Anba Bishoy: “Take me with you!”

“From the very beginning of the movement, [we] did not hesitate to recognize in our neighbours, in every brother or sister, our typical way to go to God.”

The story goes that the disciples of Anba Bishoy, a Coptic-Orthodox monk who died in 417, upon learning that Christ often appeared to him, asked him to have Christ appear to them, too. Anba Bishoy agreed and told them that Christ would meet them on a certain fixed day. All the people of the savannah and desert prepared for that encounter.

Everyone was ready, all dressed up in their finest clothes, and so happy to be able to meet Christ. While they were going toward the place indicated to them, they met an old man who asked each one passing by, “Take me with you!” But each one had the holy excuse of having to go and meet Christ, and no one brought him along with them.

Then Anba Bishoy passed by and saw the old man, who also asked him: “Please, take me with you!” So Anba Bishoy carried him on his own back, as an act of love for his neighbour. Needless to say, on that day only Anba Bishoy met Christ, while everyone else missed this opportunity.

This episode aptly introduces that point of the spirituality of unity on which we wish to focus our attention this year: the presence of Jesus in our neighbours and our love for him.

This year too, there are two big events taking place in the Catholic Church: the Year of Faith -- proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI from October 2012 to November 2013, which is also the 50th anniversary of the start of Vatican II, as well as the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church – and the Synod of Bishops, dedicated to “The New Evangelization for the Communication of the Christian Faith.” 

These two ecclesial events are closely related. “In our days, too, faith is a gift to rediscover, to cultivate,” and, above all, “to bear witness to,” as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explained last January in its note given with pastoral recommendations for the Year of Faith.

Last year’s focus on the Word 

In reality, this is also what we have been trying to live out, individually and as a movement, with renewed commitment this past year. We tried to do this by rooting our lives in the Gospel and by intensifying the sharing of our life experiences on putting Scripture into practice – our typical way of bearing witness to the word of God in the world. It is, therefore, a matter of continuing the journey we undertook, naturally going ever more in depth.

The Word of God, lived out “with particular intensity,” had been for Focolare founder Chiara Lubich and her first followers the fertile ground that allowed the blossoming of that extraordinary mystical experience of grace and light that has been called “Paradise 1949.” In the first pages of Chiara’s notes about that period, she shared with much ardour: “When one of these words [the words of the Gospel] entered deeply into our soul, it seemed to be transformed into fire, into flames, to be then transformed into love. We could affirm that our inner life was all love.” 

This year’s focus is on our neighbour.

Surely we too have experienced in our lives, at least to some extent, the fruits that Chiara has mentioned. Now it is the word of God that leads us to the new point of the spirituality of unity: love of neighbour – our brothers, our sisters – and our commitment to love them to the point of sharing with them that same divine life that the Word of God has generated and continues to generate in us.

After Chiara’s death, Piero Taiti, one of our friends who is not traditionally religious, shared with us the strong impact it made on him. “With her,” he said, “we didn’t feel like tolerated guests, but as people who were accepted with respect and encouraged to love. Let’s put it this way: not constrained. We were able to speak freely and openly about everything, truly as brothers and sisters. We weren’t speaking to someone who had in mind all the answers to all the problems of the world; and even if she did have answers, she agreed to talk about them with us with basic, mutual respect and listening.

“We realize more and more that the very possibility of dialogue was opened up by Chiara, not outside of, but precisely as part of her commitment to live out the Word in a radical and total way.

Many people found themselves practicing it, even when not sharing her same faith. We participated in some way, without foolish syncretism, in a wider concept of church, ‘ecclesia,’ which potentially encompasses the whole of humanity, without geographical, religious and cultural boundaries.” This universal breadth has always characterized Chiara’s vision, which from the very beginning of the movement did not hesitate to recognize in our neighbours, in every brother or sister, our typical way to go to God. And because of our neighbours, she often reminded us, “we continually pass from an empty and meaningless life to the fullness of life,” as Scripture confirms: “We have passed from death to life, because we have loved our neighbours” (1 Jn 3:14). 

Maria Voce 

(to be continued) 

Maria Voce is the present Focolare president, who succeeded founder Chiara Lubich (1920–2008). The text on these pages is an excerpt from her conversation with Focolare delegates last September 15, 2012.