Home2017JulyMarco Tecilla, the First Focolarino

Marco Tecilla, the First Focolarino

His Trust and Hope in the Next Generations

Marco Tecilla passed away on May 8, 2017 at the age of 91. He was the first man to choose the Focolare way of life in 1948. Up until then, there were only young women following Chiara Lubich in her new style of consecrated life. It was the end of 1945 in Trent, Italy, and the Second World War had just ended. Marco was 19 years old and going through a very deep spiritual crisis. A friend of his who belonged to a community of Men Religious had invited him to a meeting. A young woman, a little older than himself, “spoke about God with such fervour and conviction that there wasn’t any room for doubts,” he later recalled. That young woman was Chiara Lubich who, with a group of girls like her, had chosen God as their ideal in life. In no time, Marco was the first young man to follow her. He became the first focolarino.

The Tecilla family was a simple one. His father was a baker, his mother a nurse, and Marco had one sister and three brothers. During the Great Depression of 1929, his father lost his job. “I remember how he covered himself with a mantle in the cold winter months,” Marco recounts, “and my accompanying him from one bread bakery to the next, knocking on doors and asking for work, or a basket of bread to feed the family. I later discovered that as he held on to my hand, with the other hand he was praying the beads of his Rosary.”

Then in January 1943 his father died. War broke out and the bombardments began on Trent. The Tecilla family fled to the mountains. Marco avoided the call to arms by signing up for civil service. Meanwhile, he was hired as a train operator for the Trento- Malè Railway.

An encounter with God-Love

His sister, Maria, made new friends and began to attend a lot of spiritual retreats, and to collect clothing for the poor. The family – and Marco himself– thought she was “overdoing it” – until he received that invitation from the friend who belonged to the Men’s Religious community and Marco himself came to encounter God-Love. From the moment he met Chiara and the first group of young girls, he would go often to do odd jobs or maintenance at the “little house” in Cappuccini square, where the Focolarinas lived.

He was drawn by the supernatural atmosphere that he found in that place. “One evening,” he recalls, “I had to work a little longer than usual, to complete some repair work. Chiara was doing some sewing, at a table nearby.

Without warning she turned in my direction and said: “If Jesus were to come today, he would be Jesus 24 hours a day, whether working, praying, eating, or resting . . . in today’s world he’d be an electrician like you . . .” Marco was quite struck by “this new vision of the Christian life. I saw a new horizon opening up before me, overflowing with light. When I left the “little house” that evening, the sky was all dotted with stars. A new life began for me and I had to turn the page and abandon myself to the arms of the God who had manifested himself to me as LOVE.” Marco felt that Jesus was was calling out to him: If you want to be perfect, go and sell what you have and give it to the poor; then, come and follow me. Following Jesus, that was my path.”

A trail of light

On the evening of November 27, 1948 the first men’s focolare began with Marco and Livio who had also joined the group. Marco never imagined that in the years to come the nascent Movement would spread quickly all over the world and he would be moving to many cities in Italy and abroad.

In 1953 he was asked to go to Innsbruck, Austria, in 1958 to Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Chile; in 1960 to Trieste, Italy, and after that, beyond the Iron Curtain in Zagreb. On November 22, 1964, Marco was ordained to the priesthood and returned to Brazil until 1967, to go back again until 1971. Then he was transferred to southern Italy and Milan, to Padua and finally back to Trent after 31 years away.

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That is when he found the land for the new Mariapolis Center in Cadine and took part in the project that Chiara Lubich launched in 2001: Trento Ardente. At the end of that year, Chiara wanted him to move to the center of the Movement in Rocca di Papa in Rome, where he would live out the last years of his life.

“He was joyful when he came to Loppiano from the center in Rome, to give lessons on the Spirituality of Unity to those youths undergoing their formation there,” recalls Redi Mghenzani who lived with Marco for 20 years, “ [He showed special care and attention] when it came to the new generations of men and women focolarinos/as. He leaves us a trail of light that will never be extinguished.”

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Trust in the next generations

Marco during his Philippine visit in Mariapolis Peace, Tagaytay in July 2010.
Marco during his Philippine visit in Mariapolis Peace, Tagaytay in July 2010.

“Marco sowed love in many parts of the world,” recalls focolarino Armando Droghetti, who was with Marco in the final years of his life,” that love which allowed unity to be born among people from all social and cultural backgrounds, as many of the numberless visitors from this past month have said; especially from last year when a series of small strokes affected him in different ways. But as Marco’s health deteriorated (his voice became weaker and weaker, he was somehow unable to move his legs), the situation motivated all of us, starting with Marco himself, to increase our mutual love.

Based on this spiritual life and an ever more intense unity in our focolare, even the unexpected crisis of May 8th didn’t catch Marco or us off guard. During a brief upturn in his condition he would remark with great certainty: “I only need to be purified.”

Marco in the residence of the late King Celdran during his Philippine visit
Marco in the residence of the late King Celdran during his Philippine visit

He would welcome the doctor with those shining eyes that seemed to envelop everyone in love. This was also the impression of many who went to say their final goodbye. They said that beyond a sense of orphanhood because of his departure, their conviction of what Marco had prepared them for by saying “I’m nothing and God is everything. Only in Him do we live” – was even stronger.

Focolare president, Maria Voce, highlighted how “Marco had that mark of radicalness of the early times of the Movement, combined with his strength and faith in the charism of unity, and the purity of his Gospel life.”

Marco in Terra Moy, Mariapolis Peace, Tagaytay.
Marco in Terra Moy, Mariapolis Peace, Tagaytay.

In an interview released back on March 31, 2008, a few days after Chiara Lubich’s death, Marco had affirmed: “As long as I have a bit of breath left, my wish is to be able to give my all to the new generations. I’m sure that whoever comes after us will do greater things than we did, precisely because of the riches transmitted by the charism of unity, which will never ever die.”

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