Amidst the fury of war, Chiara Lubich and her first companions met each other in bomb shelters when the sirens sounded. It was their desire to be together and discover new ways of being Christian and of putting the Gospel into practice, following that startling intuition that had led them to put God-Love at the centre of their interests – he alone and nothing else – at the centre of their young lives. Chiara wrote in 2000, ‘God. God, who in the middle of the fury of war, which was the fruit of hatred, through the action of a special grace, manifested himself for what he truly is: Love. The leading concept upon which the Holy Spirit then constructed this entire spirituality was, therefore, God-Love (Cf. 1 Jn 4:8).’