CHIARA LUBICH and her work for the rights
of individuals and peoples
Biographical Notes
|
 The
beginnings
In
East Central Europe
A
spiritual boost for brotherhood among peoples
Unity
among the Christian Churches
Families
and youth
Interreligious
dialogue
Economy
of Communion
Contributions
to inculturation
...
to politics
and
to culture
Towards
the unity of the human family
 The beginnings
1920 - Born in Trent. Her parents work in the printing business. The
mother is a devout Christian, her father is a Socialist. Her brother, Gino, will become a
resistance fighter and a journalist with the Italian Communist newspaper
"L'Unità".
1938 - Chiara completes her "teacher training college." She
teaches in Castello, a village in the mountains of Trent. Thirsty for the truth, she
enrolls in the University of Venice. She begins her studies of philosophy, but is unable
to continue because of the outbreak of the Second World War.
1943 - In the air-raid shelters, Chiara and her first companions bring
only the Gospel with them. Those words shine out as if enlightened by a new light. They
are conscious of an inner drive to immediately put them into practice. By living out
"love one another as I have loved you", the communion of material and spiritual
goods becomes their style of life.
May 13, 1944 - Trent is destroyed by one of the most violent
bombardments. The Lubich house is damaged too. Her relatives take refuge in the mountains.
Chiara remains in Trent in order to support what was just coming to life. In the midst of
the ruins she meets a woman who seems to be out of her mind with suffering, who cries out
to her that four of her children have died. In that embrace, Chiara discerns the call to
embrace the sufferings of humanity.
What Chiara describes as "a divine adventure" begins among
the poor of Trent. She was not unfamiliar with poverty. She experienced it in the years of
fascism when her father, because of his ideas, could no longer find work.
She and her first companions share with the poor all they have. During the raging war,
food, clothes and medicines arrive in unusual quantities. They experience the truth of
those evangelical words: "Give and gifts will be given to you", "Ask and it
will be given to you". This gives rise to the conviction that in the Gospel lived
there is a potential answer to every individual and social problem.
Quite soon the first group expands. They seem to repeat in Trent the
model of the first Christian community where "they were united, heart and soul; (...)
everything they owned was held in common". These are the first signs of the
Movement's social commitment.
From the beginning, people of non-religious conviction are also involved. They are
attracted by the values of unity, peace, justice and solidarity. After some years, there
will be thousands of people, in many Countries, committed to collaborating on all fronts
of solidarity.
1948 - Chiara meets Igino Giordani, member of the Italian Parliament,
writer, journalist, pioneer of ecumenism, father of four children. The meeting takes place
in the Palace hosting the national Italian Parliament.
The very serious problems of a Europe attempting moral and material
reconstruction emerge. MP Giordani will give a fundamental contribution to the incarnation
of the spirituality of unity in the social arena, which will later develop through several
wide-ranging movements, such as New Families and New Humanity, the latter recognized as a
NGO accredited by the UN.
In East Central Europe
1954 - At Vigo di Fassa (Trent) Chiara meets people who had just run away
from the "Iron Courtain" area. The drama of Central and Eastern Europe is
revealed in all its harshness. In 1960 the Focolare Movement begins to spread in East
Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Russia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania. During
those same years it also penetrates Yugoslavia among the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The
people of the Focolare Movement sow seeds of peace that will bear fruit in the future
explosion of hatred among these Countries. A permanent Mariapolis is built in Croatia. It
will be a meeting place for Serbs and Croats, Bosnians and Macedonians. There are numerous
initiatives of solidarity especially in favor of Bosnian women and many "adoptions at
a distance".
As the walls were crumbling down, Chiara writes an article entitled
"Neither losers nor winners," in which she holds that the values which made
Marxism attractive - such as solidarity, social justice and equality - must not die;
rather they must be re-founded in their original source, in the Gospel.
And it is from a University of Eastern Europe, the University of Lublin
(Poland), that Chiara receives, in June 1996, the first official recognition of the social
impact of her charism of unity, in particular, for the economy of communion project by
receiving a honorary degree in Social Sciences. The "laudatio" speaks of:
"Copernican revolution in the social sciences, for having put into action a 'paradigm
of unity' which demonstrates new psychological, social and economic dimensions which
today's post-communist society is looking for in this new and difficult phase of
transition."
In June 1996 Chiara inaugurates, in the Lublin area, a permanent
Mariapolis which will be the center of the spirituality's outreach for all of Eastern
Europe.
A spiritual boost for brotherhood among peoples
1956 - The Soviet tanks invade Hungary. In the face of these tragic
events, Chiara feels the urgent need to bring God back into society, so that men and women
may find him once again as the source of freedom and brotherhood. The branch of the
"volunteers" is founded. They will grow to number more than 20,000 - people
involved in the most diverse fields: politics economy, art, teaching, etc. They will be
the animators of the New Humanity Movement.
