Jesus Forsaken: today's God
In depth
JESUS FORSAKEN: WINDOW OF GOD - THE WINDOW OF HUMANITY
Fundamental key point of the spirituality of unity
Maria Voce
JESUS FORSAKEN: WINDOW OF GOD - THE WINDOW OF HUMANITY
Fundamental key point of the spirituality of unity
Maria Voce
Every year the president of the Focolare Movement re-examines one of the twelve key points of the spirituality of unity, highlighting ways to put it into practice today. During 2016-2017 we will concentrate on Jesus crucified and forsaken. Together with unity, this is one of the two important pillars of the charism of Chiara Lubich. This conversation is particularly current in the context of the ever more evident wounds of humanity: millions of disowned people, people fleeing from wars and persecution, reduced to misery and hunger, as also in the presence of the spiritual night, disorientation and increasing rifts and tensions. The cursive titles are editorial.
We have just come to the end of a year in which we committed ourselves to focus on unity. With joy and deep gratitude to God I too can say that we have experienced how fruitful this has been. Certainly the presence of Jesus has grown amongst us everywhere in the world. Similarly, our “going out” to humankind awaiting us has been more convincing on all fronts.
We know very well, however, that unity is hard to achieve on all levels and is only possible if we place Jesus Forsaken at the centre of our hearts, as our only everything. In fact, Chiara reminds us that “All light on unity flows from that cry,[1] referring to when Jesus on the cross cried out to the Father: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34; Mt 27:46).
In recent times, by simply looking around even for a moment, we have been able to see how true it is that humankind is “one great Jesus Forsaken”. His cry resounds today more than ever in the most varied ways: it can be heard in existential peripheries, certainly, but also in contexts closer to us like our work places, our families, our relationships and within us, very often.
Every time we feel the unity Jesus asked of the Father is still a distant ideal, and an almost unreachable goal, Jesus Forsaken is there. He invites us to a deeper encounter with Him and it seems he is saying to us as he did to Chiara: “If you don’t love me [if all of you don’t love me], who will love me?”
We are dedicating this year to Him.
I have prepared this talk by reading Chiara’s book The Cry once again. What book could be more suited to this task since Chiara herself wrote it, defining it “Like a love letter to Jesus Forsaken”?
This time I was particularly struck by one of the last pages, where Chiara defines Jesus Forsaken as “an infinite void through which God looks at us: the window of God opened upon the world, and the window of humankind through which we see God.”[2]
She defined Him in this way during that period of great illumination, which in the Movement is known as “Paradise ’49.”
I think this affirmation would be enough to understand that Jesus Forsaken (together with unity) is not simply a point of the spirituality alongside all the others that we have lived, but He is a fundamental cornerstone. Last year we said that unity has the same measure: in Jesus crucified and forsaken, the other side of the same coin.
Therefore, this is our approach:
- First we will look at Jesus Forsaken as “the window of God opened upon the world”;
- Then we will look at Him as “the window of humankind through which we see God”.
It is a journey from the Trinity to the Trinity: God who became flesh on earth so as to lead the whole of humanity back to Himself. He himself is the mediator: Jesus Forsaken.
As always, and necessarily so, we will draw on the sources of the Charism of unity, seeking to review Chiara’s life and works in the context of where we are today.
Jesus Forsaken: “the window of God opened upon the world”
We will start from the Gospel, the first legacy Chiara left us.
In one of the most beautiful pages of St John’s Gospel we read: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16).
Pope John Paul II reflected on this as follows: “This truth radically changes the picture of man's history and his earthly situation.” This happened despite sin, which took root in history. In fact, God the Father who loves his only Son and loves him in an immeasurable and eternal way, precisely because of “this all surpassing love, “gives” his Son that he may strike at the very roots of human evil and thus draw close in a salvific way to the whole world of suffering in which man shares.”[3] “… It is only because the Son of God truly became man that man, in him and through him, can truly become a child of God.”[4]
This is how God became incarnate in history.
Jesus came on earth to lead all people (who had distanced themselves from God through sin) back into full communion with Him. On the cross, he took upon himself every negative aspect of human beings, their sufferings, anguish and desperation; their pain and their sins… making Himself, He who was the Innocent, like a sinner.
