“God became man in order to save us, but when he became man, he even wanted to become food, so that by feeding on him we might become another Him” [1]

“The Eucharist does not only bear fruit that is beautiful and good, in holiness, in love; nor does it have as its primary purpose to increase unity with God and with each other (as unity is usually understood) and thus serve to nourish the presence of Jesus in our midst. Yes, that too.But the task of the Eucharist is different.The purpose of the Eucharist is to make us God (by participation). By mixing Christ’s vivified and life-giving flesh with our own, it divinizes us in soul and body” [2].In the 1970s, Chiara Lubich presented the fundamental cornerstones of her spirituality to her closest followers. In 1976, to help them understand the Eucharist, she invited them to “let go” in a certain sense, of what had already been presented by the spiritual life, of what had been understood so far in spirituality, […] “Because otherwise one cannot understand the Eucharist. Naturally in the Eucharist we will find all these aspects again, but in a different way”.Now too, therefore, it is a question of trying to enter another reality. When the first focolarine wanted to understand which was the Word that, if lived out, would be the most pleasing to God, they discerned from the Gospel that it was fraternal love, the one in which the Law and the prophets are summarized [4]. Then, adding mutual love to love, they perceived that the prayer Jesus had addressed to the Father shortly before his death was the magna carta of the Movement that was being born.In 1997, Chiara Lubich gave a speech in Graz, on the occasion of the Second European Ecumenical Assembly. After having referred to the Fathers [of the Church], who often explained the presence of Jesus in the Church, basing themselves on Mt. 18:20 and Mt. 28:20, she highlighted how life with the presence of Jesus in the midst, present through mutual love, inserts men and women into the presence of Jesus in the Church in a more living way. And she stated: “And this is already a powerful bond! It helps us on the path to visible unity! Jesus between a Catholic and an Evangelical who love one another, between Anglican and Orthodox, an Armenian and a Reformed…. It is a gift that also makes less painful the time of waiting until we can all share in one Eucharist”[5] .

Note

  1. [1]

    1. Chiara Lubich, in Gesù Eucaristia, a cura di Fabio Ciardi, Città Nuova, Roma 2014, pag. 87

  2. [2]

    2. Chiara Lubich, in Gesù Eucaristia, a cura di Fabio Ciardi, Città Nuova, Roma 2014, pag. 20

  3. [3]

    3. Chiara Lubich, in Gesù Eucaristia, a cura di Fabio Ciardi, Città Nuova, Roma 2014, pag. 20

  4. [4]

    4. Cfr. C. Lubich, Una spiritualità per la riconciliazione, in La dottrina spirituale, a cura di Michel Vandeleene con i saggi di Piero Coda e Jesùs Castellano, Mondadori, Milano 2001 pagg. 370

  5. [5]

    5. C. Lubich, Una spiritualità per la riconciliazione, in La dottrina spirituale, a cura di Michel Vandeleene con i saggi di Piero Coda e Jesùs Castellano, Mondadori, Milano 2001 pagg. 373-374

Riferimenti bibliografici

  • La Dottrina Spirituale, a cura di Michel Vandeleene, Mondadori, Milano 2001
  • Una via nuova. La spiritualità dell’unità, Chiara Lubich, Città Nuova2002
  • Gesù Eucaristia, a cura di Fabio Ciardi, Città Nuova, Roma 2014