For many people, a particular opportunity to encounter Chiara Lubich and her spirituality continues to be the “Word of Life”: a sentence from Scripture with a commentary which offers a shared approach to life and, if put into practice, generates experiences and renews daily life.
This vital bond with the Gospel already united Chiara with her first companions in Trent. Living according to the teaching of Jesus, according to His Word of Life, was the way for them to respond with love to the love of God that they had rediscovered. It was a practice that produced fruit, comforted, gave wisdom, brought union with God and among people. In 1948, Chiara Lubich wrote: “Let’s remain united in the name of Jesus, living the word of life which makes us one. “… I have thought about the engrafting that takes place in plants, when two branches are stripped of their bark and by the contact between the two ‘living’ parts, they become one thing. When can two souls be truly living in unity? When they are ‘alive’, that is, when they are ‘stripped’ of all that is merely human, when they have lived and incarnated the word of life, so that they become living words”(2).

Meditating on the Word of God and putting it into practice is an aspect of Chiara Lubich’s spirituality that generates particular interest also among Christians of different Churches. The discovery that the focolarini based their life on the Bible surprised the first group of Lutherans who met Chiara Lubich in 1960. “They had thought of Luther as contending for the Bible against a Roman Catholic Church which would not listen to God’s Word. Here was a Roman Catholic movement which lived by the Word of Life. They were at once on common ground, not because of agreement in words, but because of a common life in obedience to the Word”.(3)

The Word, however, is also an opportunity to meet with faithful of other religions who, starting from their sacred texts, find themselves united for example by the so-called “Golden Rule”. Chiara herself acknowledged that, “Even if our religions are different we have much in common and this unites us. Our diversity attracts us to one another; it makes us curious about one another. […] I come to know brothers and sisters who are the same as me insofar as we believe in so many of the same things. The most important thing we have in common is the Golden Rule: “Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.” This saying is present in the sacred books of all of the most important religions. Christians find it in the gospel. It means: treat your brothers and sisters well, hold them in high esteem, love them. Thus, when they discover this sentence in their scriptures and I discover it in mine, I love, they love, and in the end we love one another. This is the foundation on which we can begin to live universal brotherhood” (4).