The Spirituality of Unity: Mutual Love
Chiara and her companions really discovered what the Gospel was when they took it with them into the air raid shelters and read it together, before then they hadn’t really known it: no-one had ever spoken to them so clearly. Jesus always acts from God. In return for the little you give him, He showers you with gifts. You are alone and you find yourself surrounded by thousands of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and everything you need from God which then you can share with those who have nothing. This was how their faith was strengthened, it was based on experience, that no human situation or difficulty could not find explicitly or implicitly an answer in that little book which gives the words of heaven. The adherents of the growing Movement plunged themselves into living those words; they were nourished by them, re-evangelised and experienced how what Jesus said and promised was unfailingly true. The discovery of the ‘new commandment’ inflamed them to the point that mutual love became their manner, their way of being. And it was the same love that attracted many people, of every age and social class to come to their gatherings. Loving each other reciprocally was not optional for them, but their way of life that had to be shown to the world. Chiara wrote: ‘The War continued. The bombardments were relentless. There were insufficient shelters and we constantly faced the possibility of finding ourselves in front of God. All of this gave us only one desire in our hearts: to put into practise in those moments, which could have been our last, the will of God that was dearest to Him. We then remembered the commandment that Jesus said was His and new: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:12-13). ‘We said that Jesus came bringing with Him, from his homeland, his own customs and habits. ‘His’ commandment brought the law of heaven on to the earth, which is, the love between the three persons of the Holy Trinity. We looked each other in the face and each one declared; ‘”I am ready to give my life for you”. As we had to be ready to give our lives for one another, it was logical that, meanwhile, we should meet the thousands of needs that fraternal love demanded: to share joys, sufferings, our few possessions, our own spiritual experiences. We made ourselves do it so that above all else mutual love would reign amongst us. ‘One day, in the first Focolare, we took out our few and poor goods from the cupboard, and piled them in the middle of the room, so that each one of us could take the few things we needed and what was left over we gave to the poor. We were ready to put our wages in common, and all the small and large goods that we had and would have in the future. We were also ready to put in common our spiritual goods…. Our desire for holiness was held in that one choice: God, which excluded every other objective, but included, obviously, the holiness he had thought of for us. ‘Then, there were the difficulties caused by our own imperfections that each one had and with one another, so we decided not to see one another with human eyes, which only notice the speck in the other, forgetting the plank in their own, but those eyes that forgive all and forget all. We felt we had to forgive each other, imitating merciful God, so we made between us a sort of pact of mercy: that is to get up each morning and see one another as ‘new’, as if those ‘defects’ never existed.
“The Word of God continues to spread and flourish” (cf Acts 12: 24). This is the sentence of the Acts of the Apostles that has been chosen as the theme for this year’s international gathering, the first promised by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, which was recently instituted with the entitled: “New Evangelizers for the New Evangelization” on the 15 and 16 October in the Vatican. Work began on the morning of 15 October with a report from the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, and an ample discussion between various directors of various ecclesial associations which promote the New Evangelization. In the afternoon, following some speeches, there was a concert with Andrea Bocelli. There were two moments with Benedict XVI: in the afternoon, and with the Eucharistic celebration at the conclusion, on the morning of 16 October. How can the New Evangelization lead people to truly ask about the presence of God in their life and in human history? This question was posed by the Religious Information Service (SIR) during an interview with Msgr. Fisichella. The Archbishop responded by saying: “The content of the New Evangelization is always the same and never changes. The New Evangelization does nothing else but to retrace the long journey from the days of the Apostles to our own day, through which men and women of good will and disciples of the Lord have striven to proclaim his Word as the Gospel that saves. What can be modified, obviously, is the language, the enthusiasm, a renewed sense by the Christian community of being itself an evangelizer.” 
