Commetary on the Word of Life:

‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!’ (Lk 12:49))

In the Old Testament fire symbolizes the word of God as spoken by a prophet. But it also signifies divine justice that purifies God’s people by passing among them.

The Word of Jesus is the same. It builds up, but while it does so it destroys whatever has no real substance, whatever must fall, whatever is vanity, and leaves standing only the truth.

To be available to God’s plans

Advent of the Kingdom of Love!

Dearest Duccia*,

Before I left you, and as I left you, I abandoned you to Love, so that you may become Saint Catherine of modern times.
I went into St. Mark’s Church and I prayed to Him, the Almighty for you.
I was close to Him in body and heart and He spoke to me of you. He told me that your wish is welcomed in Heaven and He, the Almighty One, is ready to carry it out.
But He told me to tell you this:
Wanting to be St. Catherine is a good thing.
Being able to be St. Catherine depends totally on God and it depends totally on you.

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* Duccia, a few years older than Chiara, was a social worker, a Red Cross nurse who lived in Piazza Cappuccini, in Trent, near the focolare where Chiara had moved to in September 1944.
Chiara gave her as a model Saint Catherine of Siena, who was very popular in Italy and whose spirituality was centred on the two terms «Blood and Fire.»
We can perceive that the Author starts being aware of being bearer of a gift, of having been chosen by Jesus to be his confidante regarding his wound. The word “key” appears, which indicates that the cross, and especially Jesus Forsaken, opens every heart and leads to holiness.

Rome, 30 March 1959

We certainly have a great responsibility. We Christians must give witness to Christ and from the way we act people should be able to grasp the message that Christ brought on earth.

But at times the witness we give of Christ is weak—if not non-existent— or deformed in one way or another.

Various personalities and minds averse to the action of grace project an image of Jesus that is often in their own image and likeness. Therefore, those looking on deduce what they can from the data they have: for example, that deep down, religion simply bends people’s necks but not their will. And this is because those Christians, who call themselves Christ’s disciples, since it is they who live and not Christ in them, cast a shadow that veils in their own person the religion they profess. As a result, the separation tragically continues and is perpetuated between those who are far from Christ and those who, if they were to relive the love that is God, should attract the world and bring it to the Lord.

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Giulia “Eli” Folonari
The Music Score Written in Heaven
Fifty years with Chiara Lubich
Conversations with Oreste Paliotti and Michele Zanzucchi
Preface by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz
Città Nuova, Rome 2012

A 172 page easy-to-read book in the Italian Città Nuova series Towards unity-Essays is being released, with the title “The Music Score Written in Heaven".

A perfect title for a very special witness, Eli Folonari’s, who was next to Chiara Lubich for over half a century. It’s “the music score” of the Work of Mary, written in heaven and carried out here on earth by more than one person, by those who, with her, contributed to composing it according to God’s “plan”: her first male and female companions, Foco, Fr. Foresi....

A book edited by Fabio Ciardi: The Exterior Castle, the ‘novelty’ in Chiara Lubich’s spirituality, a collection of writings by the Carmelite Priest Jesùs Castellano Cervera (1941-2006), Città Nuova, Rome, 2011.

“In the ample introduction, especially through a series of quotations from the unpublished correspondence between Fr. Jesús and Chiara, we can reconstruct the story of a spiritual relationship which sustained and stimulated the journey not only of the scholar of spirituality, but also of the religious and Discalced Carmelite priest, son of Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross.

Chiara Lubich
God-Love
Edited by Florence Gillet
Città Nuova, Rome 2011

Chiara considers the discovery and the rediscovery of a God who is Love as “the greatest adventure of the modern person.”

This collection opens a window on the inexpressible, that is, on God and how Chiara met him throughout her whole life. Through the texts gathered here, Chiara leads us from the striking discovery that “God loves you immensely,” to the deepest longing of her whole life, union with God.  What is also emphasized is the constant effort that He be “the only one who fascinates her” and to be faithful to his Love and Truth.