MANILA, Philippines – On March 14, 2008, Chiara Lubich, founder and president of the worldwide Focolare Movement, passed away at her home in Rocca di Papa in Rome. Together with millions of others in 182 countries who, like me, have followed Chiara, I am saddened and I mourn her passing. However, there is joy in the sadness because of the legacy that she has left us.
The Focolare is not an organization. It is a way of life. What is this way of life? It is to work for unity by living the Gospel message of love, a love that requires giving our all since Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you,” and He loved us by giving his life for us. At the same time we are called to love all, without exception or distinction.
Chiara’s way of life, a life of loving, has created an impact, not only on us who have followed her, but also on those we have come in contact with.
I remember the lahar victims in Pampanga, the tribe of Dumagats in the Sierra Madre mountains, the Aetas in the mountains of Bataan, the 200 Vietnamese families who settled in a village in Palawan, who were among those with whom we have come in contact. They thought that, like many others, we would go and give them relief goods and that would be the last that they would see of us. On the contrary, we kept going back, making friends with them, assisting them in their needs regarding livelihood, health and education, sharing in their joys and sorrows, being one with them. They were happy but also puzzled, and they would ask, “What makes you do this for us?”
The answer is simple. They were our brothers and sisters to love. They were, each one of them, Jesus to love.
Love means going the extra mile whenever there is a need.
One of the programs of the Focolare is “Sinag,” a hospital volunteer program started 20 years ago which serves the poor and indigent patients in government hospitals. Sinag is not a social project – it is an expression of Chiara’s life of unity and preferential love for the poorest of the poor. In overcrowded and understaffed government hospitals, the thrust of Sinag is to provide the missing ingredient in the process of healing – personal loving care. Sinag volunteers have countless experiences of loving daily, often requiring them to go the extra mile.
Once, a four-year-old girl from a remote town in Palawan came with her parents for treatment at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH). She was diagnosed as having a hole in her heart that would require surgery costing P40,000, an amount her indigent parents could never afford considering that their trip to Manila was funded by kind friends and neighbors who pooled their resources together.
God, who cannot be outdone in generosity, helped the Sinag volunteers find help from the Philippine Heart Center that granted free hospitalization on condition that the child stayed in Manila for all lab tests that would take two months. Corresponding to God’s graciousness, a Sinag volunteer offered her home for the family to stay.
Other volunteers brought rice, canned goods, eggs, and other food items to help out. It was a shared adventure of loving the least of the brothers. The adventure continued after the child’s surgery as Sinag members kept visiting them, bringing them food and money. Now the child is a happy and healthy six-year-old. The parents bring dried fish for the Sinag volunteers whenever they come to Manila for the child’s check-up.
In the Focolare Movement, constant communication from the Center where Chiara lived with all the 182 countries makes life and love constantly circulate, thus making it possible for all to live the same life.
I experienced this when my daughter who lives in London was one of the victims of the London bombings on July 7, 2005. We were assured of the prayers of our Focolare family here in the Philippines.
But being alone in a foreign land when facing a difficult situation is not easy. However, we were not alone in London. The love of our Focolare family there sustained us through the excruciating ordeal of my daughter trying to recover from severe physical injuries and emotional trauma. The love that we found there was the same love that we were living here.
This was also the experience of the chief of the Vietnamese Village in Palawan. The Vietnamese in Palawan constantly felt the love of the Focolare there. One time the chief had to come to Manila for a congressional hearing. He was apprehensive since it was his first trip to Manila and he did not know anybody in the city. The Focolare members in Palawan assured him that the members of the Movement in Manila would take care of him.
True enough he was never alone even during the hearing. When he went back to Palawan he said, “It’s amazing that the love we feel from the Focolare here is the same selfless love that I found in Manila.”
We are currently building 40 houses in Quezon City and Pasay for the poorest of the poor among our brothers and sisters. Other houses have been built in Davao, Cebu, Tagaytay and San Fernando, La Union.
But even as we try to love, we meet resistance – ironically from those we are trying to reach out to. In Pasay, we are providing 10 houses for families who are fire victims. As we began to discuss the minute details of the plans and arrangements to build the houses, each one had his idea of how it should be done. We listened to each one, trying to understand their individual needs and situation. In the end, with all the love we could muster, we had to explain to them that we had to come up with one plan and one scheme.
Chiara is gone. But she has left us a precious legacy – a life of evangelical love that, if lived by all of us who have followed her, will create an impact not only on our own lives but also on the lives of the people around us.
The author is the head of Focolare’s New Humanity, the group that undertakes social projects.