1949-1959 - While the wounds of the war are still fresh, every summer
young people, families, professionals, politicians, including the Italian First Minister,
Alcide De Gasperi, go to spend a time in the mountains of Trent. Together they form the
Mariapolis: a temporary scale-model of a small city in which one experiences a new way of
living and of interacting with others based on the mutual love of the Gospel. South
Tyroleans and Italians, French and Germans meet and their hate and grudge disappear.
Patterned on this model are 20 little towns in every continent which
show on a permanent basis that it is possible to build unity among people of different
cultures, ages and social conditions. The first town, Loppiano, began in 1965, near
Florence (Italy). Today it has 800 inhabitants of 70 nationalities.
1959 - In the Mariapolis, on the Dolomite mountains, Chiara speaks to a
group of politicians on the unity of peoples, applying to the relationship among peoples
the evangelical law of love which demands that we go beyond our own boundaries in order to
"love the other person's homecountry as we love our own".
Children, young people, families and people involved in social
endeavors will receive this same dimension from several large-scale events linked-up via
satellite from Rome and from annual international meetings held at the Mariapolis Center
of Castel Gandolfo (Rome). The rich exchange of experiences lived in various cultural
contexts will give them a taste of the promising wealth of a united world.
1960s and 1970s - The Movement spreads all over Europe and in the other
continents, also in some war-torn Countries, such as Spain - where the Basque conflict is
still alive - and Lebanon, working hard to bring peace to the opposing factions.
In 1971 Chiara will open a center in Ireland which
soon has an influence on Belfast's dramatic conflict between nationalists and Roman
Catholic unionists, especially by forming a new mentality of mutual understanding and
assistance.
Unity
among the Christian Churches
1960 - The ecumenical experience of the Movement begins,
surpassing all expectations. Invited to Germany by some Lutheran Pastors, Chiara shares
her experience of the Gospel. In the ensuing years, she will meet with leading figures of
the different Churches: Patriarch Athenagoras and his successors, the various Primates of
the Anglican Church; several Lutheran Bishops; pastors of the Reformed Church; and with
Frère Roger Schutz of Taizé. All of them encourage the spread of the spirituality of
unity in their own Churches.
Today there is a fruitful dialogue among members of 300 Churches wich contributes to
dismantling age-old prejudices and to experiencing, as much as possible, that all belong
to one Christian people, a leaven towards the full communion of the Churches. 47,000
Christians of these others Churches share the spirituality of unity. And it was the
Conference of European Churches (KEK) that invited Chiara to speak about an ecumenical
spirituality at the Second European Ecumenical Assembly in Graz (June '97), promoted by
the Council of Catholic Bishops' Conferences for Europe (CCEE).
Families and youth
1967 - In consideration of the crises of the family, Chiara invites the
families of the Movement to comfort families wounded by traumas and severed relationships.
The New Families Movement is founded; it is committed also to defending the violated
rights of many children. Currently, there are upwards of 9,000 "adoptions at a
distance" in emerging Countries and in Eastern Europe. Wherever there is a need of
this kind in the world, the New Families Movement has worked at the service of the right
to life of children, sharing and assisting with the difficulties faced by individual
mothers and whole families.
1968 - The youth "contestation" explodes. Chiara hands over to
the youth of the Movement a little yellow book outlining the steps of another kind of
revolution: the one codified by the Gospel. In the same yearsin Peking young people are
brandishing the little red book of Mao.
Back in 1966 she had founded the "Gen" Movement (New Generation) in response to
the profound needs for change that were stirring among the youth all around the world.
At the end of the Sixties, Chiara launches the "Operation
Africa" for the construction of a little town in Fontem, in the heart of Cameroon,
where the infant mortality rate is very high. This mobilized a worldwide communion of
goods among young people, which has continued for a number of years. This social action is
animated by the awareness of "having to bring about justice" and to contribute
"towards paying the debt that the Western world owes to that Continent." They
will build, together with the Bangwa people, a hospital, schools, a power station, and set
up artisan activities. Fontem will also become a center of outreach which bears witness to
the life of the Gospel on that continent.
1970 - The so-called third generation of the Focolare is born: children
from 9 to 16 years of age who animate the "Young for Unity" Movement. And in
1984, the fourth generation: children from 4 to 9 years of age, receptive and sensitive to
the message of love and unity which they put into practice with immediacy and pass on to
their companions and even to adults.
