In this interview with Focolare President Margaret Karram, she presents the focus of the Movement in 2025 – a closeness that is lived with determination and with respect.

Margaret, why did you choose closeness as the theme of the year for the Focolare Movement?

I was wondering what kind of world we live in. And it seems to me that at this moment in history there is so much loneliness and so much indifference. And then there is an escalation of violence, of wars that are causing so much pain around the world. I’ve also been thinking about technology, which has connected us in ways we’ve never known before, but at the same time makes us more and more individualistic. In a world like this, I think closeness can be an antidote; an aid to overcoming these obstacles and curing these “ills” that keep us distant from one another.

Where can we begin?

I have been asking myself this question for months. I think that we need to re-learn how to approach people, to re-learn how to see and treat everyone as brothers and sisters. I felt that the first thing I had to do was an examination of conscience regarding my own attitude. Are the people I meet every day brothers, sisters to me? Or am I indifferent to them or even consider them enemies? I asked myself many questions. I realized that sometimes I want to avoid people because they might disturb me, annoy me, or tell me difficult things. Because of all this, I have titled the reflection on closeness, which I presented to the leaders of the Focolare Movement in mid-November, “Who are you to me?”

Could you tell us some of the main ideas you developed under this title?

With pleasure. I mentioned four thoughts. First, closeness that our soul experiences is that which it feels when it is in contact with God. It is He who expresses Himself to our neighbor through us. The desire to love the other is a movement that starts from God in me and seeks God in the other.

A second thought: Closeness is dynamic. It requires total openness, that is, welcoming people without reservation; entering into their way of seeing things. We are not mass-produced! Each of us is unique, with a different character, mindset, culture, life and history. Recognizing and respecting this requires stepping out of our mental and personal schemes.

You were talking about a third aspect…

Yes. The third aspect that I would like to emphasize is that closeness does not necessarily mean proximity, similarity, belonging to the same cultural perspective. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37) expresses this very well. I was struck by the attitude of the Samaritan: The man who had fallen among the robbers was a person unknown to him, he was even from another people, a person who was distant both in culture and tradition. Yet the Samaritan made himself a neighbor. This is the key point for me. Everyone has his own dignity; beyond the people and culture he comes from, or his character. The Samaritan did not come near just to see if this person was injured and then move away or, perhaps, call for help. He made himself a neighbor and took care of the person. The fourth aspect …

… would be …

… to allow ourselves to be wounded. For closeness to be fruitful, each of us must not be afraid to let ourselves be wounded by the other.

And that means: allowing ourselves to be challenged, exposing ourselves to questions to which we have no answers; being willing to show ourselves vulnerable; presenting ourselves as perhaps weak and incapable. The effect of such an attitude can be surprising. Just think that a nine-year-old boy wrote me saying that for him closeness means “lifting up the other person’s heart.” Is this not a wonderful effect of closeness? Lifting up the heart of the other.

What would change within the Focolare Movement if we lived closeness well?

If we really live it well, so many things will change. I wish, hope and pray that this will be the case. But I would also like to point out that so many in the Focolare Movement are already living this. There are so many initiatives, so many projects for peace and for the poor. We have even opened focolares to help and welcome immigrants or to care for nature.

And what should change?

The quality of relationships between people. Sometimes it is easier to be good to people outside the Movement and more difficult among us who are part of the same family. We risk living relations of “good manners” with each other: We do not harm each other, but, I wonder, is this an authentic relationship?

So, regardless of the projects, I hope that closeness will become a daily way of life; that we ask ourselves several times a day: Am I living this closeness? How am I living it? One important expression of closeness is forgiveness. Being merciful to others – and to ourselves.

What message does it contain for society?

Closeness is not only a religious or spiritual attitude, but also a civil and social one. It is possible to live it in any field. In education, for example, or in medicine, even in politics, where it is perhaps more difficult. If we live it well, we can have a positive influence on relationships wherever we are.

And for the Church?

The Church exists because with the coming of Jesus, God became a neighbor. So, the Church, the Churches, are called to bear witness to a lived closeness. Recently, the Catholic Church lived through the Synod. I was able to participate in the two sessions in the Vatican. We were more than 300 people, each from a different culture. What did we do? An exercise in synodality, an exercise in listening, in getting to know each other deeply, in welcoming each other’s thinking, challenges and pains. These are all features of closeness.

The title of the Synod was “Walking Together.” This walk involved so many people around the world. The logo of the Synod expressed the desire to widen the tent of the Church so that no one would feel excluded. It seems to me that this is the true sense of closeness, that no one is excluded; that everyone feels welcome, whether they come to Church, do not identify with it, or have even left it for various reasons.

I would like to talk for a moment about the limits of closeness. How do you live it well?

This is an important question. Are there limits to closeness? As a first answer, I would say that there should be no limits.

However…

We cannot be sure that what is closeness and solidarity for us or for me is the same for the other. And in a relationship, there can never be a lack of respect for the freedom and the conscience of the other. These two things are essential in every relationship. That is why it is important that when we approach a person, it is always done delicately and not as something imposed. It is the other person who decides how much and what kind of closeness he or she wants.

There is something to learn here, isn’t there?

Absolutely. We have made a lot of mistakes. Thinking we loved the other person, we hurt them. In our zeal to share our spirituality, we have created relationships in which the other person has not always felt free. Sometimes it seems to me that with the good intention of loving a person, we crushed them. We did not have enough sensitivity and respect for the conscience, the freedom, the time of the other. And this has led to certain forms of paternalism and even abuse.

Certainly, we are facing a very painful situation in which the victims have a unique, truly unique importance. Because on our own, we cannot sufficiently understand what has happened. It is the victims who will help us to understand the mistakes we have made and to take the necessary steps so that these things will never happen again.

A concluding wish?

I hope that this theme can bring us back to the essence of what Jesus himself gave us in the Gospel. He gave us so many examples of what it means to live closeness.

As I reflected on this theme, a thought of Chiara Lubich resonated very strongly with me. She says: “There are those who do things ‘out of love,’ there are those who do things in an attempt ‘to be Love.’ Love establishes us in God, and God is Love. But the Love that is God, is light, and with light, we can see if our way of approaching and serving our brother is in accordance with the Heart of God, as our brother would desire, as he would dream if he had not us but Jesus beside him.

Peter Forst

(Neue Stadt, Germany)

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Margaret Karram was born in 1962. She has been president of the Focolare Movement since 2021. She is an Arab Catholic, originally from Haifa (Israel). She studied Judaism at the Jewish University of Los Angeles (USA). She served in various commissions that promote dialogue between Christianity, Judaism and Islam. She speaks Arabic, Hebrew, Italian and English. In 2013, together with the Jewish researcher Yisca Harani, she received the “Mount Zion Award” for her commitment to dialogue between cultures and religions.