Jesus Forsaken as Ideal
How did Chiara experience this reality?
Here we must go back to the roots of our history and remember what happened in Dori’s[5] house: “If Jesus’ greatest pain was being forsaken by his Father,” Chiara said to Dori and her first companions, “we will choose him as our Ideal and that is the way we will follow him.”[6]
This choice had a visible, external starting point. It happened on the day when, after taking away all the poor furniture from the tiny apartment that housed the first focolare, Chiara and her first companions left only mattresses for beds and a picture of Jesus Forsaken on the white wall. Chiara said, “That picture alone, in the bareness of that room was enough to remind us on waking each morning that we had chosen only him, Jesus crucified and forsaken.”[7]
In fact, a statement goes back to those early days – which is almost a declaration of love -, that was said every day when they woke up, with all the joy in their hearts, addressing Jesus and Mary, “Because you are forsaken, because you are desolate”. It was like a prayer which expressed the reason for living every day. This practice is still used today.
Proof of God’s love here on earth
From the very first moment, Jesus Forsaken revealed himself to Chiara as “the living proof of God’s love here on earth”.[8]
She wrote to one of her companions: “I know you’ll fall. I too fall, often and always. But when I lift my gaze up to Him and see Him there, incapable of revenge since He is nailed to a cross because of His boundless love, I let myself be caressed by His Infinite Mercy and I know this is the only thing that must triumph in me.
What is the point of him being so infinitely Merciful? What is the point - if it were not for our sins? … God doesn’t want many things from you, just your heart.”[9] Chiara wrote that in 1945.
Pope Francis seemed to echo these words during his homily for World Youth Day in St Peter’s Square on 20th March 2016, when he emphasised in particular God’s mercy towards humankind. He said:
“To be totally in solidarity with us, [Jesus] also experiences on the Cross the mysterious abandonment of the Father. In his abandonment, however, he prays and entrusts himself … at the height of his annihilation, [he] reveals the true face of God, which is mercy. He forgives those who are crucifying him, he opens the gates of paradise to the repentant thief and he touches the heart of the centurion. If the mystery of evil is unfathomable, then the reality of Love poured out through him is infinite, reaching even to the tomb and to hell. He takes upon himself all our pain that he may redeem it, bringing light to darkness, life to death, love to hatred.”[10]
- “Light to darkness, life to death, love to hatred.”
These words remind us of a prayer of praise and thanksgiving that Chiara dedicated to Jesus Forsaken and welled up spontaneously in her heart:
- “So that we might possess Light, You made yourself blind.
- To acquire union for us, You experienced separation from the Father.
- So that we might have wisdom, You made yourself ‘ignorance’.
- To clothe us in innocence, You became sin.
- So that we might hope, You almost despaired...
- So that God might be present in us, You felt him far from you.
- So that heaven might be ours, You felt hell.
- To make our time on earth happy, among hundreds of brothers and sisters and more, you were expelled from Heaven and earth, from humankind and nature.
- You are God, you are my God, our God of infinite love.”[11]
In this prayer we can see clearly who Jesus Forsaken is and who we are. But He “comes down”: he comes down to meet us where we are, to take our humanity on Himself. In this way he becomes “God’s window” onto the world, “the living demonstration of God’s love here on earth”.[12]
In this boundless measure of love, which the Forsaken Jesus had for every person of every time and culture, each one of our sufferings has been transformed; every emptiness filled; every sin redeemed.
Chiara was so convinced of this that she would have wanted to look through the dictionary to find all the negative adjectives, sure that she would have been able to find a countenance of Jesus Forsaken in all of them.
- “Jesus Forsaken - she wrote - is the image of the mute. He can no longer speak; he does not know what else to say: “et nescivi”: “and I did not understand” (Ps 73[72]:22).
- He is the image of the blind, he cannot not see; of the deaf, he cannot hear.
- He is the tired person who laments.
- He seems on the edge of despair.
- He is hungry… for union with God.
- He is the image of those who are deluded, have failed or are betrayed.
- He is fearful, disoriented.
- Jesus Forsaken is darkness, melancholy, contrast, the image of all that is strange, indefinable, all that seems monstrous, because he is a God who cries out for help! … He is meaninglessness.
