15-30 August 1959
In the early years of Città Nuova [Italian New City] magazine (which had started up so as to link all those who had been it the recent Mariapolises in the Dolomites, and before the Mariapolises spread throughout the world) there was atmosphere of freshness, newness and revolutionary fervour, given the mentality of the time. It was the Gospel in action. This editorial article, signed by Chiara, thus became a manifesto of social doctrine. It is dated 30th August 1959 (the Feast of the Queenship of Mary was on 22nd) and Chiara invites all peoples to love one another to reach unity, going beyond their own frontiers… eradicating war. She speaks of a presence, a hidden bond, living within each nation. It is Mary, Queen of Peoples.
If one day all people, not as individuals but as peoples; if all peopleslearned how to set themselves aside, the idea they have of their homeland and their kingdoms, and offer these as incense to the Lord, the King of a kingdom which is not of this world, the Captain of armies, the Guide of history; and if they were to do this for the sake of mutual love among countries that God is asking for, just as he asks for mutual love among brothers and sisters, that day will be the beginning of a new era.On that day, in the same way as there is the living presence of Jesus between two people who love each other in Christ, so tooJesus will be alive and present among peoples, being given his rightful place as the only King, not only of hearts but of nations: He will be Christ the King.
Christian peoples, or their representatives, should be able to sacrifice their “collective” self. This is the price. In fact, nothing less is asked of each one of us so that our souls can be consumed in unity.
These are times – and this is shown by the forces of darknesswhich confirm the words of the Gospel – in which all peoples must cross theirown borders and look beyond.The time has come whenother people’scountries should be loved as our own, when our way of seeing has to acquire a new purity.Detachment from ourselves is not enough for us to become Christians. In our time, something more is required from Christ’s followers: a Christian social conscience thatnot only builds their own land according to the law of Christ, buthelps build up those of others with the universal gesture of the Church, with the supernatural way of seeing that God the Father has given us, who from heaven see things very differently from us.
We must live the mystical Body of Christ in such an excellent way that it can be transformed into a mystical social Body.
History is all about wars and when we were children at school we almost learnedthat wars are good and holy, almost as if this is what protectsour own land. It could be like that and perhaps has been sometimes.
But if we hear the appeals of the Popes echoing in our hearts, like that of the Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, we would hear his dread of war in the world and how his words, whether called foror not, appealed to leaders to try to appease anger and self-interest and to avert the terrible tragedy of the war, through which everything is lost, while everything is gained by peace.
This is because history is a succession of fratricidal conflicts between peoples who are brothers and sisters and who have been given a piece of land to cultivate and live on by the oneLord of the world.
He blesses peace because he embodied peace.
And He can rule the earth only in peace.
We see how one by one the Lord is conquering the hearts of his children of all nations, of all languages, transforming them into children of Love, Joy, Peace, Courage, and Strength. So we hope that the Lord will have mercy on this divided and wild world, on these peoples locked up in their own shell contemplating their own beauty – which is special for them – yet limited andinadequate, clinging on with clenched teeth to their own treasures, even those goods that could help other peoples where many are dying of hunger, and that he will break down the barriers and let charity flow continuously between one land and another, in a torrential flow of spiritual and material goods. We hope that the Lord will establish a new order in the world. He alone can make humanity a family and cultivate what is distinctive among peoples, so that the splendor of each people, placed at the service of the others, may shine out with the one light of life that beautifies the earthly homeland and makes it the waiting room of the eternal Homeland.
Perhaps what I am saying sounds like a dream.
Nonetheless – apart from the fact that if mutual love is the relationship among Christians, then the relationship among Christian nations cannot but be mutual love, because of the unchanging logic of the Gospel -there is a bond that already unites people strongly, proclaimed by the voice of the people and of all peoples, the people’s voice which so often is God’s voice. This hidden and protectedbond in the heart of every nation is Mary.
Who could take from the Brazilians the thought that Mary is the Queen of their land?
And who could deny to the Portuguese that Mary is “Our Lady of Fatima”?
Who would not allow the French the“beautiful little Lady of Lourdes”?
Or the Poles Our Lady of Czestochowa?
Or that the English see their land as the“dowry of Mary”?
And who could deny that Mary is the “Castellana of Italy” today, right now, when the Queen seems to be visiting her people on this peninsula, spreading graces, and almost preparing them for the struggle, her struggle, which is the battle of love, in order to make our country worthy of its future consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?
How many times in history have people taken refuge near Marian strongholds or basilicas, as if to protect themselves under their Mother’s mantle when sibling peoples were fighting against them!
All Christian nations have already proclaimed her their Queen, theirs and their children’s.
But one thing is missing, and Mary cannot do it, so we have to help her. We need to collaborate so that Catholic peoples, united like many brothers and sisters, might go to her and together recognize her as Mother and Queen.
We can enthrone her if, through our conversion, our prayers, and actions, we remove the veil that still covers her crown, the crown that was given her by the Pope long ago when she was proclaimed Queen of the world and of the universe.
We have to lay down at her feet the piece of the world that is in our hands.
If today some borders between very Christian peoples have almost been removed by non-Christian laws, God has allowed it so thatMary’s path in the world, which is to come, will be made easier and that everything will become “her footstool”, placed at the feet of the greatest Queen that Heaven and earth can know. She is Queen of peoples, Queen of Saints, Queen of Angels, because when she was on earth she was able to sacrifice herself completely, the Handmaid of the Lord, and teach her children the way of unity, of embracing all peoples, so that earth might become as it is in heaven.
Chiara Lubich
