Naples, May 4, 1996
Chiara Lubich answered this question put to her during a press conference.
Question: You have chosen God as Your ideal, and Mary as your model. In fact, you have established that the president of your Movement will always be a woman.
Chiara: We think of Mary in the same way as the Church thinks of her. We are not a Marian Movement like the Daughters of Mary, for example. …
Our view of Mary is Christ-centred. Certainly, ours is not just devotion; we want to imitate Mary, because devotion is not enough for us. We feel that it wouldn’t be right to have a devotion, and then to lead our lives as usual.
We see her as our model.
Even as a little girl, she gave herself completely to God. Then she lived as a young woman, a fiancée, a wife, a mother, a virgin and a widow. Therefore, we see her as the model for every time of life, both for women and men.
Then, we consider her in one particular moment, when she gave birth to Jesus.
Paul VI said something very beautiful; that we too must generate Christ in our midst through mutual love. There is the phrase in the Gospel that says: “Where two or three are united in my name (that is, in my love), I am there in their midst.” He is there, and so we must live like Mary who generated Christ physically. We Christians must be ones who generate Christ spiritually in our midst. Then we become omnipotent.
