From a talk to the focolarine.<\/p>\n
The charism of unity has its root in the One and Triune God and in the mystery of the Word made flesh who, in the Passion, lives the abandonment. Chiara explains how we should enter the dynamism of Trinitarian love.<\/p>\n
\u2026 The will of God is God, and God is love. His will, therefore, is love, and he wants us to love too. He wants us to love him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind, and to love every neighbor as ourselves (cf. Mt 22:37\u201339).<\/p>\n
We, too, had to be love in life: little suns beside the Sun.<\/p>\n
At that time, the word \u201clove\u201d usually indicated either the natural sentiment that links a man and a woman or eroticism. It was not normally used in religious terminology, where the preferred term was \u201ccharity,\u201d but often with the limited meaning of almsgiving. The singular manifestation of God-Love that we had received, and our direct contact with the Word of God, re-focused our attention on the Christian meaning of love.<\/p>\n
Indeed, we immediately sensed that love was the very core of the Christian message and, as such, it was our absolute duty to put it into practice.<\/p>\n
We began by loving the poor. But quite soon, because of this practice (since love brings light) we understood that we had to love everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n But how could we do this? By serving, which the Spirit soon explained to us with the words \u201cmaking<\/p>\n ourselves one.\u201d<\/p>\n I wrote: \u201cMaking ourselves one with every person we meet. This means sharing their feelings, carrying their burdens, making their problems our own and solving them as if they were ours, because love has made them ours.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must make ourselves one in everything except sin.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what Paul meant when he said: \u2018I made myself all things to all people\u2019 (1 Cor 9:22).<\/p>\n \u201cMaking ourselves one requires constantly dying to ourselves. Yet, it is for this very reason that when others are loved in this way, sooner or later they are won over by Christ who lives in us through the death of our ego.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When this happens, the other person responds to our love with his or her own love, and love of neighbor\u00a0grows to the point of becoming mutual.<\/span><\/p>\n In another writing, we find: \u201cSee Jesus in every person you meet in each moment of the day, from\u00a0morning till night.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf your eye is clear, it is God seeing through you. And God is love, and love wants to unite, by winning over the other.<\/p>\n \u201cLook outside yourself, not at yourself, not at things, not at people; look at God outside yourself in order to unite yourself to him.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is in the depths of every soul that has life; if a soul has no life, it is like a tabernacle of God waiting to achieve the meaning and joy of its existence.<\/p>\n \u201cLook at every neighbor with love, and loving is giving. But one gift calls for another, and you will be\u00a0loved.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThus, love is loving and being loved, as in the Trinity.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd God in you will capture hearts, lighting up in them the Trinity, already present perhaps through grace, but inactive. …<\/p>\n \u201cLook then at your neighbor and give yourself to your neighbor in order to give yourself to Jesus, and\u00a0Jesus will give himself to you. It is the law of love: \u2018Give and gifts will be given to you\u2019 (Lk 6:38).<\/p>\n \u201cLet yourself be consumed by the other person – out of love for Jesus. Let yourself be \u2018eaten\u2019 – as another\u00a0eucharist. Put yourself completely at the other\u2019s service, which means at the service of God, and your neighbor will come to you and will love you. …<\/p>\n \u201cLove is a fire that penetrates hearts and makes them perfectly one.<\/p>\n \u201cThen within yourself, you will no longer find yourself, or your brother or sister; you will find Love, which is God living within you.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Love will go out to love other brothers and sisters because, now that your eye is clear, it will find\u00a0Him in them, and all will be one. . . .\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n