When Chiara Lubich spoke of suffering and pain, she did not limit herself to a philosophical, psychological or spiritual concept. She always looked towards the person she called the “spouse of her soul”, Jesus, at the moment when on the cross he experienced being forsaken by the Father and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). In her deep and mysterious relationship with Him she found the strength to accept every suffering and transform it into love. We would die if we did not look at you, who transformed, as if by magic, every bitterness into sweetness; at you, crying out on the cross, in the greatest suspense, in total inactivity, in a living death, when, sunk in the cold, you hurled your fire upon the earth, and reduced to infinite stillness, you cast your infinite life to us, who now live it in rapture. It is enough for us to see that we are like you, at least a little, and unite our suffering to yours and offer it to the Father. So that we might have Light, you ceased to see. So that we might have union, you experienced separation from the Father. So that we might possess wisdom, you became “ignorance.” So that we might be clothed with innocence, you made yourself “sin.” So that God might be in us, you felt him far from you.

Chiara Lubich

Essential Writings, New City Press, 2007 p. 9