{"id":249074,"date":"2025-11-11T15:40:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T14:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/grazie-phra-mahathongrattana-thavorn-luce-ardente\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T17:53:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T16:53:19","slug":"grazie-phra-mahathongrattana-thavorn-luce-ardente","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/ultime-notizie\/grazie-phra-mahathongrattana-thavorn-luce-ardente\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank you Phra Mahathograttana Thavorn (Luce Ardente)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chiara Lubich with the Buddhist monk Phra-Maha Thongratana (Ardent Light) at the Focolare Movement’s Centre in Bangkok, Thailand, 1997.<\/em><\/p>\n

Phra Mahathongrattana Thavorn, the Buddhist monk “Luce Ardente”<\/strong> who met the ideal of unity in 1995, concluded his earthly journey on 10 November 2025.\u00a0 He considered Chiara Lubich as a spiritual mother, so much so that that he expressed the wish to be buried in Loppiano (the Focolare Movement’s little town in Tuscany), “near his mother in Italy”.<\/p>\n

He himself explains why he is known within the Focolare Movement as “Luce Ardente” (Ardent Light):<\/p>\n

“I had a dream the night before meeting Mamma Chiara<\/em> [as he called her, ed.]. I had asked her for a new name, as many Focolarini did. In the dream, she had taken a piece of paper and written two names; I had to choose one, and that’s how it went. I chose Luce Ardente<\/em> because Buddhism speaks a lot about Light. And I saw the light in Chiara’s face; I’ve always seen it. She is a saint; otherwise, how would she have had so many disciples all over the world? Chiara didn’t carry people behind her, but behind her great Ideal.”<\/p>\n

Luce Ardente<\/em> was an instrument of light, consolation, and hope, working tirelessly for universal brotherhood. When a monk asked him why he followed a Christian woman, he replied: “I don’t follow a woman, but her ideal of universal brotherhood. She doesn’t just belong to Christians; she belongs to us too.”<\/p>\n

During a conversation with student monks at Manachulalongkorn Buddhist University, Chiara also recognized the value of this relationship with Buddhism, through the people she met: “I realized that Buddhism has immense riches. For example, this desire to live, to make known … the need to diminish pain and to always live detached from everything, is a wonderful thing. For example, the love of meditation. I recognized in those two [referring to Luce Ardente<\/em> and the Grand Master present at the conversation, ed.] truly superior people, with great inner richness, from whom we can all learn” (Chiang Mai, 1997).<\/p>\n

Editorial Team<\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 CSC Marcello Casubolo<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phra Mahathongrattana Thavorn, the Buddhist monk “Luce Ardente” who met the ideal of unity in 1995, concluded his earthly journey on 10 November 2025.Phra Mahathongrattana Thavorn, the Buddhist monk “Luce Ardente” who met the ideal of unity in 1995, concluded his earthly journey on 10 November 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":249070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1321],"tags":[1982],"tag_documenti":[],"tag_documenti_traduzioni":[],"class_list":["post-249074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ultime-notizie","tag-dialogo-interreligioso"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249074"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249102,"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249074\/revisions\/249102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249074"},{"taxonomy":"tag_documenti","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tag_documenti?post=249074"},{"taxonomy":"tag_documenti_traduzioni","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiaralubich.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tag_documenti_traduzioni?post=249074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}