Focolare Movement

Launched towards the infinite

Nov 1, 2018

On the day the Catholic Church dedicates to all the saints, a meditation of Chiara Lubich which presents the saint as one who really knows what Love is.

  The saints are great men and women who, having seen their greatness in the Lord, risk for God, as his children, everything that is theirs. They give, demanding nothing. They give their life, their soul, their joy, every earthly bond, every richness. Free and alone, launched into infinity, they wait for Love to bring them into the eternal kingdom; but, already in this life, they feel their hearts fill with love, true love, the only love that satisfies, that consoles, that love which shatters the eyelids of the soul and gives new tears. Ah, no one knows who a saint is! He or she has given and now receives, and an endless flow passes between heaven and earth, joins earth to heaven, and filters from the depths rare ecstasy, celestial sap that does not stop at the saint, but flows over the tired, the mortal, the blind and paralyzed in soul, and breaks through and refreshes, comforts and attracts and saves. If you want to know about love, ask a saint.   Chiara Lubich, Essential Writings, New City Press, Hyde Park, NY, 2007, p. 116  

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Your email address will not be published.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

A precious legacy: Chiara Lubich’s ‘Paradise ’49’

A precious legacy: Chiara Lubich’s ‘Paradise ’49’

The first presentation of Chiara Lubich’s book ‘Paradise ’49’ took place on the 22nd of May 2026 in the Paul VI Hall at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. The book is a collection of writings in which the Foundress of the Focolare Movement bears witness to and shares her mystical experience from the years 1949 to 1951.

Chiara Lubich: “Do you know where we are?”

Chiara Lubich: “Do you know where we are?”

It is the 16th of July 1949. Chiara Lubich is in Tonadico, in the Dolomite Mountains in northern Italy, for a period of rest together with some of her first companions. They are joined there by the Honourable Igino Giordani, whom Chiara called Foco. On that day, Chiara and Foco sealed a Pact of unity, a prelude to the spiritual and mystical experience that Chiara would live between 1949 and 1951. This period is known as “Paradise ’49”, the writings from which have recently been published in a book (for now in Italian). In the introduction to the book, the theologian Piero Coda offers some insights “For a theological reading” of the text. Here is an extract, relating specifically to the Pact of the 16th of July, together with a short video of Chiara Lubich from 20 December 1999, in which she shares this experience of light with the Gen, the young people of the Focolare Movement.