«A soul in love, » Enzo «lived constantly in God’s presence, always one with Him. Always.» This was how Chiara Lubich described Enzo Fondi, just after he passed away all of a sudden, silently and serenely on 31 December 2001. «Enzo Fondi has gone to Heaven,» Chiara wrote to all the members of the Movement: «It is a great joy, even if in my lifetime […] we have never felt such great pain. The joy is because we cannot only say that Enzo has died, but that he gently passed from one “room” to the other. When they found him after the Te Deum, the expression on his face was one of great peace, without the shadow of anxiety at all, giving us the impression that he was “received” by Mary, our Mother, whom he loved in a particular way, with such tenderness. In our hearts we had the common impression that if we have been deprived here on earth, of this “gigantic figure” of the Work of Mary, we have, on the other hand, a saint in Heaven. This was how we considered him over the last few years, when his illness had refined and prepared him for this step.»

As an enthusiastic promoter of unity, he was especially guided by one particular sentence of the Gospel: “As you, Father, are in me, and I am in you may they also be one in us” (Jn 17:21).

Enzo Fondi, a doctor from an affluent family, was born in Velletri in 1927. In 1951, he joined the first Roman focolare. He was a part of the first group of Focolarini doctors who, at the start of the 1960s, crossed the confines of the socialist block to work as an assistant surgeon in the Catholic Hospital of Leipzig in Eastern Germany. From then on the spirituality of unity spread throughout Eastern Europe. In 1964 he was ordained priest at the service of the Movement, and later was assigned to the United States.  

In 1977, the year in which Chiara Lubich received the Templeton Prize for the progress of religion, Enzo was assigned the task of developing interreligious dialogues of the Focolare, and with one of the first focolarine, Natalia Dallapiccola, gave his fruitful contribution to this end. On hearing the news, our Muslim friends in Algiers wrote: «With great simplicity Enzo taught us all the rules of the “art of loving” and opened our eyes to the universality of Chiara’s work and to what degree the miracle of unity is daily within our reach!» For years, Enzo was in charge – together with Natalia – of the spiritual formation of the members of the Focolare Movement. There is, therefore, a big archive of his answers, writings, and talks, with which he helped many to acquire a deeper comprehension of the charism of unity.

«Enzo had spent his last years on a cross,» Chiara wrote again. A serious disease, in fact, had more than once led him to the brink of death. «But – we had the impression – that he had embraced Jesus Forsaken in such a perfect way. He was never impatient even for a moment, and never complained to his co-focolarini. The drama he was living was a matter between him and Jesus. Though rarely, he had confided to me about his physical condition, always with a smile on his face. And in this way, in the last period his life was an uphill, relentless climb, embellished with virtues, and God bestowed the grace of union with Him.»

This is testified to by Enzo’s last thoughts dated 15 December 2001: «My last will and testament. For me, it is the last will of God, the last thing he wants of me now. There will be no other. I must fulfill this last will to perfection, whatever it may be, and this is my last testament. I don’t know what will really be the last will of God I shall undertake in life. The only thing I am sure of is: for that last and this present moment, I will have the actual grace to help me do it, inasmuch as I have practiced in exploiting this grace, by living the present moment.»

A few days after December 31, he went from this earth accomplishing the final will of God.