“Light that is Incarnated”

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the priestly ordination of Pasquale Foresi (1954 – 2014), Città Nuova presents a synthesis of his philosophical and theological reflection.  The Library at the IUS has been named after him.

The preface is written by the Focolare Movement’s president Maria Voce: «The charismatic gifts which God, from time to time, lavishes on His people and which oftentimes take the form of new spiritualities, such as enlightenments on Revelation so as to help  to live them better, they are always tied to circumstances and to concrete individuals who act as mediators of said gifts as a service to the Church and to all of humanity. In the case of founders of great spiritual movements we often see that, in his plan of love, God places beside these original depositories of the charisms, other people who perform an important function for its historical configuration. The history of the charism of unity does not lack such a human-divine dynamic.  In effect, alongside Chiara Lubich, besides her early companions, both female and male, since its beginnings, we find other people with particular roles whose presence was fundamental so that the gift given could be fully explicated.  One such person is Pasquale Foresi, the first priest focolarino of the Work of Mary and first co-president, a rich personality in whom Chiara Lubich always saw a particualr “design” for the newborn work, that of the incarnation, that is, having the task of helping to materialize into concrete works the intuitions and motions that the Holy Spirit was little by little bringing to life in her. In this way, in the history of the focolare Movement, thanks to this singular, and in many ways, paradigmatic unity between Chiara Lubich and Pasquale Foresi, fundamental dimensions of the charism took on form, in the field of thought and culture, of its spreading activity, and editorial works, as well as other aspects, [… ] Don Foresi is a model of all the members of the Work of Mary who, in some way, must recreate in themselves their own task: to lead a concrete life, by mediating and incarnating, according to one’s vocation, the light of the charism of unity.»

Thus Maria Voce explains the fundamental role carried out by don Foresi in the history of the Focolare Movement; page after page we find the steps that marked its story, with its travails and its lights. For this reason, the book is both a «summation» of the philosophical and theological reflection of  don Foresi, while he paints the plan of a Work of God born to give an answer to the great questions of man of today and always, to which religions and philosophies tried to give an answer in the past: the relationship with God and with ones’ neighbour and the problem of suffering.
In going through the chapters which deal with, and comment on the various point of the spirituality of unity, a characteristic dimension of the experience of don Foresi comes to light, which Giuseppe Maria Zanghì, in the book’s introduction, defines a “life rooted in wisdom.” For this dimension, Pasquale Foresi has borne a fundamental role also on the spirituality of unity, in the birth and the history of the studies done on the spirituality of unity, an anticipatory experience of the successive Abbà School and of Sophia Univerisity Institute which is grafted on to this root.

Text: Elena Cardinali, Città Nuova Editing House

“Luce che si incarna” (Light that is Incarnated)
Collection: Verso L’unità – Sez. spiritualità
Year: 2014
Isbn: 9788831151719
Pages: 240
Price: € 16,00