Archivio SCRITTI EN

Rocca di Papa, 3rd January 1985 The following reflection by Chiara Lubich, given during a world wide conference call, can help us live the Word of Life for May. Her words on “mercy”, “loving without limits” and not being afraid to “go out towards others” are very relevant today. The New Year begins with a splendid Word of Life: But God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ (Eph. 2:4-5). The commentary on this Word of Life, which you may have already read, underlines two characteristics of God’s love. One is that God in His love took the initiative to love us even though we were anything but lovable ("dead through our sins"). The second is that God's love did not only reach the point of forgiving our sins, but since His love is infinite, He brought us to share in His own life ("he brought us to life in Christ”).

A letter from June 1944 My little sister in the immense Love of God! Listen, I beg you, listen to the voice of this little heart!You have been blinded with me by the luminous blaze of an Ideal that is greater than all and sums up all: the infinite Love of God! O, my little sister! He is the one, He is my God, your God, who has bound us together with a bond stronger than death, because it will never decay, one like the spirit, immense, infinite, delicate, strong, immortal like the Love of God! It is Love that makes us sisters! It is Love that has called us to Love! It is Love that has spoken in the depths of our hearts and has told us: “Look around you. Everything in the world passes away. Every day has its evening, and evening is quickly here. Every life has its sunset, and the sunset of your life is quickly here! And yet, don’t despair. Yes, everything does pass, because nothing

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