… Which word is it that the Holy Spirit imprinted like a seal on this house, on our Movement, when God first thought of it and started forming it here on earth?
We know what it is. The word is “unity.” Unity is the word that sums up our entire spirituality. Unity with God, unity with our neighbours. Or rather, unity with our neighbours in order to reach unity with God.
The Holy Spirit, in fact, revealed to us a way that is distinctly ours, a fully Gospel-based way to unite us with God,
to find God. … We seek God and find him by passing through our neighbour, by loving our neighbour. We find God when we strive to bring about unity with our neighbour, with every neighbour, if we establish the presence of Jesus among us. Only in this way are we guaranteed unity with God and we can find him alive and beating in our hearts. It is this unity with God which then, in turn, urges us to go out to our neighbours, and helps us to ensure that our love for them is not pretence, nor insufficient, or superficial, but rather is radical, full and complete, given substance through sacrifice, always ready to give our life, and capable of bringing about unity.
Our Statutes place unity at the basis of everything, as the norm of every norm, as the rule to be
observed before every other rule. Unity is the word for us; it is the rock.
We have no meaning in life except in this word, where everything acquires meaning – our every action, every prayer, every breath. And if we concentrate on living this word, if we live it as well as we possibly can, everything will certainly be safe, we will be safe and also that part of the Movement entrusted to us will be safe.
Perhaps, in the future, the Work of Mary, both as a whole or in some of the zones,
will go through quite different times from what we are experiencing now, when we have so many consolations, fruits, light, fire.
Moments of darkness or despair may well arise, there might be persecutions
or temptations. … There might be misfortunes or disasters… But if we stand firm on the rock
of unity, nothing can touch us, everything will go ahead as before.
Chiara Lubich in “Conference Calls – Conversations via Telephone and Satellite Connections”, 2022 New City, pages 342-344
I have felt you beating in the perfect stillness of a little Alpine church, in the shadow of the tabernacle of an empty cathedral, in the breathing as one soul of a crowd who love you and who fill the arches of your church with songs and love.
I have found you in joy. I have spoken to you beyond the starry firmament, when in the evening, in silence, I was returning home from work.
I seek you and often I find you.
But where I always find you is in suffering.
A suffering, any sort of suffering, is like the sound of a bell that summons God’s bride to prayer. When the shadow of the cross appears the soul recollects itself in the tabernacle of its heart and forgetting the tinkling of the bell it “sees” you and speaks to you.
It is you who come to visit me. It is I who answer you: “Here I am, Lord, I desire you, I have always desired you.”
And in this meeting my soul does not feel its suffering, but is as if inebriated with your love: filled with you, imbued with you: I in you and you in me, that we may be one.
And then I reopen my eyes to life, to the less real life, divinely trained to wage your war.
Chiara Lubich in Meditations, New City, London 2005, pages 74-75
(…) We cannot know when and how this will happen and it’s a waste of time trying to find out. It is certain, however, that it will come about. It is not a dream nor a utopia nor a sentimental desire. No, it is a certainty repeatedly upheld by God in the Bible. It will be God’s response to the untiring efforts of his children to build up his kingdom. It will be the crown given to them for their fidelity in living his Word. It will be the full unfolding of the power of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus introduced into history through his death and resurrection.
From the very moment Jesus came on earth, in spite of tribulations of all kinds, this renewal has already begun, it’s already under way. From now on, all those who allow Jesus to live in them – and he lives in us if we put his words into practice – will experience the miracle of his grace that makes all things new. His grace transforms suffering into peace and inner serenity. It overcomes our weakness, hatred, selfishness, pride, greed and every sort of evil. It enables us to pass from the slavery to our passions and fears to the joyful freedom of the children of God. Furthermore, God’s grace is not limited to transforming the individual person, but through each one of us, it transforms society as a whole.
(…)
In fact, God wants to renew all things: our personal life, friendships, conjugal love, the family. He wants to renew life in society under every aspect: work, education, culture, entertainment, health, economics and politics. In short, God wants to transform every sector of life on earth.
But God needs us in order to do this. He needs people who allow his Word to live in them, people who are his living Word, people who are another Jesus in their own particular environments. And since the Word that summarizes Jesus’ teaching, the full expression of God’s law, is love, let’s try to put it into practice. Let’s love our neighbors just as we love ourselves, without watering down the Word of God, without minimizing its power.
We will become aware of a continuous renewal, above all in our own hearts, and before long around us as well.
A moment of sharing and exchange that traced the path of the Foundress of Focolare from Trent, her birthplace, to the Castelli Romani and to Rome, highing the fruits produced in regions and in communities.
The following took part in the event: Franco Ianeselli, Mayor of Trento; Mirko Di Bernardo, Mayor of Grottaferrata (Rome); Massimiliano Calcagni, mayor of Rocca di Papa (Rome); Francesco Rutelli, former mayor of Rome, who in 2000 presented the honorary citizenship of the capital to Chiara Lubich; Mario Bruno, former Mayor of Alghero and co-director of the Focolare’s New Humanity Movement; Giuseppe Ferrandi, Director of the Historical Museum Foundation of Trent. The exhibition, on display at the Focolare Meeting Point (3 Via del Carmine, Rome) and created by the Chiara Lubich Centre and the Historical Museum Foundation of Trent, will remain open throughout 2026.
Watch the video with interviews with the mayors present. Original in Italian. For other languages, activate the subtitles and then choose the language.
Universal brotherhood, even apart from Christianity, has not been absent from the minds of great and exceptional persons. Mahatma Gandhi said: “The Golden Rule is to be friends of the world and to consider as ‘one’ the whole human family. Whoever distinguishes between the faithful of his own religion and those of another misinforms the members of his own and opens the way to the rejection of religion and its values.” [1] (…)
However, the One who brought universal brotherhood on earth, as an essential gift to humanity, was Jesus, who prayed for unity before he died: “Father, that they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). In revealing to us that God is our Father and consequently that we are all brothers and sisters, he introduced the idea of humanity as one family, the idea of the “human family” made possible by universal brotherhood in action. Consequently, he destroyed the walls that separate those who are “the same” from those who are “different,” friends from enemies, walls that isolate one city from another. And he loosened the bonds that imprison people in so many ways, from the thousands of forms of suppression and slavery, from every unjust relationship. In this way he brought about an authentic existential, cultural and political revolution. Thus the idea of fraternity began to make way in history. We could trace back its presence in the evolution of thought throughout the centuries, finding it at the basis of many fundamental political ideas, at times clearly, at times more veiled. This fraternity was often lived, although in a limited manner, each time, for example, a people joined together to fight for their freedom, or when social groups struggled to defend the weak, or whenever people of different convictions rose above mistrust in order to affirm a particular human right.
Chiara Lubich
[1] “In buona compagnia”, a cura di Claudio Mantovano, Roma, 2001, p. 11.
… “I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink…” (Mt 25:35). “When Lord?” “Every time you did this to the least of my brothers andsisters, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
(…)
This love for the poor was always light for us, and the Spirit made us understand the need to love not only them, but everyone else too: “Love your neighbour as yourself,” whoever he or she may be.
And from this came a wonderful idea and a decision: to transform our daily lives into a wide range of material and spiritual works of mercy: in all the contacts we made, with all the different people we met. Because here too, we could apply the words: “You did it to me.”
In each neighbour we met, we saw Christ who was asking for help, for comfort, advice, correction, instruction, light, bread, shelter, clothes, prayers….
(…)
We hope that one day, to those … who will ask Jesus: “When, Lord, did I give you to eat, to drink, and when did I console you?” he will reply: “Every time you did this to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”