- He is the lonely one, the derelict… He seems useless, rejected, in shock.”[13]
Jesus Forsaken “is the image of all that is unforeseen or long-waited, of accidents, surprises, doubts, accusations, condemnation, investigation, exile, excommunication, of being orphaned, widowed, divorced, of all that represents tragedy, ordeal, complete shock, catastrophe.
We will never finish finding him everywhere in this vale of tears here on earth.”[14]
Answer to the mystery of suffering
In Jesus Forsaken – who is both the height of suffering and the height of love – is enclosed the key to enter and respond to the deepest mystery surrounding the life of every person and all of humankind: the mystery of pain and suffering which Chiara – thanks to Him – was able to recognise and welcome as a mystery of love.
It is a mystery, a great mystery, which touches the depths of her heart:
“Jesus on earth …” she wrote with particular emotion, “Jesus our Brother… Jesus who dies between two thieves for us: He, the Son of God, put on the same level as others.
… If you came among us, it is because our weakness attracted you, our wretchedness moved you to compassion.
Certainly, no earthly mother or father waits more anxiously for their lost child or does more to bring them back, than does our Father in heaven.”[15]
This is said clearly by John Paul II in Novo Millennio Ineunte, which emphasises that “in order to bring the human person back to the Father's face, Jesus not only had to take on the face of a human being, but he had to burden himself with the ‘face’ of sin”.[16] After taking on Himself the whole reality of evil – a reality which first of all is an absence of love – he also experiences on the cross the depths of no longer even feeling his union with the Father (cf. Mk 15,34; Mt 27,46). However, although he experienced this separation he re-abandoned Himself to the Father and in this way made Himself (I am quoting Chiara now) “the author and way to people’s unity with God and with each other.” [17]
In the abandonment Jesus gives us the Spirit
As we read in Luke’s Gospel, in the supreme moment of death, Jesus turned to the Father saying, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). In this way, He transformed feeling forsaken by God into entrusting himself fully to Him. In that moment “by making himself nothing, he unites the children with the Father”[18] and gives us the Holy Spirit.
Chiara draws out further important consequences from this:
“But like Him, who after crying out the abandonment abandons himself to the Father and dies in Him — we too, looking to our model, are able to recompose Unity everywhere no matter who may have broken it.” [19]
Jesus forsaken: “humankind’s window through which we see God”
We are at the beginnings of the Movement, in 1944, still at the height of the Second World War, when Chiara – as we have said – discovered Jesus’ greatest suffering in that “cry” and, together with her first companions (and all those who would then follow her Ideal) felt called to be a response of love to that very cry.
She wrote to one of them as follows:
“Do you know Jesus Forsaken? Do you know that He has given us everything? What more could a God give us out of Love than to forget that He is God?
Those of us who are following this most beautiful and appealing Ideal with you, have thrown ourselves with our whole soul into the new wound of the Abandonment! … But from within that wound we can see the entire Immensity of God’s Love which is poured out over the world.
Place yourself inside it too! You’ll have the Light of Love, because Jesus is the Light of the world.”[20]
Then, emphasising “our good fortune” to be able to follow this forsaken Love, she went on:
“In His inscrutable plans He has chosen us from among thousands and thousands of people to let us hear His anguished Cry: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” And, as God, He has made this Cry into the rule of a new life, according to a new Ideal.”[21]
The rule of a new life
“The rule of a new life”. A life founded on the words of Jesus, on the Gospel.
We read, still in St John’s Gospel, words which are fundamental for our life as Christians and focolarini. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends” (Jn 15:12-13).
Jesus’ words “as I have loved you” which find their climax in the abandonment, commit us too, to his same measure of love: “for us too, loving God means being ready to die for one another" (Cf Jn 15:13).[22]
There was an emblematic occasion in Chiara’s story when the choice of Jesus Forsaken became an explicit act which is that of giving our life for our brothers and sisters.
At the end of the summer of 1949 she had to leave the Trentino Mountains and the extraordinary experience of Paradise which had characterised that period, so as to go back to the city, and this was an immense suffering for her. Chiara shared it with us as follows:
“I did not want to leave Paradise. I could not believe I had to leave that Heaven in which we had lived for approximately two months. I did not see the reason for it and I did not understand it, not because of an attachment or a whim, but because of my inability to adapt myself to earth after becoming accustomed to Heaven. I believed God could not want this.
