… Unity. What is unity? Is it possible to achieve unity?

Unity is what God wants from us.

Unity is the fulfilment of Jesus’ prayer: ‘That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us’ (Jn 17:21).

But unity cannot be achieved only through our own efforts. It can be accomplished only through a special grace which the Father grants if he finds us prepared, in accordance with a precise and necessary pre-requisite.

That is mutual love lived out as Jesus commanded.

We must love one another as he wants, which is not – as we know – simply a spiritual friendship, agreement or just understanding one another.

It means that we should love one another as he loved us, that is, to the point of the abandonment: to the point of complete material and spiritual detachment from things and persons, so that we can make ourselves one reciprocally and perfectly.

By doing so, we will have done our part and we will be in a position to receive the grace of unity, which will not be lacking, which should not be lacking.

How thankful we should be at the thought of being called to this; what an incentive to do all we can in order to obtain this gift which is lacking wherever this is not lived.

We must remember that there is an added grace in our communitarian spirituality; that heaven can be opened to us in every moment; and if we do what it asks of us, filled with this grace, we can do much, very much for the kingdom of God.

Undoubtedly, it is this grace that explains the great expansion of our Movement and many wonderful achievements linked to it.

This is why, in the beginning, conscious of this extraordinary privilege, we expressed ourselves in this way:

‘Keep one idea fixed in your head. Was alway It s one single idea that made great Saints. And our idea is this: Unity’.

‘Let everything else crumble – Unity, never! … Always have this Fire burning among you. And don’t be afraid if it means dying. You’ve already experienced that Unity demands the death of everyone, to give life to the One! … Do this as your sacred duty, even though it will bring you immense joy! Jesus promised the fullness of joy to those who live Unity! …’

During the next month, let us make every effort to obtain this gift always.

And let us not seek it solely for our own happiness, but in order to be prepared for our typical form of evangelisation. You know it: ‘That they may be one … so that the world may believe’ (Jn 17:21).

The world has a great need of faith, it needs to believe! And we are all called to evangelise. One day, St Francis said to one of the brothers: ‘Let’s go out to preach.’ Then, tucking their hands inside the sleeves of their cloaks and with their eyes cast down they walked through the city preaching through their very being, mortification and total poverty.

Let us also go out to the world and launch our way of preaching. If someone observes two or more of us united (in the focolares, in the nuclei, in the units, in our meetings, or because we happen to be together) may they be struck by a ray of our faith and believe.

May they believe in love because they have seen it.
Let’s get down to work. This is what the Lord wants from us. He wants it through our charism which has been engraved in our Statutes: unity is the premise that comes before every other will of God.
Then we can also speak in order to spread the Gospel… but afterwards.

Chiara Lubich
(Convesazioni, Città Nuova, Roma 2019, pp 522/4

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