This is undoubtedly a very difficult time for humanity: wars that continue for years, polarization of every kind, vast numbers of people leaving their homelands in search of a better future that is denied them, climate change, natural disasters…
At the end of 2001, Chiara Lubich wrote this prayer to Our Lady Untier of Knots at the request of someone who had sent her a postcard of an image from an 18th-century painting housed in the church of St Peter in Augsburg. It seems to have been written for the very times the world is experiencing today.
… 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
Alba Sgariglia has degrees in philosophy and theology. Since 1975, the year before she entered the focolare, she began working at the Study Centre of the Focolare Movement alongside the foundress, Chiara Lubich.
What did your work at the Study Centre consist of?
I used to go to the library in Florence to photocopy passages from the Greek Fathers, which we would then translate at home, searching through countless pages for those brief phrases that could serve Chiara Lubich to confirm her inspirations. At the time I was working with Marisa Cerini, who told me: for us, building unity means that we should enter into the thought of the Greek Fathers and from there try to understand the light of the charism that Chiara has received. In the following years I also taught religion in secondary schools in Rome. I then joined the governing body of the Movement to oversee the cultural aspect and subsequently I became part of the Abba School, which Chiara founded in 1991 to study the notes from the so-called period of Paradise ’49. Finally, in 2014, Maria Voce Emmaus, then President of the Focolare Movement, entrusted me with the Chiara Lubich Centre, which was established to preserve, study and promote the life and work of Chiara.
What does this newly published book represent?
Paradise ‘49 is a text published posthumously, since it was written, compiled and edited by Chiara Lubich during her lifetime. She wished to describe the mystical experience she had lived between 1949 and 1951, accompanying it with footnotes that would facilitate its comprehension, so as to provide the group of scholars at the Abba School with a text that was accessible and could be used for research. The text contains a mystical experience that Chiara always said she could not keep to herself. Then, urged on by many people, she realized that the text could be understood and used by others in the Movement as well.
For example, in the early 2000s, she herself explained the essence of this experience to the young people of the Movement. Then little by little, she realized that the experience recounted in the text could also be shared with people of other religions. Over the years we have held symposia with Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims, to whom Chiara offered some passages from Paradise ’49. We have also discussed the text with people with no religious affiliation, who have given reflections far deeper than we could ever have imagined, emphasizing that it is a text of great value. There are many founders of charisms who have received this possibility of understanding the work they were carrying out, through so-called “intellectual visions” in which one perceives with the intellect what God is allowing one to see.
But since it is a mystical language, isn’t it difficult for most people to understand?
Mystical language is a unique literary genre; it is neither poetry, nor theatre, nor literature, nor theology. For example, one sometimes encounters difficulties on a theological level, because the mystic seeks words they cannot find, trying to express the inexpressible: a difficult task, so much so that often Chiara herself, whilst we were re-reading these passages, would ask us: “But how could I have written these sentences? What do they mean? Why did I write this?”
This confirms that, in such situations, the founders seek to express what they “see” using the cultural categories and concepts at their disposal, which are sometimes inadequate. For example, in Paradise ’49 there are references to The Divine Comedy because Chiara was familiar with it, or to philosophers such as Kant, whom she had studied. The external setting can also have an influence: Chiara and her first companions began this experience in the mountains of Trent, in Tonadico: it is a natural setting that speaks for itself through its beauty. This, too, helped her to express things she was perceiving for the first time in her life.
Over these 18 years since Chiara’s death, you have published books that shed light on the context of the Paradise ’49 experience…
We have continued to examine the text in depth across various disciplines, using the method Chiara had left us, which is to study everything with “Jesus in our midst”. I believe that three key aspects can be identified in this volume: the first is an educational aspect, as it teaches how to live out the charism of unity and offers a vital key to understanding it; the second aspect can be described as artistic and literary, as the text encompasses many literary genres: diaries, letters, writings and notes; finally, there is the doctrinal aspect, as the text undoubtedly has a theological focus. It is, in fact, a mystical experience that helps us to understand, on the one hand, the truths of Heaven: God, the Trinity, the Word, Mary, creation, hell and paradise; and, on the other hand, the incarnation of the charism in a movement that would have been founded in the following years, that is, after 1949–51. Every time one reads these mystical texts, one understands new things. This is what happens to me too: every time I read these pages, I understand new things, both intellectually and spiritually.
