“In life and in death, I am always with you”. This is what she promised Chiara Lubich, and so it was. Natalia Dallapiccola, the first person to follow Chiara in Trent in 1943, was also the first to follow her, a few days afterwards, in Heaven on the 1st of April 2008.
Natalia Dallapiccola was born in Fornace, a little village in the Trentino mountains, on June 27 1924. She met Chiara in Trento, where she was living with her family, in June 1943. She was going through a deep crisis after the death of her father and the outbreak of war. She had to cut short her studies and work to support her family. “Little by little, music, nature, friendships lost their value. I found myself in a deep darkness, and began to believe that love does not exist on earth”.
She was struck by Chiara’s inner and outer harmony, and by the words with which she communicated her great discovery, “God is love”: “… if love is the most beautiful thing on earth, then what is God, its creator, like?”. She herself said, “I felt myself being drawn up, up into God. I saw all my past life in its joyous and painful events linked together with the golden thread of his love; and in my soul the certainty that he loved me immensely. This immense and personal love for God had turned my life upside down”.
Natalia was with Chiara in the first focolare in Trento, in piazza Cappucini. She then followed her to Rome.
In Eastern Europe – She had a key role, in 1959, in the founding of the focolare in West Berlin. She was later part of the first group to cross the Berlin wall, in 1962, together with men and women focolarini, doctors invited by the Bishop of Leipzig to work in the city’s catholic hospital, which was short staffed after the flight of health workers to the West.
Natalia sustained those who shared with her the commitment to build unity everywhere. Something puzzling that proved to be “contagious”. It was surprising to find this documented in reports written by the Stasi, the East German secret police. They speak of the “programme of the Fucolar(sic)” Movement to create “a strong religious unity despite different national opinions”. It was a current of love that passed from person to person.
Interreligious dialogue – Due to her poor health, she transferred to the Centre of the Movement in Rome in 1976. She was unable to travel to London with Chiara who, in 1977, received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Because of the surprising interest shown in the story of the Focolare founder’s spiritual experience by representatives of various religions present in the Guildhall, that event was the founding moment of the Movement’s work in interreligious dialogue.
Chiara phoned Natalia from London, entrusting this new development to her saying: “Love them all!” And that is what she did on every occasion, as when she represented Chiara at the general assemblies of the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP). She built profound relationships with leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist worlds. She was instrumental in all the developments that ensued following their encounters with Chiara.
Spiritual formation – Right from the beginning, because of the special depth with which she lived the spirituality of unity, she carried out an important task in the formation of members of the movement. Chiara had nicknamed her “Anzolon” (in Trentino dialect this means “angel”), because of the love for everyone that she always kept alive, lived in a radical way right from the start.
