Founded by students in the middle of the Second World War, Focolare takes Jesus prayer from the Gospel of John “that they all be one” as its goal and reason for being.
A parade of Toronto faith leaders who have worked with Focolare on interreligious dialogue spoke of how dialogue and the golden rule has taught them how to live unity.
Fr. Damian MacPherson, Archdiocese of Toronto director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs, spoke of his journey from growing up in Cape Breton where everyone was either Catholic or Protestant to arriving in Toronto 15 years ago to deal with Buddhists, Jews, Muslims and Hindus.
“To be engaged in other people’s lives and in their faith that formed them, it’s a grace,” said MacPherson. “It’s the hand of God that gives life and guidance to us. We have to be those instruments to keep the grace of God flowing.”
Samira Kanji spoke of how her Muslim faith has taught her the blessings of diversity.
“Goodness and wisdom doesn’t reside in a single community,” said Kanji.
The Muslim belief that God created humans out of His own soul is a lesson in the essential unity of the human race, she said.
“To recognize each other’s humanity, to change our perspective, is an enormously powerful thing,” Kanji said.
Since the Focloare movement began 70 years ago, the Church has had to learn how to offer itself to a world in which cultures, languages, religions and customs are constantly coming into contact with one another, Focolare Canada co-director Hortensia Lopez told The Catholic Register.
“Seventy years ago, when Chiara (Lubich) started, it was not so clear that there was going to be this movement of humanity that creates multicultural realities everywhere, interreligious challenges everywhere,” Lopez said. “But God sent the answer already of how to deal with it — a little group of girls, and then families, and then all kinds of people (joining Focolare). It was a model, so that the Church in approving it had something to offer humanity.”
Focolare communities are a kind of laboratory where people of different faiths and no faith learn the meaning of unity, she said.
With its origins in the northern Italian town of Trento, the Focolare were officially approved as a Church movement in 1962. Today the community is active in 182 countries with two million members and associates around the world. Focolare activities are co-ordinated by 184,000 animators. The movement runs 27 publishing houses, the Sophia University Institute in Loppiano, Italy, near Florence and 33 “little cities” where people of various faiths and cultures live together in community.
“We feel part of the Church. I think that (Focolare) demands of us what Jesus demands of the Church — that we really live remembering that we were created out of love and we have to love one another,” Lopez said.