Roberto Almada on Optimism, Hope, Faith and Joy

Optimism and Hope, Faith and Joy
Focolare's Co-President Roberto Almada talks with Victor Perton

Introduction by Victor Perton 

This year, I have been working with a multi-faith peace roundtable as it prepares its own submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, and as we think together about practical peacebuilding.  Among the most intriguing people around the table have been members of the Focolare Movement, a global Catholic movement founded by Chiara Lubich and dedicated to unity, love, dialogue and fraternity across communities, cultures and faiths. As I studied what they stood for, read the Pope’s remarks at their annual gathering, and learned more about their commitment to building relationships across differences, one comment in particular caught my attention.

The newly elected Co-President of the Focolare Movement, Roberto Almada, was asked about his strength.  Roberto answered: “My strength? I would say it is linked to this motto: I manage to remain calm in moments of crisis. I have a kind of ‘tragic optimism’.”

That phrase immediately resonated with me. Viktor Frankl’s idea of tragic optimism has long mattered in my own work on optimism: the capacity to find meaning, responsibility and possibility even in the face of suffering, guilt and death.

So I asked Roberto Almada my favourite question: “What makes you optimistic?”  His answer is deep, rich and generous. In this conversation, he reflects on optimism, hope, faith, serene joy, humour, the influence of Viktor Frankl, the spirituality of Chiara Lubich, the Focolare commitment to relationships, and the role of optimism in peacebuilding. At a time when the world needs more bridge-builders, Roberto Almada offers a deeply human vision of optimism grounded in love, meaning, service and unity.

The Conversation

Victor Perton: Roberto, what makes you optimistic?

Roberto Almada: "I believe we can call ourselves optimists when, through experience and conviction, we find a deep connection even in situations that are sad or painful. As we live through them, we may notice that at a certain point, a turning point occurs: we find meaning, and through that meaning, we reach a certain joy.

"At that turning point, we find meaning and, through it, arrive at a certain joy. I am not speaking of a superficial joy, but of a “serene” joy. This is also connected with humour. I think humour, especially when we are able to laugh at ourselves, helps us understand that within our limits and our defects, there are things that are endearing, and that they can also reveal the positive side of a matter that would normally be negative.

"In addition, faith makes me think of an evolution of people, of humanity, of the cosmos; an increasingly positive evolution toward what we Christians call the realisation of the total Christ in every reality, in every person, in every being. This is the theory of the famous Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin, who developed a finalist form of evolutionism. That means that, unlike Darwin, Teilhard de Chardin’s evolutionism looks rather to the final model, which would be Jesus. Among the first Focolarini there was Piero Pasolini, an Italian who was a great scholar of Teilhard, and when we were young we read his books. I remember the title of one of them: “The best is always yet to come, the future is better than any past.” This conviction means that we look at humanity, our own life and the lives of others as always becoming, as a process. Jesus would say to us: always “giving birth”; a birth that gives life to something better than what is being lived now."

VP: What is the relationship between faith and optimism in life and work?

Roberto Almada: "Especially in the area of work, Chiara Lubich, our founder, taught us that in reality we never work alone. Normally we try to work as a team, and this is very beautiful. Then we know that God is always at our side, and Chiara taught us this because she did everything with God beside her. This makes work feel less heavy and allows us to experience a kind of relief. Viktor Frankl said: “In everything we do, the intention is ours, but the effect is God’s.” This idea that we are not totally responsible for the effect, although we are responsible for the commitment we put into doing what we must do, allows us to be more optimistic about what we do. If I thought I could do things for the good of everyone, even beautiful or great things, only with my own qualities, abilities and possibilities, I would have some doubts. But if I think that I am doing it with God, and if I think that 99 per cent of the effectiveness depends on Him, then I move with more freedom, more lightness and more optimism."

VP: How do you see the relationship between hope and optimism?

Roberto Almada: "I think optimism without hope is something very “poor”. It would be a kind of positive psychology, we could say, although it would remain within the realm of spiritual psychology, as if it were a recipe for living in personal wellbeing, which is still a good thing. But hope opens optimism. I think hope opens optimism to a fulfilment that goes beyond what we can imagine. And this is precisely what belongs to hope."

