The warm personal story of Emanuela Carponi, a Focolarina from Italy who spent thirteen years in India. Her search for God did not lead to the convent, but to an active life in the midst of people.
When I was small, I received as a gift a book containing the lives of some teenagers who died as saints. I remember how much I liked that book.
The first story in that book was that of Blessed Imelda Lambertini. She was denied Holy Communion, since she was too young.
Imelda’s desire to receive the Eucharist was, however, very strong. Suffering from a serious illness, she was taken to the chapel. There, while she was in prayer, the Holy Eucharist appeared above her. When the chaplain arrived, the Host descended in the hands of the priest and Imelda received her first Communion, which was also her last, since she died right after that.
I was fascinated with a love relationship of this kind. I tried to imitate those courageous examples with some small sacrifices and fervent prayers, but…daily life went on normally – with school hours, big and small disappointments.
The heart’s desire
Around the age of sixteen, when I went to study in a boarding school run by nuns, I had the possibility to attend Mass everyday and I was happy to pray even more. The moments spent in the chapel were very beautiful, but as soon as I was out….daily life was so different!
How to remain always with Him? Maybe by entering the cloister and adoring Him day and night? But why had contemplation to be confined to the convent?
A nun one day proposed to me to join her convent with the idea of becoming a teacher, or maybe the directress of the school and love and serve children for the rest of my life. Although teaching was my dream and passion, I found a well-planned life like this too narrow for me. If I give my life to God – I thought – I would like God to be the centre of my life. I want to belong to Him alone so that He can take me by the hand wherever He wants.
A few months later I met the people of the Focolare Movement and I found the answer: In the spirituality of unity of Chiara Lubich there is a secret for living and prolonging that intimacy with Jesus 24 hours of the day, without entering the convent, but remaining in the world.
A meditation of Chiara fascinated me immediately. It says:
“Here is the great attraction of our times:
“Enter into the highest contemplation, and, at the same time, stay in touch with everyone. I would like to say more: We need to lose ourselves in the crowd, to infuse them with the divine, like a piece of bread dissolving in wine.
“Further: having been made sharers of God’s plans for the human race, we need to be rays of light for the people, and, at the same time, share in their struggles, hunger, adversities and short-lived joys.”
So it was possible. I had found the way to live in full union with God, yet remaining in the world!
The Focolare Movement approved by the Church as “Work of Mary” is a private universal association that has grown like a tree with many branches. There are youth and married people, priests and nuns, children and elderly, all committed at different levels to build a more united world. At the heart of the Movement there are communities of consecrated people, who work for an ever deeper unity among the faithful of the Catholic Church as well as with groups and movements of other Christian denominations. They try to establish relationships of fraternal communion with the faithful of all religions and with all people of good will, promoting universal brotherhood all over.
There is a lot to do!
Being lay people, we work most of the day like all the others and we spend the free time for our members and candidates’ formation.
The model of the Focolare house is the house of Nazareth, where Mother Mary and Joseph were living apparently as a simple family but with the great gift of having Jesus, the Son of God, present in their midst! The members of the Focolare, through their effort of constant reciprocal love, try to deserve the presence of Jesus in their midst, as he promised: “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name (which means: in my love), there I am in their midst.”
The life of the Focolare – you may object – is anything but contemplative.
With people the whole day, yet…
Often you can see one running from morning till evening; always in contact with people. And this is true, but it is only one aspect of our life.
Whoever lives in the Focolare full time, slowly begins to experience an intimate life that is absolutely more adventurous than the one outside, but it is peaceful, serene, profound, always more convincing, and it grows with time. The secret?
Roots need nourishment; vehicles need fuel. How do we, in the Focolare, find the energy to remain always in love?
Through the Eucharist, and through the presence of Jesus in our midst.
In Him is the strength to start again always. In Him is the secret of unity.
That daily nourishment of the Eucharist slowly produces its effects.
Once Chiara Lubich said that maybe all her life could be thought as a “business” between herself and Jesus in the Eucharist. I can repeat the same after thirty-eight years of life in the Focolare community.
The Eucharist makes us start again: moments of “trial” also come.
Another effect of living with Jesus in the midst is to become more like Jesus, become another Jesus a little more.
I taught in Italy as a primary school teacher for many years. One day a colleague with whom I did not have any relationship stopped me in the corridor. I never had any opportunity to work with her. She started telling me of a serious problem.
She was expecting her second child. But, as she was not very young, all had advised her to abort the child. She had taken an appointment to do a particular test, based on which abortion could be decided. I just listened, in silence, with respect.
On my way back home, I passed by a church and entrusted her and her child to Jesus. In our evening prayers our community entrusted her to Him. Some days later she told me: “You know, when I was lying on that bed, I remembered you, your face and your smile. And before the doctor began the test, I told him that whatever maybe the result, I want to keep the child.”
I was speechless. Jesus had intervened in silence and He had touched her heart. In fact after some months, a healthy baby boy named Paul was born.
“Here is the great attraction of our times:
“Enter into the highest contemplation, and, at the same time, stay in touch with everyone. I would like to say more: We need to lose ourselves in the crowd, to infuse them with the divine, like a piece of bread dissolving in wine.”
On the move
“Wherever two or three are gathered in my name…” this is the goal of the Focolare Movement, to multiply the presence of Jesus, not only in sacred places, but even on the streets, in the parliaments, in the schools, at home. I felt very often His presence within me while shopping or while waiting in the car stuck in a traffic jam.
The Focolare has helped me experience His presence among people of different places. I was in Africa for a while–Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso– and now I am in India for thirteen years … That all may be one.
I can testify that I have always found the same family all over. “Be a family” is the legacy that Chiara Lubich left us when she went to heaven in 2008. To continue building such a family is now our task.
My journey is not yet over. I will soon be going to another country. God is taking me by the hand and showing me his Kingdom. I am ready to go where He leads me.
Emmanuela spent thriteen years inIndia, and now works in the Philippines.
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