Riccardi

Castel Gandolfo, 9 December 1995 From a talk to the focolarine. The charism of unity has its root in the One and Triune God and in the mystery of the Word made flesh who, in the Passion, lives the abandonment. Chiara explains how we should enter the dynamism of Trinitarian love. … The will of God is God, and God is love. His will, therefore, is love, and he wants us to love too. He wants us to love him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind, and to love every neighbor as ourselves (cf. Mt 22:37–39). We, too, had to be love in life: little suns beside the Sun. At that time, the word “love” usually indicated either the natural sentiment that links a man and a woman or eroticism. It was not normally used in religious terminology, where the preferred term was “charity,” but often with the limited meaning of almsgiving. The singular manifestation of God-Love that we had received, and our direct contact with

Rocca di Papa, February 1982 Chiara is really fond of these words of Paul because of her affinity with the expression “making ourselves one” that the Spirit suggested to her right at the beginning of her spiritual adventure. Here we have a comment she gave about it in February 1982. Commentary of the Word of Life: "To the weak I became weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some" (1 Cor. 9:22). In carrying out his extraordinary mission, the Apostle Paul conducted his life in a particular way: he strove to become all things to all people. In fact, he tried to understand everyone, enter into the mentality of each person: to be a Jew with the Jews, and with the non-Jews - those without a law revealed by God - to be as one without the law. Paul followed the Jewish customs whenever this served to remove barriers or to reconcile souls; but when he worked in the Gre¬ek-Roman world, he

Sierre, 24 March 1994 Holy Week is the climax of the liturgical year. This text invites us to celebrate and penetrate the central mysteries of our faith, also with our lives.  Dearest all, Easter will soon be here; the greatest feast of the year, and with it Holy Week which is abounding with the most precious mysteries of Jesus' life. We are reminded of these especially on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and on Resurrection Sunday. For us, too, they represent central aspects of our spirituality: the mandate to live the new commandment, the institution of the priesthood and the Eucharist, the prayer for unity, the death of Jesus forsaken on the cross, Mary Desolate, the risen Lord. We will celebrate these mysteries with the Church through the holy liturgy, but because ours is a "way of life"  we prepare ourselves in order to honour them also with our life. But how can we relive, at least a little, these mysteries which are so very numerous and profound? We know

21 April 1984 The family: a lofty and recurring topic in the thought and life of Chiara Lubich. This writing of 1984 places the family in its design, in its being a domestic church in God’s plan, “a welcoming dwelling place for all the lost children.” Therefore let’s look at Mary, so as to live with her help and example “the luminous and fascinating plan of God on the family in all its expressions.”  On the occasion of the Holy Year of Jubilee for the families, John Paul II consecrated and entrusted the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was also the day of the Annunciation. The coincidence of events is certainly not by chance. In fact, there are deep relationships between Mary and the family, at least for the fact that both are great experts in love. Mary got to know the family in her heart, already simply on the natural level, in her various aspects as daughter, fiancée, wife, mother though always a virgin, and widow. The