It was Foco [Igino Giordani] who gave me courage by opening my eyes when he reminded me that Jesus Forsaken was my Ideal and that I should love Him in humanity that awaited me. It was then, crushed by suffering and in tears that I wrote: ‘I have only one Spouse on earth: Jesus Forsaken. I have no other God but Him. In Him there is the whole of humanity, in Him the Trinity. What hurts me is mine. I will go through the world…’”[23]
By analogy, God asked Chiara to “come down” too so as to welcome into her heart – by sharing the suffering of every person – “all that is not peace, joy, beautiful, lovable, serene, all that is not Paradise”, as she said. God asked her to go through the world “like Fire which consumes everything that should fall and leaves only the Truth standing.” [24]
She did this throughout her life, giving a marvellous example up to her very last breath.
“I will go through the world”. Many years have gone by since that far off 1949. Yet, in following Chiara, this is our task today too. Like her, we go into the streets of the world so as to meet Him, our Ideal.
But where and how can we love him?
Love Him in those who resemble Him most
Chiara herself reminded us during a conference call in which – with the enchantment of someone who has made a new discovery – she encouraged us to renew our preferential choice of Him. In support of the experience she lived from the early days of the Movement with the poor and people in need, she affirmed:
“By loving Him in everyone but especially in those who resemble Him most; those who suffer in any way, those who seem to be furthest from God.”[25]
Then she urged us to look at the map showing the spreading of the Movement, and to take out the addresses of people who most need our care and highlight in particular those most resembling Jesus Forsaken: “We must pay attention to them first and give them our first available time.” [26]
It is a question of loving these people “to the point of bringing them to God, involving them in our revolution of love, in our same Ideal.” [27]
Steps taken and sufferings to embrace
Here too we must stop for a moment to see what has happened over the years and acknowledge with gratitude the steps taken.
It’s true. He has drawn us to himself, allowing us in a specific way at this time in history to share “the great tragedy of his passion, through which all things have been recapitulated in him (Cf Eph 1:10)”[28] But in various ways he has also made us sharers in his resurrection.
Together with Chiara we have recognised in Jesus Forsaken the greatest “mystery of love”, the true “teacher of unity”[29]. In fact, He “sums up every physical and spiritual pain”[30]. He made himself our model, our “style of love”[31].
There have been and still are many experiences of recognising and embracing Him in sufferings of all kinds, beginning with those closest to home, so to speak. For example:
- There have been many personal and collective weaknesses and limits, which have lead some people to feel discouraged and even abandon a life that seemed too demanding considering all that is attractive in the world.
- The fact that there are fewer members of the Movement, fewer people who are able and determined to stake their whole lives for unity (the “that all may be one”; cf Jn 17:21), and the consequent lack of human and material resources for the many activities undertaken.
- The difficulty of providing adequate and effective answers to the problems of humankind around us, which is being attacked by evil that seems to be advancing relentlessly.
- At times there has been the clouding over of the brightness that comes from belonging all and only to God, which could attract and give rise to new responses to his call.
- At the same time, after Chiara’s death, there has been the gradual passing on to the next life of the first focolarini, the first witnesses, and true pillars of the Movement who have supported us with their unwavering faith in the power of the Charism of unity.
Jesus forsaken teaches to make unity with all
The list could go on… but then, going beyond our immediate circle, how often have we met Him in all divisions, in every ordeal, in the mutual indifference we’ve seen in families, between generations, between rich and poor, in the separation among the Churches, among different religions and between those who believe and those who do not have religious beliefs, in the many faces of people who suffer, are disunited or at war… Moreover, love for him has borne fruit.
If we think for a moment about the path to unity being followed in ecumenism, the deep relationship built with faithful and representatives of different Churches among which the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew bears witness to this.
Then there are the various meetings that have taken place at the inter-religious level – at such a critical a time in history –, meetings which make us already experience, despite everything, that fraternity is nearer.
There is the inculturation of the Charism of unity in the most varied cultures across the world and the vitality of the dialogue with culture, which, in its most diverse forms, has allowed us to build bridges with contemporary culture at many different levels.