VP:  What does “tragic optimism” mean to you in practice?

Roberto Almada:  "Tragic optimism means drawing the best from tragedy. Viktor Frankl used the idea to describe the human capacity to find meaning even in three unavoidable experiences: guilt, suffering and death. No one lives without making mistakes, no one lives without suffering, and no one can avoid death.

"So what is tragic optimism? What is the best that can be drawn from guilt? It is the capacity to recognise ourselves as limited, to change, and therefore to improve. The capacity to improve in relation to our mistakes is what we can call “the optimism of guilt”.

"Then there is “the optimism of suffering”, which is the capacity to offer what we suffer for others. Certainly, those who work for the Focolare Movement, trying to improve it, sometimes have to commit themselves, which involves choices such as devoting less time to their personal lives. And this causes suffering.

"Then there is death. Chiara Luce Badano was a young woman who was part of our movement and who died in 1990; she was very young and left us because of an aggressive illness. The Catholic Church has now proclaimed her “Blessed”. She used to say: “We have only one life.” This tells us that every moment is important and that we must live well the only life we have. This thought leads us to give our best, but it starts with the idea of death.  That is what tragic optimism is: drawing the best from guilt, suffering, and death.

"For Viktor Frankl, a sick person’s capacity to improve depends in part on their inner spiritual dimension, which is not reducible to the illness. According to Frankl, this spiritual core remains a source of strength even when the body or mind is suffering. It can support healing, or at least help improve the patient’s situation. This is what the great psychiatrist and philosopher called the “psychiatric credo”. Frankl used this phrase to explain why he had become a psychiatrist: to serve the spiritual being of every person, which he understood as a resource, a resilience that is always present."

Victor Perton: You have said that you first encountered the Focolare Movement in 1976 at a Mariapolis, one of the Movement’s community gatherings. You were struck by seeing a community organised around love, even in simple things. What did that moment teach you about optimism, unity and the common good?

Roberto Almada: "At that time, I was living through a tragic moment. I was an adolescent and studying Medicine, but with a great sense of disappointment and failure regarding my political and social convictions. For this reason, the Mariapolis appeared to me as a small sketch of society, as you say, a community organised in love, and this made me understand that not everything was lost. There I learned that, beyond the things that are going badly in the country, perhaps a window or a door opens and you discover that, in a certain space of time and in a certain organisation, things perhaps are going well. There are small organisations that work and make us think that the whole social organism could work well. And, as you say, this strengthened me and made me optimistic."

Victor Perton: Roberto, you have worked with families, young people, priests, educators, migrants, and communities, often on themes of burnout, mission, and rediscovering meaning. What have these experiences taught you about how optimism strengthens resilience?

Roberto Almada: "I think that optimism opens us to the search for meaning and takes us out of ourselves so that we can be with the person we need to be with in that moment, or do the work we need to do now; if we open ourselves to meaning, to life, then God, through circumstances, gives us back a sense of satisfaction, I would say a particular joy.  Even if we have the impression that we have done little, a sense of satisfaction is born within us that we have done the right thing. This strengthens resilience because, in joy, serenity, and peace, one can continue to live, step by step. In general, during burnout, a person enters a severe crisis, and someone who works for others comes to understand their own limits. What does this mean? That they should no longer do anything? No. It means they must resize what they are doing.

"Look, perhaps what we can do is small, it is limited. But that is not the point. The point is this: if in that small space where we are, we manage to truly be there, with responsibility, with attention, doing things well, then we have done our part, and this brings continuity in resilience. It is not necessary to have an enormous impact or to reach everywhere. Sometimes it is precisely in the small things, in what is in front of us each day, that we can make a difference. And if we do it with commitment and awareness, that is enough. Truly."

Victor Perton:  "You have described the life of the Focolari as a service within a structure of relationships, a bridge between human life and the life of God. How does this shape your understanding of optimistic peacebuilding?"

