Riccardi

Rocca di Papa, 20 November 1979 The Word of life for the month of March 2015 that is proposed for the whole Focolare Movement says: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34). This is a phrase that Chiara Lubich recalled throughout her life and it was a source of light for her and for many others in the world. This writing is how she explained it to the young people in 1979. Dearest Gen, Perhaps you would like just the right word; a word that says everything, that sums up the truth, that gives you the recipe for a real life. This is what I am meditating on too in these days. Alright, gen, I have convinced myself that there is no safer way to reach the perfect life than the way of suffering embraced out of love.  This is the way all Saints thought of it, throughout the centuries.   The fact is that each one wished

Castel Gandolfo, 5 December 2001 (From a conversation of Chiara Lubich to the women focolarine) Here we offer proof of Chiara’s love for Wisdom (Sophia): with passion she quotes the words of Fr. Raimondo Spiazzi, a well-known theologian, that witness the uniqueness and preciousness of the sapiential penetration of reality.  We quote the following section from a book of 1964 that we liked very much. It was written by the theologian Father Raimondo Spiazzi: “The gift of wisdom puts the soul in contact with eternal realities. ... It scrutinizes the depths of God and discerns his radiant beauty. The soul beholds that which it cannot repeat, and without ever being quenched it drinks from this exhaustible source with an ever-growing desire, as a deer longs for streams of water. “But, having discovered and almost tasted God, with this light in its eyes, the soul is able to look at the world and to see it clearly ... judging everything from a divine viewpoint, almost projecting over everything the light of God’s infinite

Strasbourg, 22 September 1998 On occasion of the UN World Day of Social Justice, we offer an excerpt of Chiara’s talk to the Council of Europe.  Mrs. Leni Fischer, President of the Parliamentary Assembly, Mr. Giorgos Papandreou, Director of the Committee of Ministers, Mr. Daniel Tarschys, Secretary General, Your Excellencies, Ladies, Gentlemen, Friends, I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the Council of Europe for conferring the prestigious 1998 European Human Rights Prize also to me. The Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of Ministers, with a joint decision, wished to give this recognition to me in order to award, I believe, the Focolare Movement, whose foundress I am, and whose ideal has inspired the action of millions of women and men of every age, language, profession, nation and race, members of various religions and the most diverse convictions, thus acknowledging the Movement’s concrete contribution “towards the promotion and defense of human rights.” In fact, the first article of “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (this year marks its 50th anniversary), affirms: