Stories

Jan. 2021 – There are numerous messages of congratulations and prayers from the Holy Land for Margaret Karram, the new President of the Focolare Movement.

Arab Catholic, she is originally from the city of Haifa, where she grew up and where she has always lived her commitment to dialogue between religions. She was elected on January 31, 2021 by the General Assembly, which includes 359 representatives from around the world.

Margaret Karram succeeds the founder Chiara Lubich and Maria Voce: by statute, the Focolare Movement must always be led by a woman.

MARGARET KARRAM – President of the Focolare Movement

“I would like to say to all the family of the Focolare Movement in the world a big, infinite thank you. As soon as my nomination came out I felt a great emotion and at the same time I felt a force of the Spirit within me. My immediate response was “here I am, I’m at your service, I’m at the service of the Church, of the Movement and of humanity together with all of you.”

TERESE SOUDAH – Focolare Holy Land

“For all of us it was truly a great emotion, a great joy, to know that Margaret Karram, a daughter of our land, was elected President of the Focolare Movement.

I would like to express all our gratitude to Maria Voce, who led the Movement for 12 years after Chiara Lubich. Now the choice of a new President with the profile of Margaret Karram certainly represents a sign of novelty for the whole Movement. Perhaps there will be possibilities for greater impact, new ways of dialogue. I would say: let us be surprised by the work of the Spirit.”

In addition to serving as co-chair of the Focolare community in the Holy Land, Margaret Karram has served on several commissions and organizations here to promote dialogue among the three monotheistic religions.

A work recognized in 2013 with the “Mount Zion Award” for reconciliation – given to her together with the Jewish scholar and researcher Yisca Harani and in 2016 with the International Santa Rita Award for fostering dialogue between Christians, Jews, Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians starting from the everyday life lived.

YISCA HARANI – Scholar, researcher and teacher committed to interreligious dialogue

“It was a real shock, we were both very surprised. Initially we both wanted to refuse the award: we thought we didn’t deserve it, and this caused some embarrassment. We were very happy that Margaret’s mother and my father were present. It was an incredible and very emotional moment: two families, one Arab and one Jewish, were sitting there together.”

Br. FRANCESCO PATTON, ofm – Custos of the Holy Land

“Today it is a particularly beautiful and meaningful thing for me, being from Trentino, therefore from the city of Chiara Lubich and living in the Holy Land, to see that a Christian from the Holy Land, from Haifa, Margaret Karram, is the president of this Movement. I am pleased to see this fact and obviously we accompany her with our prayers, knowing also that she studied for some years here in our Theological Studio of St. Saviour’s, and knowing that the Holy Land is small, and therefore in the Holy Land all of us Christians feel a bit part of the same family. And perhaps this sensibility of being a Christian of the Holy Land can really be of great help in carrying forward the spirituality of unity.”

HB Mgr PIERBATTISTA PIZZABALLA, ofm – Patriarch of Jerusalem of the Latins

“This is good news, first of all because she is a daughter of our Church. We have come to know her very well, and she has worked and contributed a great deal here in this Church to raise awareness of our vocation to encounter all realities, even within the sometimes very difficult conflicts that exist here. I am certain that she will bring this experience of the Holy Land into the charism of Chiara Lubich and the Focolare Movement, which is so close to our vocation in the Holy Land.”

From the Holy Land, but also from all over the Middle East, come messages of congratulations and prayer for the election of Margaret Karram.

YOUNG FOCOLARE COMMUNITY JERUSALEM

“From Jerusalem we wanted to send you a special greeting and a big hug. As soon as we got the news of your election we burst with joy!”

GHADA SWEILEM – Focolare Community Gaza

“On behalf of myself, and all your family in Gaza we greet you with all our hearts, let’s stay united!”

TALAT SHATROUBI – Muslim friend

“It was the right choice, and it was not an easy one. She has been entrusted with an important task, especially in the difficult times in which we live.”

BERNADETTE SOUDAH ABU ATTA – Focolare Community Haifa

“It seems really significant to me that someone who was born and lived in a country full of divisions was chosen to lead the unity movement.”

WILLIAM NAHLEH – Focolare Community Haifa

“Thanks to your years in the Middle East, especially in our country, you have a great deal of experience in interreligious dialogue, between cultures and between churches.”

JESSICA SACKS – Jewish friend

“What exciting news! We know how much wisdom, how much goodness, how much dedication and how much knowledge you bring to this role.”

ANNA MARIA KARRAM – Margaret Karram’s Sister

“The day of the election was a day of prayer and expectation. I wondered if my sister would be the new leader of the Focolare Movement. Now I feel a new sense of responsibility, and a new commitment to live my life as a Christian, through the spirituality of the Focolare, more fully.”

FOCOLARE COMMUNITY BETHLEHEM

Congratulations!!! We all love you!

_{Original post published in cmc-terrasanta.org}

Mar. 2020 – “Together for Jerusalem” was a seminar sponsored by the Focolare in the Holy Land together with the Sophia University Institute (Italy).The seminar gathered Jewish and Christian biblical experts to focus on the vocation of Jerusalem as seen in the Bible, thus setting a biblical foundation to the goals of the Focolare’s future International Center for Unity and Peace in Jerusalem.

From different countries in Europe, from USA and Israel, scholars in biblical and related studies participated in the seminar held this past March 12, 2020 at Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem. Professor Yair Zakovitch of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem delivered the keynote speech entitled: “’In the Days to Come, the Mount of the Lord’s House Shall Stand Firm above the  Mountains and Tower above the Hills’ (Isaiah 2:2): The Peace of Jerusalem in Prophetic Literature”, with responses moderated by Dr. Marcie Lenk,  a Jewish scholar of Jewish and Christian texts.

Amidst the global health crisis, several scholars from other countries presented their contributions through teleconferencing. Dr. Giovanna Porrino (Italy): “God Gathers His people and the Peoples of Every Tongue” (Isaiah 2 and 66); Prof. Franz Sedlmeier (Germany): “Psalm 87: Jerusalem, Mother of the Peoples”; Dr. Giovana Czander (USA): “The Witness of Two or More in the Old Testament/ Hebrew Bible”; Dr. Margareta Gruber (Germany): “Urban Living Spaces for all Peoples. The Vision of the New Jerusalem in the New Testament Book of Revelation” (Rev. 21:1-22:5).

There were also two presenters from Israel: Rabbi David Goodman who presented his contribution entitled: “The Ancient History of Jerusalem in Jewish Oral Tradition”; and Rabbi Dr. Ron Kronish: “How Do We Bring the Heavenly Jerusalem Closer to the Earthly Jerusalem?”

Rabbi Ron Kronish:
“We did a little bit of dreaming… (about) the Jerusalem that we would like to see, the Jerusalem of the future, the Jerusalem of our hopes and dreams. We also talked towards the end of the day about how we must share and work together in bringing the heavenly Jerusalem closer to the earthly Jerusalem. It was a day of dialogue, of inspiration, and it gave all of us a hope for the future in a very real and tangible sense.”

László Berényi, Hungary’s cultural attaché in Israel:
“… Jerusalem, specifically in Dormito, where we are now, became a small world-wide workshop searching to find the vocation of Jerusalem. And if Jerusalem has a vocation, it is exactly this one: to gather people of different nationalities, of different religions with different perspectives and visions but all searching the way of unity.…”

The event falls on the centennial celebration of the Focolare’s foundress, Chiara Lubich. An exhibit on her life and contribution to the Church and to humanity was simultaneously on display at the Franciscan’s Curia in Jerusalem. One of Chiara’s dream was to have, in Jerusalem, a Center which would focus on four areas:  spirituality, study, dialogue and formation. Among the goals of the planned International Center for Unity and Peace is the gathering and hosting of events on inter-religious studies and research.

All the presentations are now freely accessible in the online journal: Claritas: Journal of Dialogue and Culture, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2020) Together for Jerusalem . Some contributions in the form of videos can be found on Youtube.

The seminar, also part of the academic outreach of Sophia University Institute, heralds the launch of a shared journey in scriptural research, cause of hope for fruitful exchange well into the future.

Feb.-Mar. 2020 – The call to unity launched by Chiara Lubich, foundress of the Movimento dei Focolari, reaches as far as the city that most of all embodies the encounter between different peoples, cultures, and religions. In Jerusalem, the Custody of the Holy Land hosts the re-adapted exhibition dedicated to the centenary of its birth which is set in Trento, Italy, curated by the Chiara Lubich Centre in collaboration with the Fondazione Museo Storico del Trentino.

LUIS RIERA – Holy Land Custody Technical Office

“An exhibition that has an area of about 200 square meters. The original exhibition – the one in Trento – is about 1000 square meters. We, as the Technical Office, acted as a bridge between the Custody – which hosted the exhibition – and the curators in Italy.”

A reference to Chiara Lubich’s spirituality is the passage from the Gospel of John in which Jesus prays to the Father “that all may be one”: a message – also addressed to people who do not have a religious belief – addressed to the different types of visitors who will participate in the exhibition, which is open for two weeks.

YISCA HARANI – Teacher

“I want to bring a Jewish audience here because I want them to know that these things exist. Usually, the media is only focused on the conflicts, the contrasts between people. It’s so reassuring, so revitalizing, to see that there’s collaboration, that there are people who act with courage. Without being “naive”, but remaining very realistic: we live in a place full of conflicts, and even in the midst of these conflicts we have to find common paths to cooperate.”

Divided into four parts, between images and video material, the exhibition “Chiara Lubich World City” also reveals the connection that Chiara Lubich had with the Holy Land, despite having visited it only once in 1956: the Movimento dei Focolari has been spreading here since the 1970s.

