By J. Michael Parker
For Today’s Catholic
New ecclesial movements are clear evidence that the Holy Spirit is breathing new life into the Catholic Church, a member of the Focolare Movement said during Oblate School of Theology’s annual Summer Institute, “Megatrends in Church and Society.”
Mariam Adams, a Chicago native and a former school teacher who has been a member of the movement in San Antonio for 25 years, said the Focolare’s charism, or special gift to the church, is its spirituality of communion, or the living of the Gospel in mutual love and unity. The Focolare is one of more than 120 new movements approved by the church in the past century. Founded in Trent, Italy, in 1943, it anticipated the Second Vatican Council’s call for the Catholic laity to be actively involved in evangelization.
John Castanon, another Focolare member and a native San Antonian, briefly reviewed the movement’s history. During the destruction of World War II, Castanon said, foundress Chiara Lubich and a group of friends began dedicating their lives to living the Gospel — particularly “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me,” “Love one another as I have loved you,” and “Wherever two or three or more of you are gathered in my name, I am with you.”
A little community grew up around them as they began ministering to others, feeding the hungry and finding clothes for those in need. Jesus’ last prayer and testament, “may they all be one…” became the heart of the Focolare’s spirituality of communion.
Hundreds began joining the movement, and it soon spread across Italy, then Europe and eventually across the world, Castanon said. Today it is active in 182 countries.
But Adams said that the Focolare and all other ecclesial movements are more clearly understood in the larger context of 2,000 years of Catholic history in which God has given a multitude of charisms to the church.
“Jesus continues to live in the incarnation of many religious orders. Each of these orders carries a special gift from God to put into practice one or another of the words of Jesus to answer some spiritual or physical need for humanity,” she said.
Religious life, Adams said, has always looked in loving imitation to the first Christian community in Jerusalem with its faith in Christ, attention to the Word, its spirit of prayer, breaking of the bread and its loving unity with the apostles and one another until they were “one heart and soul” manifested in a spiritual and material communion of goods.
“The rise of monastic life, blossoming around the earlier contemplative traditions, the emergence of the mendicant orders and the eventual evangelization beyond Europe all bear witness to the Holy Spirit down throughout the centuries underlining one or another of Jesus’ words until the church appears like a majestic Christ extending through time and space,” she said. “It is Christ’s way of making himself present in the world.”
Adams said the names of religious congregations serving the Catholic Church illustrate how each religious congregation reflects a particular aspect of Jesus’ life. “The Franciscans’ very lifestyle proclaims, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God,’” she said. “St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, spoke of filial obedience, calling to mind Jesus’ statement, ‘I’ve come to do the will of my Father who sent me.’”
She also cited the first Carmelites, who climbed Mount Tabor to pray and adore God but were ready to descend and battle for the faith, even at the risk of their lives; and countless missionaries of many congregations who have left home and family and traveled all over the world sharing the gift of faith with others.
“All these fragments have to be put together into the design of God. We can never look at them separately, because they’re words within the Word,” she said. “The emergence of new ecclesial movements and lay associations are a continuation of the Spirit’s action.”
Castanon showed a video in which Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, former president of the Pontifical Council of the Laity, recalled the Second Vatican Council’s call for the laity to be engaged in the renewal of secular life — in politics, academic life, economic policy, the media, public relations, family life and sexuality. “This can be done only by men and women who are deeply contemplative and who are joined together and strengthened through community for the evangelizing mission of the church,” Cardinal Stafford said.
The video showed Pope John Paul II’s enthusiastic support for such lay movements. On Pentecost Sunday in 1998, for example, he welcomed an estimated 400,000 members of movements from all over the world to a giant celebration in St. Peter’s Square. It is believed to be the largest crowd ever in the square until an estimated two million gathered to mourn John Paul in 2005, Adams said. “It was a remarkable display of unity,” Msgr. Michael Mulvey said on the video.
Msgr. Mulvey, vicar general of the Diocese of Austin, who was featured in the video, said the unprecedented gathering, titled “A New Pentecost,” demonstrated the real vitality in the Catholic Church throughout the world.
“In a time when people talk about the ‘wintertime of the church’ and say it’s in imminent decline, this gathering brought together people of every race and social background. They provided clear evidence that the church is not in decline but is very much alive,” he said.
At a May seminar in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI exhorted 150 European bishops to “go out and meet these movements with much love.”
Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, who succeeded Stafford as head of the council for the laity, told the bishops, “We cannot cease to be amazed at the fruits in the lives of the multitudes of laity — fruits of extraordinary missionary zeal and sanctity of life.”
J. Michael Parker can be reached at mparker@ost.edu or (210) 457-7726.