Synod on Synodality. These are some of the themes that Jesús Morán, Co-President of the Focolare Movement, addressed during an interview with the Slovak television station TVLUX on 6 October 2023. The images were kindly released to us by TVLUX.
In recent days Jesús Morán, a Spanish priest who is the co-president of the Focolare Movement, visited Slovakia. In Nitra he met with several bishops who are formators and more than 80 seminarians. And now we want to welcome him here to our program. When we say Focolare Movement what is it? What does it mean?
The Focolare Movement is a movement of the Catholic Church centred on the charism of unity. The great theologian, Von Balthasar said that every charism in the Church is like looking at the whole Gospel from one point of view. The charism of unity is the whole Gospel from the perspective of Jesus’ testament, “May they all be one.” So, the focus, everything the Movement does in the ecclesial field and also in the civil and social fields, has to do with unity. We seek unity – unity according to the Gospel – Unity, which is a communitarian way of living. In fact, the spirituality of unity can be said to be a spirituality of communion, which is why we emphasize very much mutual love and our encounter with each brother and sister. It means to overcome divisions at a broader social level. It means promoting things like universal brotherhood, but the focus is this prayer of Jesus. That’s why we always say that we want to live on earth, as much as possible, as in the Trinity, in the communion of love which is the Trinity.
The founder of your movement was Chiara Lubich, who is very well known here in Slovakia. It was decided in the past that the person who is at the head, let’s say, of the movement should always be a woman, the president should always be a woman, that’s why you are the co-president. Why is this the case?
It is because of the official name of the Movement in the Church, because we are the Focolare Movement or the Work of Mary. In the Statutes approved by the Church, it speaks about the Work of Mary, so we very much emphasize this Marian profile of the Church, which is a maternal profile, it’s a generative profile, which reveals a welcoming Church, and, of course, the Marian profile is best expressed by women. This is the idea. We need to think that we are speaking of a Marian Church it is Mary who is the form of the Church. Vatican II said this very clearly: Mary is the mother of the Church. So, in that sense, we want to be a reflection of her. The presidency of a woman, in addition to valuing women, which is a sign of the times, especially wants to emphasize this Marian profile. This Marian profile that is so necessary today. It is certainly necessary because of what Pope Francis is emphasizing: a Church that is closer to the people, an outgoing Church, a Church that is less clerical, less masculine. And all of this has to do with the female presidency of the Focolare Movement. Above all, it is linked to Mary.
You came to Slovakia not only to meet with Focolare members, but also with our bishops, priests, and seminarians. This meeting was in Nitra, what was your experience in meeting our priests?
Actually I was with the bishop of Nitra and with a bishop from another diocese. They had both participated in the meeting with seminarians from 5 dioceses. I want to say that they were very welcoming. Then in the hall I saw people whose life was to follow Jesus, I really saw so much purity, so much purity in the seminarians, and there was also great seriousness. Some people, after the meeting and after the dinner, wanted to know more about what I had said. They stopped to talk to me and I saw in their questions a need, an urgency They want to be priests for the times we are living now. Being a priest today who before everything else lives the Gospel in an authentic way. I was very, very edified.
You spoke especially about generative pastoral care, what is it?
Generative pastoral care is a concept that is coming to light, quite prominently, in recent times. Especially in the West because we are witnessing, you could say, a numerical decline of the Church. Before, the churches were full, people were receiving the sacraments. There were many baptisms and first communions. Now this has decreased dramatically.
So the question is, what is happening? It seems that the methods we have been using successfully for so many years or centuries are no longer working. Do we then need to rethink pastoral care? Generative pastoral care is not a new pastoral care, it means going to the origin of pastoral care, and the origin of pastoral care is Jesus. How did Jesus evangelize? To say thing simply… because He is the living Gospel, He did this through very deep personal encounters. In other words, if we look at the Gospels, every time Jesus encounters someone something significant happens for that person. “We see it with Nicodemus, with Zacchaeus, with Matthew, with the centurion, with the Samaritan woman, with the woman suffering from a haemorrhage, with the Canaanite woman. Something always happens, Jesus generates something in the other person.
We have to change from what is known as a rule-regulated pastoral care, as we had in the past, which was of a quantitative kind: how many baptisms, how many people were baptized, how many people got married this year in this parish? We have to change to a ministry of pastoral care that focuses on quality, quality, not so much quantity. So what’s happening? Is there Christian life in our parishes? We are looking for fruitfulness rather than results, this is generative pastoral care. So there is a lot of emphasis on meeting with the other, to meet the other you don’t have to wait for them to come and ask you for a sacrament, you have to go and meet the other. So generative pastoral care changes the idea of the pastor, but it changes the idea of Christians, because at the end of the day, it’s not a matter of, … What we need are generative apostles, no doubt, but above all what’s needed is a welcoming community, so that what happened with Jesus has to happen with us too, people visit a community and something happens. They are impressed by something. In short this is what we talked about with the seminarians.
