News
Compliments on the website
It has been a few weeks ago that I came across this wonderful website. Really, you guys are doing an great job. You show another side of the focolare that has not been revealed by other sources, only by Gordon Urquhart’s excellent book.
When I mailed my thoughts to the webmaster (Lionello) I got very good response and now I have contact with other people who have been involved in the movement. This is a great help. I’d like to thank everybody who has made this possible. If anybody is out there not knowing what to think of this website, I can only say, don’t hesitate but contact the webmaster. Share your ideas and you will see how life after focolare can also be good.
We all have the love of God in our hearts, nothing can change that. But we are not made to be alone. For me, it has been good to find new friends here who respect me, trust me, without trying to influence or manipulate me. Special thanks to a unique person in the webteam who went through a great deal of trouble to make me understand things better.
[top]On a personal note
A few of my best friends are living in a focolare, some of them even because at one time I have introduced them to the movement. Now I feel very sorry for them because they have lost all their privacy in order to live their Ideal of God-Love. I know it is their own free choice to do so, but I cannot understand why everybody has to pay such a high price for wanting to live the Word of God.
Chiara takes the Gospel very literally, which is a great strenght, but not everyone is as strong as she is. Many people break down under the pressure of living in a glass cage. I appeal to Chiara and all the leaders to ease down a little, be more open minded and allow some privacy to the members of the Focolari.
In the end this openness will help to keep the Ideal alive. Think about it and you will see it is the decent thing to do.
[top]Is there a happy life after focolare?
It certainly is but you have to find some solutions. If you know somebody from your region who has left try to spend time together and try to talk talk talk. You will be so amazed at what the other says,that he struggled with exatly the same things as you did.
I did the same. I went for a walk with somebody I had know for a very long time. Now for the first time I met her as she was. She had struggled with the same things but never ever we would have talked about that in our focolare period because then you would be out of the supernatural.
My dear friends, we consist of a natural and supernatural part and should take care of both. As you will have lost all of your former focolare friends why not go on holiday together. Try to remember what you liked as a hobby before you entered focolare and take it up again. If you hurt too much go and seek help with a psychiater; if you don't have money ask focolare; if you have given your superfluous and insist on it that you need it. Be patient with yourself,in time you will find new friends,hobbies and a new aim in life.
Take courage!
[top]Legal actions
In a recent verdict the Dutch High Court has prevented a focolarino to recieve a tax-reduction. The Court ruled that a member af the Focolare is bound to give all his belongings and money to the Movement. This makes it impossible for him to use the same money claiming it is a free gift and recieve a tax-deduction.
In our opinion this case proves once again that money is a most important issue for the Focolare people. Fortunately there are some officials yet who can see clearly what is right and what is just too much. For those of you who want to know every detail we put in the link.
[top]This site
The alternative site about Focolare has a great value and it is a duty to tell people that to come in contact with Movement means:
- to do a strong experience of God but also
- to accept a lot of rules that many sects use to obtain trust.
You can't close your eyes in front of the techniques used by Focolare in order to keep you in and convince you not to
express the reasonable doubts that could arise.
You should recognize them and then you could tell me that the Truth of Movement justifies those techniques. I don't think so,
but I could understand such a point of view. What's your opinion?
Moreover, the value of this site is also the fact that it provides to many ex-members a VERY important place in which they
can share their (often painful, like mine) experiences lived in Focolare.
[top]Other news
- In our last count it turned out the international Focolare website has 800 web-pages now. They are overwhelming the net as well as the real world, with more drive than any international commercial company. It seems that those who run the organization these days have gone a long way from the humble beginning without a clear goal, like Chiara at the start of the movement, some 60 years ago.
- A group of people in France have succesfully objected to a Focolare center coming to their town. Now the focolare is trying to find another place to build a center in France. In Holland the focolare recieved a huge donation that enables them to start a center near the town of Heusden (’s-Hertogenbosch). They will however need even more money because the buildings are not good enough to live in. Soon they will start building dwellings on the premises of a beautiful old monastery.