Taken from Chiara’s diary

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12 / 13 /1968

A love that continues
When friends or relatives leave for the hereafter, we say they have passed away, we think they are gone.

But it is not true. If we think like this, where is our faith in the communion of saints? …

… No one who enters into God is lost: because if anything remains in a brother or sister for whom “life is changed not taken away,” it is charity.

Yes, because everything passes. Even faith and hope pass away with the rest of the world as we know it. Only charity remains (see 1 Cor 13:8).
Now, what remains is the love that our brother or sister had for us, if it was a true love, rooted in God. And God is not so miserly with us that he takes away what he has given us in them.

But now he gives it to us in another way. Our departed brother or sister continues to love us in their new state with a charity that does not waver.
We, on the other hand, should believe in this love our brother or sister has for us and ask them for graces for our journey, while we do our part for them by praying for the dead, which is one of the works of mercy.
No, our brothers and sisters are not lost. They have moved on, as though they had left home for another place.

They are in the heavenly homeland, living in God, and we can continue to love one another as the Gospel teaches. Then the Communion of Saints will be always more a reality and living this reality of our faith will prepare us also for the great day with absolute simplicity: because whoever possess God as their only treasure in life need not fear death: it is nothing other than the doorway to a greater possession of Him.

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