Chiara Lubich during the 40's

Against a backdrop of insecurity that was created by the War, and the dazzling brightness of God’s light that manifested Him to Chiara for what he is – Love, Chiara finds a way forward with some help from Saint Paul:

“I heard again today about lives cut short in their prime.

It’s God who calls hearts. Consider the reason for your life!

Don’t find yourself at Heaven’s Door with anguish in your heart because you cannot start over again.

You only live once and only for a short while.

Do you know the reason for life?

You live to Love!

If the Lord allows you a last breath here below, give it all for Him!

Don’t turn back!

Yesterday I was nostalgically thinking of the time that I’ve lost, the sins, the omissions – all the ugliness there was.

And things became cloudy for you and me.

But just yesterday such a vibrant new light opened my soul to hope. Saint Paul, who put so much fire into our heart, says: “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). And this is the word of God, the word of the Spirit of Love.The same for us, my little sister!

Forward! It’s our battle cry! Everything crumbles, everything lessens . . . but only what is not eternal falters!

Your soul is immortal! The word of God is eternal – the Word of God, which for us is love – especially as he shows us the vanity of all things. Then it’s forward for us too without ever looking back!

Pressing into His Heart that He might close us within his Wound and we might look at the world from there.

Jesus in our heart: and throw into thousands and millions of hearts an endless desire to love Love more than He could be loved by all the hearts in the world!

What a crowd of saints!

What a Paradise on earth for the Abandoned Love!

Forward!

May the Blessed Virgin change our willingness into reality!”                         

(Version published in “Lettere dei primi tempi”, Citta Nuova Ed, Roma, 2010, pp. 83-84)