The Focolare was also at the meeting, with a delegation for its international headquarters. “The Word of God,” in fact, is the point of the spirituality of Chiara Lubich which the entire Movement will be reflecting upon and living during the coming year, until the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization next year. This was the main topic of the meeting which ended last week, for 
Almost paradoxically, in a world that is always more global and in communication, there is an increase of the sense of being left out and of areas of solitude, with definitive negative consequences both at the individual and collective level, so much so that OMS has forcast that in 2030 depression in youths could become the second absolute cause of death. Yet, there is an increasing perception in all directions – as documented in the intervention prepared by the International Commission of Education for Unity – of the “need for community”(according to the expression of Z. Bauman), and starting from this radical need, one recognises the necessity to “form the man- in relationship” the key idea of Chiara Lubich in the Education area. It was underlined by her in the lectio on the occasion of the degree “honoris causa” in pedagogy (USA, 2000), and now referred to with vigour in this 5th pedagological meeting of EdU. An engaging and fascinating gamble that has involved the 270 partecipants (university professors, teachers, parents, students), together with many that have followed direct through internet, from Sicily, Albania, Malta, Slovenia right up to Colombia and other extra european countries. There were not only reflections on the essentiality of weaving autentic relationships as the foundation of the authentic community, but also the possibility of experiencing them in the entwining of the various moments of dialogue and the exchange-presentations of educational experiences. They dealt, in order to remain coherent with the theme of the meeting, with the not easy construction of the reality of community in various contexts-involving families, schools, the institutions present in the territory-beginning with the intradependence of persons capable of weaving relationships and alliances, inverting in that way the temptation to be individualistic, and injecting doses of hope, an indispensable element of any educational project. The intervention of prof. Domenico Bellantoni (Pontificia Universita` Salesiana, Rome) was very stimulating to delve into the meaning of relationship in the communitarian context. He took part for the whole day, and in particular, starting from the logotherapy of Vicktor Frankl, he delved into the idea of person-autotranscendence, open therefore to relationship and responsibility. Other interventions that will soon be available on Education for Unity website (
As usual, the meeting began with three days of spiritual retreat, focused on the Word of God, one of the points of Chiara Lubich’s spirituality which will characterize the life of the Movement’s members during the coming year. They also reflected on the New Evangelization, in view of the 2012 Synod of Bishops which will be held between 7 and 28 October. Topics were examined in the light of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini of Benedict XVI and in the wake of the 
New Evangelisation. Chiara Lubich had spoken on this to a group of Bishops, taking her cue from something Pope John Paul II said regarding the Movements as being particularly suited for bringing the New Evangelisation ahead. This evangelisation is called “new” because of the new zeal, new method and new expressions it will involve. The first proclamation should be: God loves you. The New Evangelisation must create mature Christian communities. While taking embracing the entire Gospel, the word that must be underscored is: love. This means incarnating the new commandment of Jesus “in an ever more radical and authentic way.” The world is present. Each geographical zone had an opportunity to share the situation in which Focolare members live in various regions of the world. Particular attention was given to the Middle East, through a sharing on the experience of dialogue of the focolarini of these lands, a dialogue which grew precisely out of the need to find together a way of facing the new challenges of that troubled land, in which dialogue between diverse cultures seems to be blocked by insurmountable barriers. Vincenzo Buonomo, professor of International Law, then offered an in-depth look at the Middle East situation and the development of the Arab world. Then there was the African continent. The focolarini who live there presented the religious and socio-cultural history of the continent, describing each stage of the spreading of the spirituality of unity in Sub-Saharan Africa. 
Young people and Adults. One of the characteristics of this meeting was the presence of the youth, who helped to enrich the programme at various moments: on the afternoon dedicated to the 
At the time that Chiara and her first companions began their adventure in Trent (Northern Italy) the town had a population of about ten thousand. The girls’ actions had a real effect on the people and also on the Church. Both the elderly and the young were left speechless seeing the unusual life lived by the girls living in the ‘little house’ in Piazza Cappuccini, the first ‘focolare’. In this humble apartment the poor were at home. In fact the social problems of the city, ruined by the War, were problems the girls made their own. They believed that they could solve the problems by simply believing the truth in the words of the Gospel. By loving each neighbour one after the other. Chiara wrote: ‘Among all the Words in the gospel we noticed immediately all those for our charism concerned specifically with evangelical love towards each neighbour, not only the poor, as when we read in the Gospel that Jesus had said “Whenever you did this for one of the least important of these brothers of mine (and that means everyone), you did it for me.” (Mt 25,40). Our old way of understanding our neighbour and loving them crumbled. If Christ was in some way in everyone, discriminations couldn’t be made, nor could preferences. Our normal way of reasoning of classifying people was thrown into the air: fellow country man or foreigner, old or young, beautiful or ugly, likeable or not, rich or poor, Christ was behind each one, Christ was in each one. “Another Christ” really was each neighbour – if grace enriched his soul – or “another Christ”, a Christ proud – if he was still far from Him. Living like this, we realised that our neighbour was our way to reach God. It seemed that our neighbour was an arch we had to pass under in order to meet God. We experienced this right from the start. In the evening, during prayers or in a moment of recollection, after we had loved God in our brothers all day we had such union with God. Who gave us that consolation, that interior balm which was so new, celestial if not Christ who, from His Gospel lived “give and you shall be given”? (Lk 6,38) We had loved Him all day in those brothers and now He loved us. This inner gift was such a benefit! They were the first experiences of the spiritual life, of the reality of a kingdom which is not of this earth. So, in the marvellous way that the Spirit showed us, love for our brother was a new cornerstone of our spirituality.’ Chiara Lubich, Nascita di una spiritualità, in Enzo M. Fondi e Michele Zanzucchi, Un popolo nato dal Vangelo, San Paolo, Cinisello Balsamo 2003, p. 18