Roberto Almada:  "Certainly, what gives our lives meaning is relationships. In our movement, we strongly believe that a relationship can be inhabited by God, not only the soul of each individual being, but also the bond between them. This is also based on the phrase from the Gospel that struck Chiara Lubich, our founder, so deeply: “Where two or three are united in my name, I am among them” (Matthew 18:20). Jesus is not only in each person, but among them; in the bond, in the relationship, in these bridges that are built between people. This gives us great happiness because transcendence helps us understand the meaning of life and gives us joy and peace.

"Therefore, work groups and other groups can be founded on true love, that is, on synergy among those who work or act together. It may be a marriage, a football team, a study group or a work group in a company. If this work group has open, sincere relationships of mutual help, we will see reality transformed, thanks to this transcendent presence in the relationship. Think of self-help groups, which have supported so many people in coming out of addiction and which are characterised by strong relationality. It is this relationality that allows emotion and honesty; it helps people understand their wounds and accept the shame of having fallen into addiction. And it is precisely this strong bond, which is constitutive of the group, that allows people to come out of it."

VP: You have walked the Camino de Santiago several times with others. What has pilgrimage taught you about optimism, companionship and going through difficulties?

Roberto Almada: "I am not an athlete, though when I was younger, I also ran marathons, which taught me to persevere in small steps. Both on the Camino de Santiago and in a marathon, there comes a moment when the body can no longer keep running or walking. And then a person continues walking through faith and through the desire to arrive. Then even this desire to arrive fades, and the heart appears, sustaining you to take small steps with perseverance. It is said that in a marathon one begins running with the legs, continues with the mind and finishes with the heart. The same is true of the Camino de Santiago: it is a preparation for the encounter with the Saint, with the apostle, and one arrives there practically exhausted. Yet, precisely because of that exhaustion, one can listen to the word of God after that pilgrimage. So both marathons and the Camino de Santiago have taught me to persevere when the body seems unable to go on."

VP: In your view, is there a link between the message of the Focolari and the writings of the English anchoress Julian of Norwich in Revelations of Divine Love? Pope Benedict XVI described her book as carrying “a message of optimism” founded on the certainty of being loved by God and protected by His Providence. Do you see a spiritual affinity between Julian of Norwich’s optimism and the Focolare Movement’s calling to unity and love?”

RA: "Yes, the message of these great saints, such as Julian of Norwich, is a message that contains optimism. 

"But in what sense? In the sense that even in hell, God continues to love. And even there, the love of God is the winning force. Even in the gravest situations, Chiara Lubich took as a motto a verse from the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri: Omnia vincit amor, love conquers all. It tells us that despite everything, despite our sins, the love of God is greater and has nothing to do with our merits, and even less with our faults. It is a source of love and mercy that never stops and cannot be stopped, that continues to flood our life with love and mercy. Therefore, these saints, such as Julian of Norwich, or the Servant of God Chiara Lubich, said: it does not matter if I go to hell, because even there the love of God will arrive. Look, this may be paradoxical, but it makes us think that we can always begin again."

VP: I also saw that during the audience with the Pope, Roberto referred to the Focolari's great love for singing. What did you sing together with the Pope, and what did that moment express about the optimistic spirit of the Focolari?

RA: "Even in the concentration camp, Viktor Frankl recounts, artistic evenings were organised; even the Nazis wanted to listen to the prisoners. There is a famous film that tells this story, and it means that song and art are an anticipation of God in our earthly life and are therefore very optimistic.

"Look, you are referring to the fact that with a group from the Movement, we were waiting for the arrival of the Holy Father, who was very late. We waited for him by singing. So, was the singing, in some way, an anticipation of the waiting? Perhaps it even helped us overcome the fear that, for some reason, he might not arrive.

"Because song is art, I consider it something God has given us here on earth as an anticipation of what it will be to contemplate Him for all eternity."

The interview has been translated from Italian to English.

Read More: 
Tragic Optimism
"All shall be Well" - The Optimism of Mother Julian
Christian Optimism