The communion of love

The Focolare’s experience is to live in the joy of unity, effect of mutual love, which is God’s will for all of us.

Dear everyone, I have recently come across a further confirmation of our collective spirituality in a little book that was recommended to me.

It is a book by Blessed Baudouin, who lived in the XII century. A Cistercian Abbot, he had become a bishop, then Primate of England and later Papal Legate.

In his writings[1] he says that monks must live well not only solitude, (“O blessed solitude, the only blessedness”), but also must put into practice “communion” with their brothers and sisters.

He quotes: “Woe to one who is alone”[2] and says: “Love hates being alone.” … For Blessed Baudouin, there is the love of the one who loves and seeks communion which he calls “the love of communion”, and there is also the return of love from the one who is loved which brings about “the communion of love” between among them. Thus there is the love of communion and the communion of love. … According to him, “the communion of love” leads to blessedness as can be experienced on earth.

It is our experience: it is the joy of unity, the effect of mutual love which is God’s will for us.

… If we live our Christian life fully as our Ideal teaches, (which means in mutual love) we participate – as it is possible on earth – in the glory and praise that is in the Most Holy Trinity. We participate in it in our relationship with God (we are able to glorify Him in our turn and praise Him worthily) and we share in it in our mutual relationship.

Blessed Baudouin says: “Every good, for the mere fact that it is good, needs to be praised.” “Every good”, every true love therefore including the love among us.

This mutual praise and glory, inherent in mutual love, makes us rejoice with the simplicity of children, for all that is joyful in our life of communion.

… So, let us always direct our efforts to mutual love, to the communion of love, so that we can let ourselves be enlightened and warmed by the radiance of His splendor of praise and glory, for the glory of God alone. In this way we will be ever more ready to take this love wherever there are people frozen by mutual indifference and dying from cold.

 Chiara Lubich

(From a telephone conference call, Rocca di Papa, October 26, 1995)

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[1] Baudouin of Ford: Perfect in Love
[2] Eccl 4:10