Chiara to the Volunteers Assembly 14.11.2002

Our meditation on Sunday morning was a short video of Chiara speaking to the men and women volunteers in 2002. Maria introduced the video by giving us some background and context. At the General Assembly the month before in October 2002, for the first time volunteers had been made responsible for the branch of the volunteers, rather than focolarini. Maria Ghislandi and Antonio had been elected. Chiara had spent the summer in Mollens in Switzerland calling the representatives of the branches, including Maria and Antonio, to go through the Statutes. These had been painstakingly revised. I was struck when Chiara was talking about the volunteers regulations that she invited people to comment and to change things if necessary. Despite having the charism, she did not assume that she had all the answers. Maria said that the Volunteers Assembly in 2002 had been an experience of losing. They were told that Chiara might come to greet them but would not be able to give a talk, then they though that they might not see her at all. In the end she did come and address the assembly. She said that she hadn't slept, thinking of the volunteers, and felt that she had to come. Many of the ideas presented this year (2014) were prefigured in this 2002 review of the statutes. In 2008 the statutes were revised again, and it was stressed that the volunteers are builders of unity together with all the other members and branches of the Movement.

Maria said that many of the ideas presented in the Final Document were stressed in this short talk Chiara gave in 2002. When it comes to going out, for instance, Chiara talked about one of her favourite saints, St Pachomius, as the model of a Christian whose spirituality is based on service of our neighbour. She said that Foco became a saint because of his work in politics, not despite it. Together we are the mystical body of Mary. Not one branch but the whole of the Work of Mary. We are prepared by Jesus in the Midst in the nucleus, as well as by living the word of life and receiving the eucharist. Our goal is not to stay in the nucleus to build Jesus in the Midst. We cannot be satisfied by going to God alone. We need to sanctify our families, our work place, the supermarket where we shop, the world around us. Maria said that Chiara entrusts everything to the volunteers, the whole of the Work of Mary and not just New Humanity.

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Some points from the meditation:

•      We must give visibility to the Work of Mary. Our vocation is to repeat, to continue Mary. The Opera is her mystical body. One part is not a body, it needs the whole of the Movement, not a single branch or individual. Everything is connected and we have to show a interest in the others. Chiara spoke of the need for co-interest.
•         The regulations are the private life of the Movement. We don’t speak of them in public, any more than you would go outside in your pyjamas. We all live part of our lives in public and part in private. The regulations are the private aspect of the Work of Mary. Chiara used the phrase, to ‘extend this silence to the regulations’.
•        The nucleus is where we are formed. We live between two fires, Jesus in the Midst and Jesus Forsaken. We then go out from the nucleus suitable prepared. The word of life and thought for the day help us in this preparation.
•        Chiara recommended the book of experiences, the Fioretti as a suitable tool of evangelisation that could be given to people who don’t know us well, as it is based on examples of life, people’s experiences. She gave some feedback from people who had read it and understood the Ideal from these examples, including a member of the Saint Egidio Community. The Gospel lived is the way for people to penetrate the Ideal. Many of the examples in the book come from the volunteers.
•        Chiara recounted the story of St Pacomius, a young man recruited by Constantine who formed part of a military unit sent to quell a rebellion in Thebes. The unit was captured and imprisoned. During the night the soldiers saw people coming out of their houses like shadows. They brought them food and drink. Some of the soldiers were too discouraged even to eat, but Pachomius asked who these people were. When he was told that they were Christians he said that he wanted to be like them. He prayed and made a promise to God that if he were released he would be baptised and give his life to serving God in others. He was released and duly baptised. He came across Christian hermits who were looking for an individual sanctity, but didn’t find his vocation there. He left their company and founded one of the first communities dedicated to serving God through service to other people. This is our vocation too. We are at the service of the poor, not just those in material poverty, but those who are poor in every sense, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and so on.
•        The volunteers imitate the Early Christians in making the Christian community visible through the communion of goods.
•        We are not of the world, but consider the world as a privileged place in which we can fulfil ourselves as Christians.
•        Through the radical way in which they live the Gospel, the volunteers have an effect on the places in which they live. Our aim is to build a new society, to reach ‘That all may be one’.
•         The volunteers are animators of the whole of the Work of Mary. Chiara gives us responsibility for New Youth, New Parishes, New Families, all the branches, not just New Humanity. This is because the volunteers are formed to bring Jesus into these worlds. Through our formation in the nucleus we are prevented from being distracted by activism (lots of actions and activities for their own sake, instead of based on Jesus in the Midst). Jesus in the Midst is the one who gives the right value to all that we do.