In the early years of the Focolare, the Word of God was so important that it led to a mystical experience in the summer of 1949. Chiara Lubich herself shared what happened: “From the birth of the movement up until that moment, the Word of Life had been lived out ‘with very special intensity.’ The main structures of the Movement didn’t exist yet; nor had other initiatives begun, and so all our efforts were focused on putting the Gospel into practice.

“The Word of God had entered so deeply within us that it changed our way of thinking. The same thing happened to those who were in contact with us.

This new Gospel mindset that was taking shape was showing itself to be a true divine protest to the worldly way of thinking, willing and acting. We were being re-evangelized by living God’s word.”

The Gospel, therefore, became the rule of life and transformed each person’s mindset from worldly to supernatural.

As a consequence of a profound sharing of experiences in trying to put it into practice, the Gospel was able to change society from a worldly one to a supernatural one, which corresponds to God’s plan for humanity.

“When one of the words of the Gospel entered into our hearts, it seemed,” as Chiara noted, “to be transformed into fire, into flames, to be transformed into love. We could affirm that our inner life was all love.”

We can ask ourselves: “Is this the same for us? Are we experiencing the fact that it is not us who live the Word, but it is the Word that lives in us?” “We cannot enter paradise,” Chiara intuited, “if the Word of God doesn’t live in us. We will go to paradise, having made the Word our own, if we are Word of God ourselves.”

However, if it’s true that in heaven we shall be only Word of God, “from now, on earth,” Chiara urges us, “we should be only Word of God.”

She indicated a model for us to follow in order to reach this great goal: Mary, the Mother of Jesus, someone who is entirely Word of God.

This was the discovery Chiara made precisely during that illuminative period of 1949, when “the Word of God revealed itself in all its power” and God revealed Mary’s exemplary nature in an absolutely new way. Chiara was led to know Mary as “completely formed by the Word,” “totally clothed in God’s Word.”

This is what Pope Benedict XVI states in Verbum Domini: “As we contemplate in the Mother of God a life totally shaped by the Word, we realize that we too are called to enter into the mystery of faith, whereby Christ comes to dwell in our lives.”

Many times Chiara pointed to Mary as the model of every Christian. Mary represents for us what each one of us should be, that we are called as she was “to repeat Christ, the truth, the Word, each according to the personality God gave them.”

This expression, “each according to the personality God gave them,” emphasized by Chiara, is beautiful; that is, with all our being as persons made new; with all the richness that characterizes each one of us and makes us “unique” children of God.

“Today I understood,” Chiara wrote in 1950, “that each one of us is irreplaceable where we are. We were called by God to be Him: therefore, to be living Words of Life.”

To be “living,” as we mentioned before about the stripped branches, is to be ready to be consumed into one. In fact, there is a dynamic of love that connects word to word and, in God, makes us become words in the Word.

“Therefore,” Chiara explained, “God has called us to be dressed in the Word of God, which, because it is love, is complete, but it also needs another word to give rise to a new beauty of love. So, each one has the Kingdom of God within oneself, provided that we set it aside in every moment in front of our neighbor, because love is made like this.”

This is the essence of the collective spirituality, of the Trinitarian life to which each one of us is personally called, as is the whole movement.

“May all be one” (Jn 17:21), the mission of our movement, expresses it well. God, “by sending this charism on earth, pronounced the word ‘unity,’” Chiara wrote. “I was always aware of it; right from the beginning; I felt that the charism expressed in me was ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst’ (Mt 18:20). The light that poured from this word was the presence of Jesus in our midst.”

In this word “unity” there is all our commitment, not only to live out our charism but also to share it with others through the witness of our mutual love, strengthened by Jesus’ statement: “May all be one … that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21). This is how our “evangelization” is fundamentally expressed.

Maria Voce

(Continued in the next issue)

Maria Voce is Focolare’s president, having succeeded foundress Chiara Lubich (1920–2008). Excerpted from her conversation with Focolare directors, September 21, 2011

What is a charism?

From the Greek “free gifts,” the word “charism” refers to special gifts given by the Holy Spirit for the common good at a particular period of history. In the Church, spiritual currents, religious families and ecclesial movements are born from particular charisms.