1972 - Faced with the meeting-clashing of different cultures, a very real
problem today, in speaking to our youth, Chiara describes the new man of the future, the
"world man", who is able to go beyond and sacrifice the limited schemes of his
own culture in order to understand the other cultures and in this way to reach a higher
synthesis. She asks the young people to participate consciously "in the building of
the new world that is to come." The ideal of a united world becomes the goal of the
Movement's second generation which will animate the wide-ranging youth movement:
"Youth for a United World" (1984). Numerous activities of solidarity begin in
favor of Countries devastated by war and natural disasters, involving young people from
all continents.
Interreligious dialogue
1977 - In London, Chiara receives the Templeton Prize for progress in
religion. The presence at the ceremony of many representatives of various religions will
open the way to the development of interreligious dialogue. In Tokyo, 1981, Chiara speaks
of her Christian experience to 10,000 Buddhists of the "Rissho Kosei-kai"
Movement,founded by Nikkio Niwano, one of the promoters of the World Conference of
Religions for Peace (WCRP). For many years the Movement has taken part to the initiatives
for peace of the WCRP. In 1994 Chiara was elected as its honorary President.
More than 30,000 Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and faithful of other religions
who are in touch with the Movement collaborate in its objectives and share, as far as they
feel like, its spirituality.
1997 and 1998 were characterized by new important steps and progress.
Economy
of communion
1991 - During a trip to Brazil, in response to the drama of populations
living in sub-human conditions on the outskirts of large cities, Chiara launches a new
project: the economy of communion, which develops in various countries and involves
hundreds of businesses. This proposal of a new theory and economic practice is rooted in
the "culture of giving" that began among the poor in Trent. It soon becomes the
object of study: numerous degree theses and international congresses, on various levels,
in universities of different countries. Some experts view it as an alternative towards a
new balance in world economy.
Contributions to inculturation
1992 - A trip to Africa leads to new perspectives for inculturation and
the appreciation of the riches and traditions of these peoples. In the Movement's
permanent Mariapolis in Nairobi a school of inculturation is established for the study of
their cultural heritage. The presence of the Movement's members in many countries of
Africa - also where bloody conflicts have flared up, as in Burundi, Uganda and Congo -
offers a valid contribution toward the development of these populations, by promoting
various short and long-term social initiatives, in respect of human rights and in
appreciation of the multiple cultures.
...
to politics
1992 - As a response to the profound transformations investing the
Italian political world, Chiara sets forth, in Naples, the key ideas for the
"Movement of Unity" so as to support a political activity aimed at saving our
common human values rooted in Christianity. This experience spreads to other countries as
well.
and to culture
1993 - The "Abba School", guided personally by Chiara, springs
forth from the spirituality of unity at the International Center of the Movement. With the
input of professors of various disciplines, new guidelines of theological, philosophical
and social thought are emerging.
1996/98 - The impact of our spirituality in various cultural ambits is
recognized by several Catholic and secular Universities. They award Chiara honorary
degrees in: social sciences, social communications, theology, philosophy, human sciences,
religious sciences, economy; in Poland, Thailand, Philippines, Taiwan, United States,
Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. These lead to new developments on the cultural level.
Towards the unity of the human family
1997/1998 - In January '97, Chiara is the first Christian woman and lay
person to speak of her spiritual experience at a Buddhist University and Temple in Chiang
Mai (Thailand) to hundreds of Buddhist monks and nuns. A permanent Mariapolis is now
rising in that land to give continuity to this dialogue.
A new page is opened in the relations between whites and blacks, between Christians and
Muslims after the meeting in which Chiara spoke of the spirituality of unity to three
thousand black Muslims in the Malcolm X Mosque of Harlem, New York, in May '97, invited by
Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, spiritual leader of two million African-American Muslims.
In Buenos Aires (April '98) she meets with Jews from various cities of Argentina and
Uruguay. She highlights points in common between the spirituality of unity and the Jewish
spiritual heritage.
New avenues are opened in interreligious dialogue.
1996/1998 - "In an age when ethnic and religious differences too
often lead to violent conflict, the spread of the Focolare Movement has also contributed
to a constructive dialogue between persons, generations, social classes and peoples."
This is the motivation of the 1996 UNESCO Prize for education to peace, awarded to Chiara
in Paris.
At the Glass Palace of the United Nations, she addresses a Symposium in May '97 on the
Unity of Peoples; in March '98 she is invited to speak in Bern (Switzerland) on the
occasion of the 150th anniversary celebration of the Swiss Constitution, in the presence
of numerous politicians and celebrities of the cultural world.
Her work "in defense of individual and social rights" is recognized by the
Council of Europe, which will award her the 1998 Human Rights Prize (September '98).
The Brasilian Government, in the person of the President of the Republic of Brazil,
awarded her with the "Southern Cross" (October '98) for what she has
done for their Country, especially to promote the "Economy of Communion".
|
