Only Love Remains

RELIGIOUS faith is experiencing a worldwide crisis. Statistics everywhere show that the Christian vision of life has lost meaning for humanity, that God is increasingly absent from the daily lives of most people. What is less apparent, however, is that a reaction to all this is also taking place, especially among the young.

Most of these reactions arise spontaneously at the parish level, and so often pass by unnoticed. They often start as organisations of people through the initiative of some particular person, but soon a mysterious force causes these organisations to flourish, so that one has the impression that the person who started the initiative was merely the catalyst – that the real driving force is God Himself.

One of the many initiatives of this kind is a movement called New Horizons, which offers spiritual and material assistance to those who have fallen by the wayside. The movement, which has already spread to various countries throughout the world, was started over 20 years ago by an Italian woman called Chiara Amirante.

The Vatican, always very cautious in these matters, has already acknowledged New Horizons as a private organisation of the faithful, and is placing great trust in this Italian woman and her work.

In 2004, Chiara Amirante was nominated by Pope John Paul II Consultant for the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. In February 2011, this same Dicastery nominated her to be a member of the scientific committee of its periodical People on the Move. In May 2011, Pope Benedict XVI nominated her to be a Consultant of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, and in September 2012, she was nominated an Auditor at the XIII General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

 

Dynamic lady

 

Chiara’s workload is enormous. She looks after the organisation of all the centres she has inspired, even the ones abroad. A dynamic, 46-year-old woman, Chiara has an amazing smile and sparkling eyes that radiate peace and joy.

Whenever she is not travelling around the world, one can meet her at Piglio, a small town near Frosinone in central Italy where the Superior of the Franciscan friars of the area has placed a building, which was once a friary, at the disposition of the organisation, and where the headquarters of New Horizons is located.

It was there, in the cloister of the former friary, and at the feet of a giant statue of the Virgin Mary, that I met Chiara, who was very happy to release this interview for the benefit of the readers of the Messenger of Saint Anthony.

 

A sign from heaven

 

Ms Amirante, how did you come to lead New Horizons?

It is a long story, but it is only now that I understand how the Lord guided me along this path, which stated in 1988 when he sent me a sign from heaven.

That year I had fallen ill with Chronic Uveitis, an eye infection. It was an incurable and painful disease that was causing me to lose my sight. In just two months my eyesight had dropped from 10/10 to 2/10, and the various specialists I consulted were saying that my prospects were grim.

I was already a woman of faith, having grown up in a devout Catholic family and in close contact with the Focolare Movement. I had met Chiara Lubich personally, and I was used to praying and putting my whole trust in God. I went to church each day.

One day, while entering a church, I heard a passage from chapter 35:5 of Isaiah, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.” Those words reminded me of a number of projects that were dear to me at the time, and they acted like a beam of spiritual light that brought hope back into my life.

 

What type of projects were these?

For a number of years I dreamt of assisting the downtrodden, but my illness was preventing me from doing so. I could do nothing because of my eye-problem. So after hearing that passage, I turned to God and told Him that if He wanted me to help the afflicted, He had to give me that minimal degree of health that would permit me to do so.

That night I went to bed early because on the following day I was due back in hospital to get my usual shots of cortisone in the eyes. However, the doctor who visited me was surprised, and asked his colleagues if anyone had administered another medicine he did not know about. I was visited by other eye-specialists, and they then told me, “The disease is gone. There is no longer any trace of it, and we don’t know why.”

Not only had the disease disappeared completely, but further tests revealed that my sight was now 11/10, better than before!

 

A visit to hell

 

How did you react to this grace received?

With a sign like this, I could not pretend that I had not heard this message from heaven. I immediately decided to dedicate my whole life to God and the afflicted. So I went to Stazione Termini, the main train station in Rome, a place filled with violent thugs, the homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes…

It was a shocking experience; it was like walking into hell. I saw one young man lying helplessly on the floor, and went to help him; his name was Angelo, and he was the first person I helped. This was the beginnings of New Horizons.

 

Were you alone in this?

It was just me and another girl at first, and we were living in a small apartment. However, our initiative was spreading so fast that we had to move to a small villa at Trigoria, on the outskirts of Rome.

We were especially attracted by the seemingly ‘impossible’ cases: drug dealers and addicts of all kinds, alcoholics, AIDS sufferers, immigrants, single-mothers, former inmates and prostitutes – practically every type of problem and deviation. We even had young people involved in Satanic sects.

When you experience something beautiful that changes your whole existence, it is only natural to want to share it with others. I had discovered that the Gospels contained the answer to my deepest longings: the desire for peace, joy, truth, freedom and love. However, we never try to convert anyone, we just simply point out the Gospel and an alternative life-style.

 

Thirst for God

 

How did the people you approach react to you?