Br FRANCESCO PATTON, ofm – Holy Land Custos

“Throughout my life, I had the opportunity to meet and greet Chiara Lubich very briefly during one of her visits to Trento. I am happy that the Custody of the Holy Land can host this exhibition, and I am even happier that she reminds both a time like ours and a land like ours of the value of unity.”

CLAUDIO MAINA – Co-responsible Movimento dei Focolari in the Holy Land

“Linked to Chiara’s visit in 1956 there is also the idea of having a physical place in Jerusalem that would testify that unity is possible. With time, this intuition became clearer in the project of an International Centre for Unity and Peace: it is a project that we are carrying out and that we hope to be able to realize soon. If there is a place where it makes sense to be a presence of unity, it is Jerusalem.”

_{Original post published in cmc-terrasanta.org}

Feb.- Mar. 2020 – The “Chiara Lubich City World” exhibition has been inaugurated in the Holy City, the first of the exhibitions outside Italy to be opened. It includes a section dedicated to Chiara Lubich’s visit to the Holy Land in 1956.

“I didn’t think Jerusalem and its Holy Sites would affect my soul like that (…) every stone said a word, much more than a word, so that, in the end, my soul was all bathed and entirely filled with the presence of Jesus” .

Chiara Lubich’s diary expressed her profound experience during the only journey she made to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, in 1956. Several black and white photographs and a video journal recall that journey, but the greatest testimony is the active presence of the community of the Focolare Movement in this city, which on February 29th, 2020, inaugurated the “Chiara Lubich City World” exhibition housed in the Curia of the Custody of the Holy Land. The exhibition is open until March 14th, 2020.

The exhibition reproduces the one currently open to the public at The Tunnels Gallery at Piedicastello in Trent (Italy), curated by the Chiara Lubich Centre in collaboration with the Trentino Historical Museum Foundation.

It is the first of the international sections of the Chiara Lubich City World exhibition, which will also be held in Mexico City, Sydney, Mumbai, San Paolo, Algiers and Nairobi in the year dedicated to the centenary of Chiara Lubich’s birth. Jerusalem’s primacy is symbolic as the city-cradle of the three great monotheistic religions, and home to many peoples. The community of the Focolare Movement has been here since 1977 with the mandate to contribute to the fulfilment of the unity for which, in this very land, Jesus prayed to the Father.

The Jerusalem exhibition reflects the original while being someone reduced and adapted. It conveys significant moments in the life of the founder of the Focolare Movement, her thought and work, through documents, handwritten texts and photographic material. But this edition has its own specific characteristics, available only to those who visit it here: a section dedicated to the relationship between the founder of the Focolare Movement and Jerusalem, as Claudio Maina, jointly responsible for the Focolare Movement in the Holy Land, explained. “We wanted to bring this exhibition to Jerusalem to make Chiara’s life, spirituality and work better known, but also to bear witness to her relationship with this city. Actually, Chiara only came to Jerusalem once, just for a few days. But from that visit a story began that continues today. Indeed, here in the Holy Land, there are people who have welcomed Chiara’s spirituality and are living it”.

Part of the exhibition is dedicated to Chiara’s great dream for this city so deeply marked by divisions and historical wounds: to create a centre of spirituality, study, dialogue and formation to unity. “It’s a dream, an intuition that gradually took shape – said Terese Soudah – in the project for the International Centre for Unity and Peace, a project that we have been working on for years and that, despite many difficulties, is progressing and we hope to be able to conclude soon”.

Dignitaries attending the inauguration included the Nuncio and Apostolic Delegate to Jerusalem, Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, the representative of the Latin Patriarchate, Father Stéphane Milovitch, director of the Cultural Heritage Office of the Custody of the Holy Land, as well as Christian, Jewish and Muslim friends, who make up the Focolare family in the Holy Land.

Due to the Coronavirus emergency, the Italian delegation was unable to attend, but sent video contributions. In this way, the President of the Autonomous Province of Trent, Maurizio Fugatti, wished every success to the exhibition; to bring to the world the message that Chiara Lubich gave to the Trentino Region and to Italy. The Custos of the Holy Land, Father Francesco Patton, expressed his hope that, through this exhibition, Chiara’s spirituality would remind this troubled land of the value of unity, the fruit of Jesus’ prayer, which is still so relevant today.

In a video-message, Anna Maria Rossi and Giuliano Ruzzier, curators of the exhibition in Trent, along with Maurizio Gentilini, presented the exhibition itinerary: “We created a project that isn’t limited to the city of Trent, but, as happened in Chiara’s life, can reach the ends of the earth, encompassing all five continents”.

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the Nuncio, Archbishop Girelli, recalled the extreme relevance of Chiara’s message: “Here in Jerusalem, we could invert the words of the exhibition’s title and call it: “Chiara Lubich World City”, because this exhibition has come from the world to the city par excellence, the Holy City, the city of unity, of fraternity, of dialogue among religions and among peoples”.

By Stefania Tanesini
^{Original post published in www.focolare.org}

Feb. 2019 – Hearing from those who live there gives hope for the most contested city on earth; a different vision from the one in the news.