Life, Person, and Community in Africa: A Way Toward Inculturation with the Spirituality of the Focolare

Abstract

This booklet explores ways of inculturating the Christian Message in Africa through the prism of the communitarian spirituality of the Focolare Movement. This lay spirituality started in 1943, with a 23-year old Italian lady, Chiara Lubich. The Focolare movement proposes a new understanding of the Christian message, based on the ideal of unity. The unity with God and the neighbor is possible through reciprocal love; the love of Jesus crucified and forsaken. This spirituality stresses the daily living of the Word of God, and making God the ideal of one’s life. The specificity of Focolare spirituality, as centered on unity is a communitarian way to holiness. For over 50 years, this lay movement, has attracted not only lay people, but also priests, religious and bishops, and has spread to non Catholic Christians and to non-Christians.