Being Open to Everyone

The Focolare spirituality of unity has many facets that reflect on family life. How can a family embrace all of humanity?

A family rooted in God is open to all humanity. This was the theme of the April 1989 international conference in Rome sponsored by the Focolare’s New Families Movement. In her keynote address, Chiara Lubich noted that we live in an era in which the role of the laity is highlighted in the Church. In the Apostolic Exhortation Christi Fideles Laici, it was stated that the Holy Spirit has enkindled movements with spiritualities suited to the laity. They encourage the laity to find their way to God right in the midst of the world, where they live shoulder-to-shoulder with all kinds of people. They help everyone to put love into practice constantly, sharing fatigues, anxieties, worries and joys with others.

Now that we, as a married couple, are well into “the third age” of our lives, we can look back and examine the golden thread of God’s love that led us to marry and establish a family with the objective of being open to all humanity. Our respective occupations (nursing and social work) oriented us toward serving others.

In our church-related activities, we offer our service as sponsor couple, team couple in Marriage Encounter and Marriage Retorno, as Eucharistic ministers and lectors. It was because of the Marriage Encounter leadership wanting to learn more about the Focolare Movement that we came in contact with the spirituality of unity, which has become a guiding influence in our lives.

Throughout our years of marriage, other couples have gravitated toward us to consult on issues of marriage and family life. Since retirement, our activities have included working in our professional roles at a residential treatment center for clergy and women and men religious for five years. We worked in the Christian Institute for the Study of Human Sexuality, an academic program for men and women religious responsible for formation work in seminaries and religious communities.

In our family life, our five children were likewise open to all humanity. During their teenage years, there were several young friends who for one reason or another needed a temporary home with a family other than their own, and we provided for this need. As young adults, our children continue in a variety of ways to reach out to others.

As Focolare founder Chiara Lubich has said, a family can be open to other families, so that all together we may form the vast family of the children of God, demonstrating how the entire human family should be in the world.