From Chiara’s Diary

I have preached around the world that God is Love and now because of the events that have been taking place, one after the other, I have the impression that God has forsaken me. I wrote this yesterday as well, but it is totally different. In any case, this evening I went into church to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and I found written there: “Bonum certamen fidei” [“Fight the good fight of faith”] This then is what awaits me in the coming days: the great struggle for faith, to believe in Love.

In fact, what I feel in my soul is completely different from what I felt before: whereas before everything spoke to me of the love of God, now these events, these tremendous trials make it disappear. And not to be loved by God makes me feel that I am a nothing, a zero that brings tears to my eyes. But with the grace of Our Lady, I will fight to have faith, to have faith in Love.
I had said that I would have wanted to die with the first pope¹ and to have written on our tombstone: “And we have believed in Love”; but now I understand that this intention requires a struggle. In certain moments, when God takes it away from you, when he takes away your faith in his Love, it’s difficult to have it. I no longer know what remains. What remains is like a phantasm of faith: it’s faith in faith. But God will help me.

¹“Pope” is a word in the Trent dialect meaning “girls.” Chiara used it referring to the focolarine.