Catelgandolfo, February 10, 2002
This is an answer Chiara Lubich gave to Cristina, a young woman from the Castelli Romani during a meeting with the local community on 10th February 2002. She spoke to Chiara being ready to take up the baton with all its consequences. Chiara said: “In creating you God had a design for your life. Live the will of God in the present moment and you’ll see! You cannot live without being in love, yes, in love with a God who has looked upon you.” Later Chiara mentioned the motto that can help everyone: start again, always, until you reach the goal.
Cristina: I remembered some things that the Pope and you, Chiara, said to us young people during the World Youth Day: “If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire”. I realize that great people in history, like you and the Pope, count entirely on us young people.
I wanted to ask you: how can we measure up to this legacy that you both leave us? In other words, what choices should we make in order to measure up to this legacy? Must we give our life for these great ideals?
Chiara: Certainly. It’s very beautiful to hear that,at root, what you are asking for is not little things, but that everyone wants to give the most; young people in particular want to give the most. They are also fortunate, compared to older people, because they don’t have a past behind them which influences them, like the many disappointments that older people like us have felt, and which might have hurt them. Instead young people are free and so they are free to embrace the greatest ideals. They say that the Holy Father asks them to give the most, that we too ask young people, and adults too, we ask everyone, even little children, to give the most, because we have only one life.
This is what I would suggest you do. You, young people who want this, put yourselves in the hands of God, in the hands of God, and know that when God created you, he had a plan for you. Think of me – excuse me speaking about myself – if I had done my own will, I would have become a village schoolteacher. The most I would have done would be to go to university, that’s all, in Trent. Instead, we abandoned ourselves, I abandoned myself with all the others to what God wanted, step by step, and we reached the point of having this extraordinary, wonderful, charismatic Movement, which the Church herself is very pleased with. …
So I hope that you too will not do your own will, but know there is a plan … We always talk about the sun, which is God, and the rays, which are sunlight, and our path is along one of those rays, my ray, your ray, the other person’s ray. The will of God is there and we need to discover it moment by moment. So what should I do? At times, your conscience will tell you to do this or that; at times you are told by the duties of your state in life, if you are a student, for example. At times…the teachings of the Church will tell you. Sometimes it will be the word of God we are living that suggests something to us; at times it is the circumstances: you meet a poor person, and you can’t stand there doing nothing. You must do something, give a smile at least.
Follow, follow the will of God in the present moment, go for it, go for it and let yourself be led by God, wherever he wants. Of course, you will make mistakes. Sometimes you will go off your ray into the darkness. You’re not on your ray, so start again. The words “start again” are fantastic, because they are good not only for those who are just setting out, to go straight ahead, but also for those who are half way and even at the end. We must always start again.
Is that clear? Then in heaven you will tell me how things went.
Cristina: Thank you.
Chiara: Ciao.
