“With brothers and sisters of the various Churches, by striving to live the Gospel together, getting to know one another and strengthening our reciprocal love, we discovered the great wealth of our common patrimony: Baptism, the Old and New Testaments, the dogmas of the first Councils which we share, the Creed (Nicene-Constantinopolitan), the Greek and Latin Fathers, the martyrs and other treasures, like the life of grace, faith, hope, charity, and the many other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit. And besides all this, we are united by the spirituality of unity. At first we lived as if all this were not really true or we were not fully aware of it. Instead now we realize that these are the conditions for being able to achieve a particular dialogue: the dialogue of life. This spirituality makes us feel that we are already one family; we feel that we form among ourselves “a Christian people” which involves not only laity but also to priests, pastors, bishops, and so on. Obviously, the full and visible communion among our Churches still needs to be achieved, but we can already be so. It is not a grassroots dialogue that opposes or juxtaposes the high level dialogue or that of the Church leaders, but it is a dialogue in which all Christians can participate. This people is like a leaven in the ecumenical Movement which rekindles in everyone the sense that, as baptized Christians who can love one another, we can all contribute towards fulfilling the Testament of Jesus. Indeed, we hope that other forms of dialogue, like the dialogue of charity, of shared service, of prayer and the theological dialogue, can be enhanced by the “dialogue of life”.” Extract from the book: Chiara Lubich: “Unity”, New City Press, New York (USA)