At first they reacted badly. It was all very complicated and I didn’t know what to do, nor what to say. However, I soon realised that these people were all unconsciously looking for God. It is a bit like walking along the desert with a tank full of water and being surrounded by thirsty people. You do not need to say much, all you have to do is just be there, and they will come to you.

So these people just came to me and started telling me their life stories, as though we were old friends. At a certain point they all began asking me the same question: “Why do you do this? Why do you put your own life at risk to help people like us?” They asked this because in this ministry it is possible to meet unpredictable people who could even be capable of stabbing you for no reason at all.

 

And were you actually able to quench their thirst?

I started talking to these people. I told them about my own life, and from them I learned that they saw Christianity as a boring religion, full of rules and prohibitions. They had never sensed the joyous essence of our Faith, and when I pointed this out they started saying to me, “Take me away from here. I want to meet this Jesus who was able to turn you own life around.”

So I just followed my own instincts. Without thinking about it, I said to myself, “If Jesus was able to change the course of the whole of human history, he must surely be able to change the course of our own petty lives.” So my message was that it is not important to believe or not, the important thing was to ‘give Jesus a chance’, and the enthusiasm with which they welcomed my message took me by surprise. With absolute candour they told me, “Well, we’ve tried everything, why not give this Jesus a try too!”

 

Credible witnesses

 

And was this the beginning of a permanent change for these people or just a spur of the moment decision?

I have never allowed myself to get carried away by my own enthusiasm. In all this, I have always maintained a certain detachment. Some of these youngsters had been under therapy for years without success, but their new experience with me had awakened in them energies they never knew they had.

Another extraordinary thing was that some of these people, after being healed, wanted to return back to the streets to help their former companions. They wanted to say to them, “I was dead like you, but now, thanks to God’s love, I am born again.”

In other words, the very same people who formerly led lives of decadence were now the best at spreading Gospel values. These people are actually the most credible in this type of ministry because they do not work out of an ideology but through their own experience.

 

Your ministry started in 1991. Where is your movement after more than 20 years?

I do not consider it my movement at all, but Jesus’. Today New Horizons can count on the availability of over 30,000 people, and on an even greater number of friends and supporters in Italy and abroad. We have 174 houses where we offer hospitality, formation for evangelisation and centres for listening and spirituality; we have 152 service teams who operate in places where young people gather, like schools, streets, plazas, beaches; these teams also organise shows, meetings and round tables. In this way we manage to send our message out to about 2 million people a year.

In 2006 our movement established the Knights of Light, people who decide to commit their whole lives to Jesus and who then go out into the world to witness the joy of their union with Him. There are already 250,000 of these knights in the world.

We are also setting up centres called Heavenly Citadels. These houses not only offer hospitality to people facing a range of problems, but also formation for those who subsequently wish to set up new centres.

 

Moral relativism

 

On the basis of your own experience, what are the greatest dangers threatening young people today?

At first I thought it was drugs; but gradually I became aware of even greater dangers. These are: hedonism, consumerism and moral relativism. This last plague is the worst. Up until a few years ago, people had at least a certain awareness of the difference between right and wrong, but today all is relative – everything is allowed. In this way people are tempted to lead lives that run counter to their own conscience, in this way generating a deep malaise within the soul.

Another terrible plague is sex-addiction. This problem is not discussed much because most people regard hyper-sexuality and even sexual deviation as normal. However, this obsession with sexuality is generating enormous psychological problems, not to mention an increase in prostitution and abortion. The World Health Organisation a few years ago estimated that every year 54 million abortions take place.

The right to abortion is publicized as a great achievement for women, but if one looks deeper at women who have gone through with abortions, one finds that many of them have a legacy of depression and grief.

The use of cocaine amongst youngsters is alarmingly high, and many have problems with anorexia and bulimia nervosa, depression and solitude.

 

Divine Providence

 

How do you find the strength to keep all these initiatives organised and going?

Through constant prayer. I am keenly aware that without God’s help, which I receive through prayer, my strength would be sorely inadequate. I am reassured by the fact that nothing is impossible for God, and that love works miracles because God is love. I could sign this last sentence with my own blood because this is my daily experience.

 

How do you find the money to fund all of these initiatives?

Every day I have financial difficulties to resolve, and every day I receive renewed proof of God’s Divine Providence.

For instance, I once had to pay a €583,00 bill, and we simply didn’t know where to find this money. So I took the bill to church and said to Jesus: “Please solve this for me, dear Lord.” On that very same day, a lady I had never seen before approached me and asked me if she could make an offering. She took out her purse and placed a certain sum of money in an envelope. No one besides me knew the amount on that bill. When I counted the money you can imagine my surprise when I counted exactly €583,00. Yes, God’s providence is real!