When reading the text, doesn’t Chiara seem to be a bit presumptuous in certain passages?
We need to understand why Chiara says those things in that way. We could say that it is as if God, in order to express concepts that cannot be conveyed through a human being, identifies with that person, seeing things through their eyes. This is why Chiara finds herself writing: “Today I am universal fatherhood.” But she herself asks: “What does that mean?” In that moment, she identifies with that reality, so that she can express it. In the footnotes, she herself comments on and explains her amazement and her joy at seeing that other founders had experienced more or less the same thing.
What advice would you give to someone reading this text?
I would say: take this book and read it whenever and however you like, at any time. You can discuss passages that are unclear or more complex with others, or with an expert. But I suggest that you don’t let yourself be influenced by anyone, because this text speaks directly to the individual. Let’s open it at random and read whatever page we come across. We will understand what we need at that moment, because the text, despite a few difficulties, really touches us deeply. It’s a mystical experience, that can, in a certain way, be “shared”. This is the novelty, as Chiara herself explained to us. She always made sure that everyone could participate in her experience, and this book gives us that opportunity.
A full lecture hall, attentive, almost suspended in silence. This was the atmosphere in the Paul VI Hall of the Pontifical Lateran University (Rome, Italy) on Friday 22nd May, when Chiara Lubich’s Paradise ’49 was presented to the public for the first time.
It wasn’t simply a book launch. The widespread impression, heard in the corridors and in conversations among those present, was that this was a historical moment: for the first time, a text kept mostly private until now, was being openly offered to ecclesial and cultural debate, in a hall filled to capacity.
Welcoming those present, Anna Maria Rossi, speaking on behalf of the Chiara Lubich Centre – promoter of the series of Works by Chiara Lubich – immediately clarified the meaning of the event, recalling the extensive editorial process that led to the publication of the volume. “It is not an isolated text – she explained – but part of a broader journey, which tells the story of the emergence of a charism in the Church”.
The contents were introduced by speakers from different ecclesial and academic backgrounds. Alessandro Clemenzia, Dean of the Theological Faculty of Central Italy and an expert in Chiara Lubich’s spirituality, offered an important key to the book’s interpretation: “It is not a question of understanding what Chiara wrote, but what God wishes to say about himself through this experience”. A perspective that helped reveal the depth of the text without reducing it to a simple document.
Stefan Tobler, a Swiss evangelical theologian also involved in the reflection on the Charism of Unity, drew attention to the figure of the author: a woman who, through these pages, “offers the most intimate aspects of her relationship with God” sharing her experience in an authentic way.
Particularly anticipated was the contribution of Angela Ales Bello, philosopher and phenomenology expert, the only speaker external to the Focolare Movement. She clearly pointed out that mysticism is not something “strange” or esoteric, but “an illumination of reality lived in faith”. She also highlighted an original feature of Paradise ’49: an experience that involves not only the person, but also the community, almost a “we” that becomes a subject.
Brendan Leahy, Bishop of Limerick (Ireland) and, like Clemenzia and Tobler, also a member of the interdisciplinary study centre of the Focolare Movement known as the “Abba School”, intervened remotely. He highlighted the ecclesial significance of the text. Paradise ’49, he said, is not a systematic treatise, but can “inspire new perspectives” and help us understand the Church as a living and relational communion.
Throughout the meeting, alongside the great enthusiasm, there was also a certain caution: how can such an intense text be received without simplifying or misunderstanding it? The answer emerged several times, almost like a guiding thread: Paradise ’49 cannot be understood only by reading it but by letting oneself become involved in it.
Perhaps this was the deepest meaning of the day. With this publication, the Focolare Movement has taken a step towards greater openness: what was born as a lived experience is now being offered to everyone, not as an object to be analyzed, but as a proposal for life.
