Long before the birth of a Movement in Trent could be foreshadowed, some singular episodes occurred in Chiara’s life that she considered to be premonitions of what came later. The first episode she usually recounts was when she was in primary school and attended the girls’ oratory of the Sisters of the Child Mary. Sister Carolina accompanied her weekly, with the other little girls, to Eucharistic adoration. In front of the Host, in the words of a spontaneous prayer, she would say ‘give me your light and your love’, as if through her eyes, God’s light and love could enter her soul. “Light and love that have since characterized my spiritual life and that of many,” Chiara says.

As she grew up, Chiara continued to frequent environments where she could find encouragement for the faith and religious practice she wanted to deepen: she enthusiastically participated, for example, in activities organized for young people by Catholic Action and joined the Franciscan Third Order. After graduating from the Istituto Magistrale, Chiara wished to continue her studies; she was interested in philosophy and opted to enrol in a Catholic university because she wanted to know God. However, since she is not among the recipients of a scholarship, due to the precarious economic conditions of her family, she cannot do so. When Chiara talks about this, she recounts it as a moment of great sorrow. In her heart, however, she feels a reassurance that consoles her, completely reassured: “I will be your Master. Later, when the Spirit began to enlighten me with his precise charism, his gift given for the good of the Church, I understood that phrase.”

She enrolled at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice in the autumn of 1943, continuing to give private lessons, but interrupted her studies at the end of the following year due to the war

A significant event, in terms of her personal vocation, occurred in 1939.

“When I was 19, I went to Loreto, in central Italy, to take a course for Catholic students.

And it was there, in the ‘little house,’ attributed to the Family of Nazareth, that I was seized by a deep emotion, as if the ‘divine’ almost crushed me. And I had the first ideas about a detail of my vocation aimed at opening a new way in the Church for those who had been eager to give themselves to God; a way that was inspired precisely by the extraordinary life of Mary and Joseph with Jesus among them: the Focolare. It was there again that, though alone, I had the conviction that I would be followed by a host of virgins. “[1]

By now a young teacher at the Opera Serafica in Cognola di Trento, one day her lesson was interrupted by a priest who asked her to offer an hour of her day for his intentions. Chiara responded with great generosity, offering her whole day, not just an hour. Struck by this youthful impetus, the priest asked Chiara to kneel down so he could bless her: “He blessed me and said, ‘Remember that God loves you immensely.’ She was the thunderstruck. ‘God loves me immensely. God loves me immensely.’ I said it, I repeated it to my first companions: God loves you immensely. God loves us immensely.

[…] From that moment I glimpse God present everywhere with His love: in my days, in my nights, in my impulses, in my resolutions, in joyful and comforting events, in sad, tough, difficult situations […] And He sustains me and opens my eyes to everything and everyone as so many fruits of His love. Conversion has taken place. The “newness” flashed before my mind: I know who God is. God is Love[2]. That priest could not have imagined that his words would have produced such a resonance in the soul of the young teacher. A subtle light entered slowly and illuminated her soul, her thoughts. Father Casimiro[3], the Capuchin who also acted as her spiritual father, found himself unwittingly an instrument of the action of the Holy Spirit, a privileged witness to some of the first and founding events that manifest the action of the charism given by God to Chiara.

Probably in the second half of November 1943, on a cold morning, Chiara offered to go and fetch milk from a place a couple of kilometres from home, in place of her sisters. The emphasis that Chiara makes every time she recounts this fact, “while I was performing an act of love for my mother”, it is important to note how she emphasises the love that makes it possible to welcome the manifestation of God, and she often refers to the Gospel expression “to those who love me… I will manifest myself” (cf. Jn 14:21). He speaks to her heart: “Give yourself entirely to me”.  Here the call to follow God becomes explicit.