Focolare Movement

Safeguard the family with love

Oct 25, 2015

Is the family under attack? In this text Chiara Lubich speaks to an Austrian family (Vienna 20th June 1997). They asked her how couples can be helped to deepen and strengthen their marriage, in a context where one marriage in three breaks up.

“God created the family, and he formed it in this way. He wants there to be love between husband and wife. If love is missing, there’s no marriage, no matrimony. Unfortunately, because of sin, this love has been spoiled to some extent. This love has been clouded over because sin entered humanity. So Jesus came and healed the situation, bringing a stronger love, a greater love, the very love that comes from God, the love which is God himself. So, we must take advantage of what Jesus brought, use this love in order to maintain natural love as well. For example, if you didn’t love your husband any more, you would have to love him because he is Jesus, because he is another Jesus, because you have to be the first to love, because you have to love everyone, because you have to make yourself one, because you have to love him as yourself. In other words, you bring supernatural love into the situation, with all that it means, in order to safeguard human love too. This is what to do and this way of doing things is the foundation of our New Families Movement.” Source: Chiara Lubich Center Video (italian soundtrack) https://vimeo.com/142517715

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to Newsletter

Thought of the day

Related post

Living the Gospel: seeing our brothers and sisters

Living the Gospel: seeing our brothers and sisters

The Word of the Gospel proposed for this month is: “My soul magnifies the Lord”, the opening words of Mary’s song when she met Elizabeth.
The commentary on the Word of Life says, “The words of this hymn invite us to understand God’s salvific intervention in our personal and community life, leading towards the new heavens and the new earth that the social revolution of the Gospel inaugurates.”
These experiences show us that praising God means taking the side of the little ones and believing that the world can, and must, change.

Franco Fortuna, a Saint Next Door

Franco Fortuna, a Saint Next Door

Franco Fortuna, a religious education teacher and deacon, devoted himself to the service of the local Church and to the formation of many families linked to the Focolare Movement. He has sown a lot of love in those who knew him. He left this Earth on 12th August, 2025,

A friendship is truly worth a kidney

A friendship is truly worth a kidney

A thought that arose almost by chance, an invitation accepted in the silence of prayer, and a choice capable of changing two lives. The story of a friendship that became a gift of life.