Focolare's 'New Family Movement' links the world through Family Fest 2005

by Carol Sowa
Today's Catholic

Jeanette and Michael Zwartjes speak on "The Family: A Community of Love" at Focolare's Family Fest 2005.
Photo by Carol Sowa

SAN ANTONIO • Cities from around the world were linked in celebration of the family on April 16, as members of Focolare’s New Families Movement joined hands and hearts via the Internet for Family Fest 2005: Love That Builds Peace, emphasizing love as the foundation of the family.
Fourteen interactive link-ups in cities worldwide simultaneously brought together Family Fests in Rome, Algiers, Toronto, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Stockholm, Nairobi, Manila, Tehran, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Krasnojarsk (Siberia), New York and Chicago. Hundreds of other cities globally either tapped into these transmissions or viewed delayed broadcasts or tapings as the day progressed.

    Participants in San Antonio’s Family Fest 2005 were among the latter, viewing a tape of the earlier global festivities at the local gathering, which took place in Providence Hall at Our Lady of the Lake University. In light of the recent passing of Pope John Paul II, known as “the Pope of the Family” and long a supporter of Focolare and the New Families Movement, this year’s Family Fest was dedicated in his honor.
    San Antonio’s celebration drew Focolare members from Louisiana, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Corpus Christi, El Paso and Amarillo, as well as San Antonio. Facilitating the event were Ralph and Susan Staffier. Susan noted that Family Fest had as its goal “to give visibility to the importance of the family and how it can constantly adapt to the demands of a changing society by being a model of unity, achieved through mutual love.”
    A letter from Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, was read to the group, praising the legacy of Pope John Paul, who had originally intended to send the global audience a written message via the Rome Family Fest, being too ill to personally attend as he had in the past. Also read was a message from Archbishop José H. Gomez, who stated, “You can be assured of my prayers for you and for the Focolare Movement.”

    The Staffiers presented an overview of the Focolare Movement, founded in the early 1940s by Chiara Lubich in Trent, Italy, as a way to put faith into concrete practice, with the aim of spreading mutual love and bringing about unity. “In 1967,” said Susan, “Chiara saw a special need for families enriched by this spirituality to reach out to other families, especially those suffering from the many trends in society that hurt the family. As a result, the New Family Movement was born, with a specific objective of guiding families to reach out to one another for the benefit of each other and society as a whole.”
    A joint presentation on “The Family: A Community of Love,” was delivered by Michael and Jeanette Zwartjes. Married for 34 years, the Zwartjes told of the major impact of Focolare on their family.
    Jeanette noted Pope John Paul II addressed the challenges facing families over 20 years ago in his document on “The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World.” In it, he observed many disturbing signs, including the degradation of certain fundamental concepts regarding families and marriage.
   “The family today cannot be described by one homogeneous definition,” she related. “It includes not only the traditional parents and children, but an array of arrangements, including single parent families to families composed of parents and children from previous marriages, and situations where children are living back and forth between families.” She mentioned today’s mentality of self-centeredness, materialism and consumerism, as well as the Internet, have brought further erosions into family life.

    Noting the family’s mission to “guard, reveal and communicate” God’s love for humanity, Michael added, “This idea that love is the centerpiece, the cornerstone of the family, is of fundamental importance.” He described the Gospels as a living source for bringing about this love, with the Beatitudes being an excellent source of family instruction. While all families face difficulties — such as serious illness, the loss of a child, teen rebellion, teen pregnancy and other challenges — families who try to make the Scriptures’ message of love the basis of their daily lives, deal with these problems from the perspective of love, keeping as priority the concerns of the other.
    “When we are able to embrace our sufferings — because Jesus became all suffering — and offer them to him and then, in the next moment, reach out in love to those around us,” said Jeanette, “we find that God answers us with the grace that we need in that very moment.” Regardless of the type of family we come from, Michael noted, “We all have this potential to be living witnesses of the love of God, both within our own family and beyond, reaching out to others.”
    Confirming these words was the experience of a mother of four whose husband left the family. With the support of the Focolare community, “from the strength that comes from Jesus present in our midst,” she explained, “I was able to keep the family going, to keep a cohesive unity going.”
    Another woman shared how, through the mental illness of her daughter, her own marriage was threatened. “Divorce came up many times. I remember during one of our daughter’s relapses, my husband was so frustrated that he had his bags packed, ready to move out of the house. I was beside myself and asked, ‘What can I do in this situation to honor my marriage vows?’ Then, without saying a word, I packed my bags too and put my luggage next to his, as if we were going on an extended vacation together. The action caught him off guard and opened the door to dialogue. We were able to sit down and talk about our feelings and our marriage commitment to each other.”

    Dan and Mary Jennings were co-presenters for “Seeds of Hope: The Family as a Model for Humanity.” Describing the family as a potential model for all relationships, Mary said, “If we explore the family, we can discover immense and very precious values which, when extended and applied to all of humanity, can transform it into one large family.”
    Dan noted there are a variety of attributes which characterize a family. “A family naturally puts everything in common,” he said. “It shares all its goods. … It takes a little humility to be on the receiving end, but that is what family life is all about — giving and receiving.”
    He observed, “The family is the natural setting where life begins and ends and where the disabled, the elderly and the terminally ill find acceptance, affection and care.” Mary recalled the special joy that had come into her mother’s life many years before, when she was forced by age to come live with them and as result built treasured bonds with her grandchildren and other family members.

    Listed among the attributes of family, in addition to a foundation of love, were: sharing of goods, teaching and learning, self-sacrifice, solidarity, faithfulness and communication. “The task of every family is to live its vocation so perfectly,” said Mary, “that it becomes a model for the whole human family. … Pope John Paul II, repeating a phrase from a previous church document, referred to the family as the vital cell of society.”
    “The family,” said Dan, “contains seeds of a new world, the seeds of family life, according to God’s plan, and will lead to a new humanity and a civilization of love.”
    Throughout the day-long event, various members also took the stage to share personal family experiences impacted by living the Gospel of love.
   An important contribution to the program was the presence of Imam Omar Shakir from the San Antonio Masjid Bilal mosque, who shared the esteem he has of the Focolare members’ commitment to live out Gospel love in all their interactions, and Muhsinah Touré from the Muslim community of Houston who spoke of her esteem for Pope John Paul II.
    Rounding out the day, in addition to the video presentation from Rome’s Family Fest, were a youth presentation, a family panel on “Love Transforms the Family,” a PowerPoint presentation on Pope John Paul II, and musical entertainment by members.