Could it be that young people today are looking for life and what they need is for us to bring them this life, which is life with Jesus?
Absolutely. I think that… I have always thought that Jesus never approached people with doctrine. He always sought a personal encounter first, and then he taught. However, even though we see Jesus teaching, He spent a lot of time in personal encounters. I think young people today are looking for life. Doctrine must be based on life and on this encounter with Him. In this way they can accept it. Otherwise, they are left with a Christianity that is more like a moral teaching, but that is not what Christianity is. Christianity is an encounter with Christ.
These young people you met in Nitra are the future priests of our Church. How can they be the priests we need in these times, priests who do not fall into the clericalism that Pope Francis talks so much about?
I think a priest in some way has to be more than just a shepherd (which is a word Pope Francis also uses when he speaks in Italian, as he uses it in Spanish too) the priest, the pastor, the shepherd, has to love. First love, then shepherd, because if you put yourself in the position of pastor, you put yourself in the position of superiority, as if you had to teach. Instead, the pastor today must love the parishioners first, must love all the faithful. Doing this makes him a pastor. In this way he is truly a pastor, and he can have authority over others. This is fundamental. Then as I said before, he shouldn’t look so much for results but for fruitfulness. And another thing: Today the priest or pastor has to be well aware that he does not proclaim himself, but he proclaims Christ, so he has to be deeply rooted in Christ, deeply in Christ. A pastor who is alone, who does not live within a Christian community, who does not live mutual love with others, will find it difficult to communicate a love such as Jesus proclaimed in life.
You said something earlier and it occurred to me that this happens not only to priests, but also to Christians who are living their faith deeply, but sometimes forget that it is not they who save people, but it is Jesus.
That’s right. This is important. That’s why I give a lot of importance to community. St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, warns against personalism and says when some of you say I am of Apollos, some say I am of Paul, some say I am of Peter… No, we are all of Christ, but Christ lives in the community, in the parish community. In the community he is present in the Eucharist, which is a mystery of communion. So this is fundamental. Often we have made the mistake of proclaiming ourselves, our own ideas, instead of letting Christ speak.
Slovakia is considered a conservative country, now that there is the Synod taking place in Rome, in the Vatican. There are different groups that want to move forward and others that want to stay in the past. How do we keep all that is good, but also move forward with what is new and good?
I was very struck by what Pope Francis said the day before yesterday in the first session of the Synod. He was very insistent that the protagonist of the Synod is the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit goes beyond these ideas that are human. A Christian as a Christian is neither conservative nor progressive, he or she is a new person, he or she is a new creature. We read this in these days in St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. It is the Holy Spirit who makes us new creatures with our mentality, with our mentality, with what we are, so I think we have to overcome these dualities that are not good for the Church. The Holy Spirit is always the generator of newness. Because it is he, he who is the origin of all charisms, of all newness in the history of the Church. At the same time, everything that the Holy Spirit promotes in the Church comes from the Father. Therefore, he is also anchored in the source. That tells us that we need a greater presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, that’s the only way to overcome these dualities that are not good for us.
Thank you very much. And many thanks to Fr. Jesús for participating in our program.
Thank you for welcoming me.
Thank you very much to you as well and see you soon, goodbye.
It was in Augsburg, a place soaked in history, that, at the invitation of the local Catholic Bishop Bertram Meier, the 40th Ecumenical Conference of Bishops friends of the Focolare Movement took place from 27th February to 1st March. Sixty Bishops from 26 nations participated, belonging to all the great families of Churches: Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Anglicans, Methodists, Evangelicals, Reformed, Catholics of the Latin, Armenian and Byzantine rites. It was the highest number and most universal representation of participants so far, something that stood out for the Mayor of the city, Eva Weber, when she received the Bishops in the City Hall.
“Dare to Be One. A call from Jesus to live the future, now” was the bold motto of the conference and, even more, of the journey in which the President and Co-President of the Focolare, Margaret Karram and Jesús Morán also participated. There were three main themes, each illustrated by experiences: receptive ecumenism as an ecumenical methodology that leads to learning from each other; the common call to witness the Gospel in a divided world in search of peace; Jesus crucified and forsaken as a way to face the night of the world and respond to it in a generative way.