Gen Movement

Youth at the world meeting of the Gen Movement, known as Genfest

The Gen Movement (New Generation) is the youth sprout of the Focolare Movement. Born in the midst of the global youth movement of the 1960s, today is present in more than 100 nations. Based upon the ideals of unity and universal brother/sisterhood grounded in the Golden Rule, it was founded by Chiara Lubich unofficially on March 15, 1967, with the publication of the homonymous magazine "Gen". Started as a Roman Catholic lay movement, it remains largely Roman Catholic in membership but has strong links and member of many major Christian denominations, other religions and non-religious people.

Beginnings

Further information: Protests of 1968

Following the first 20 years of the Focolare Movement, in 1963, many of the first adherents have become adults (Chiara herself was 43) and many have had children in the meantime. A two-fold gap both in the number of adherents between age 15 to 30 compared to the rest and the great differences between the pre-war generation and the post-war generation made many youngster to search for how to live the Ideal as Youth. Between 1963 and 1967 many of the "intermediate age" started to build actions together, reaching to Chiara that closely followed their work, and in the awekening of 1968 in Italy, the irrequietude was set to create something new, not a new branch parallel as those that the movement was thinking in the Post-Vatican II years, but a horizontal one.

The term the youth choose to call to identify themselves was "Gen", an abbbreviation of "new GENeration", being the second generation of the Focolare Movement. Simple and well defined it was chosen to encapsulate that they brought something new, "revolutionary" as the whole youth was claiming in that moment. Chiara Lubich founded the Gen Movement to live the Ideal proposed by Lubich as youngsters; she opened the first edition of the magazine writing:

«Dear friends, let me introduce myself, I am GEN, a tiny magazine that is coming out for the first time. I tell you the truth, if I didn't know how much you understanding, I would feel trembling with shyness. In fact, I am taking my first steps, or rather, my first step. My name means "New Generation". I was put together by an editorial staff composed of some boys and girls who already know what I want to express through my words, my drawings, my photos. If I am tiny in size and perhaps inadequate even to call myself a magazine, I have the impression that I have a big task. Let me explain. In these times – as you know – the duty to work for peace is insisted upon everywhere. Why? Because men, on various occasions, are unable to reach an agreement. They have so many problems and do not want to give in and so a terrible war could break out at any moment. Well, I think that we do not generally have all these difficulties. For us, working and studying with French, German, African, Italians, Chinese, Australian, Indian and so on youngsters enriches our personality with many positive contributions that people of different civilizations, cultures and races can bring. So, if we happen to be rich, we don't find it strange to play with the poor and vice versa. Of course, all this if we have not been contaminated by the mentality of an old society that still wants the world disunited, while all men are brothers, because they are children of God, and the sister nations and humanity are one big family. Here then is the task of GEN, your newspaper: to gather the greatest number of youngsters in the world and launch a great revolution shouting "let's unite". After all, tomorrow's world will be on our shoulders and we are responsible for it already now. Let's work to create it as we like. In this way we will be able to give our contribution also to today's society. After all, I, GEN, know that I do not speak to a few. In more than a hundred nations I will have collaborators who will give me a hand and will translate my articles into other languages. I have faith in my mission and I am sure that you will share it.»

The Gen Movement grew very fast in the midst of protests and clashes, especially thanks to its message of a revolution different from the authoritarian, anarchist or communist ones. The foundress of the Focolare Movement worked closely with the newborn movement during the 1968 protests, in orer to unite the youngster that orbitated around the Ideal but calling for a revolution as their peers, but at the same time pass the "baton" that the 23-years-old Lubich had chosen as life call: "That all may be One". From the adherence of thousands of youngster worldwide this program became fully alive, the new generation of the Focolari Movement, the Gen Movement.

Thought

Based on the same ideal of the Focolare Movement, Chiara Lubich proposed for the Gen Movement a singular (in form, not in substance) vision of God's Love, realizable as a way of live trought the so-called "Rainbow Revolution":

[…] just as light splits into seven colours, those of the rainbow, but red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet are always light, so love is always love […]

Chiara gave the Gen Movement a simple representation to simbolise the application of Love to different aspects of daily lives. All colours were proposed to be lived in the personal sphere, but with the communitarian perspective that characterise Chiara's Ideal at group level, often it's used to try to live one colour for some time and be responsible for it (especially with groups, called "gen unities"). Hereafter their description:

• Red: the communion of goods and experiences, economy and work;
• Orange: dissemination of the spirituality of Unity;
• Yellow: relationship with God (or with the trascendent) and spiritual life;
• Green: physical health, nature and ecology;
• Blue: art, order and harmony;
• Indigo: study and search for wisdom;
• Violet: communication and mass media.

By side of these 7 colours, an 8th has been added, black, that is about the difficulties in the socio-political landscape. In the gen unities it is normal also to find a white, that is the gen who works for the cohesion of the group as pivot.

For youngsters the possibility of living these colours on worldwide communities has been opened after the 2018 Genfest in the Philippines, where many youngsters united to bring forth projects known as"Pathways for a United World". In the last months of 2024 new teams made on theme and not projects are set to start, 8 "CommUnity" (es. Economy&Work, Education&Research, Dialogue&Interculture, ...).