There is the life and work undertaken by the wider ranging Movements.
Jesus Forsaken has taught us to “make unity” with all our brothers and sisters.
“I cannot enter into another soul if my own is rich. To love others I must constantly make myself so poor in spirit that I possess nothing but love.”[32]
It is this attitude regarding our neighbour which, being rooted in love for Jesus Forsaken, is able to renew society from within and establish fraternal relationships amongst all nations on earth, appreciating the specific identity of each one. It can heal the wounds troubling the world today, a world where God seems to be more than ever absent, especially in the West.
In the night of humanity
Every day we see terrible things in the media. The refugee boats where entire peoples are fleeing their lands due to hunger or war; there are cities ruined by people to the point of destroying ancient cultures; there is fundamentalism and acts of violence at the most varied levels.
To all this has been added a problem, which has intensified and was already mentioned by Pope Benedict XVI when he spoke about the “cultural night” surrounding us.
“How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking? … . Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true... Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be ‘tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine’, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.” [33]
In the “night” that seems to envelop the suffering world around us, Chiara puts before us the person of Jesus who cries out in a loud voice: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” saying:
“This was his darkest night, the climax of his suffering. This extraordinarily profound suffering that Jesus experienced as a man is a mystery of infinite depth and shows the measure of his love for humankind. He wanted, in fact, to take upon himself the separation which kept human beings far from the Father – and far from each other – and to bridge that separation.”[34]
But in that cry, which seems paradoxical and in that terrible pain are summed up the thousand names of human suffering.
Jesus crucified and forsaken is the star on this path. He gives us the courage and the light to take action in every one of these situations:
“In loving Jesus Forsaken we find the reason and the strength to not flee from these evils and divisions but to accept and embrace them out of love for him, and to then bring our personal and collective remedy.” [35]
In Jesus Forsaken Chiara shows us the light we can follow so as to experience – precisely by passing through darkness – the truth that St Lawrence affirmed, and Chiara reminded us of: “My night has no darkness, and all things are full of light to me.” [36]
Yes, it is possible because Jesus crucified and forsaken has conquered death and is risen from the dead.
The cry of abandonment: a doctrine
As I said, by entering into the mystery lived by Jesus in his forsakenness, Chiara saw a light spring forth that is able to give light and meaning to every experience of pain and forsakenness that can happen to a person, whether at an individual or collective level.
In fact, Chiara did not hesitate to confirm, supported by what St Leo the Great said, that Jesus’ cry is also “a doctrine” [37]. This doctrine, once appropriately studied (and the Abba School [38] already set out on this path with Chiara and continues its work), can bring new light not only to the knowledge of God, to theology, but also to philosophy and all other fields of knowledge, the most varied disciplines and as a consequence to the various sectors of human endeavour.
His cry, which sums up the nothingness of all things, has always accompanied human history. [39] This is why, in one of the most beautiful pages written in 1949, Chiara wrote:
“Jesus is Jesus Forsaken. Because Jesus is the Saviour, the Redeemer, and He redeems when He pours the Divine upon humanity through the Wound of His Forsakenness that is the pupil of the Eye of God upon the world: an infinite Void through which God looks at us, the window of God thrown open upon the world and the window of humanity through which we see God.” [40]
Many years later, reflecting on the writing from 1949 that I have just read, Chiara wanted to emphasise once more that he is:
“…the love of the Father come to earth … and he loved us by giving everything, taking everything away from himself, even God. And so what remained is the void.” So “if we live like Him, we can look into this void and see God the Father, and the Father can look into it and see us.” [41]
In his abandonment Jesus “is truly the Redeemer; he is the mediator who, by making himself nothing, unites the children to the Father.” [42]
Often, during the course of this reflection, we have said that Jesus’ passion and death is “the great demonstration of God’s love for humankind”. We cannot disregard this “light”. This love is so powerful that it is worthy of resurrection and yields fruit in drawing all people towards Him (cf. Jn 12:32).
In this way, the unity of the new people of God comes about, journeying towards Him.
Jesus Forsaken-Risen “way of holiness”
Let’s return to us, to our personal life, to our “Here I am!” that we want to say to Him.
It is clear that for us the cross is no longer a sign of a curse or death, because through his resurrection Jesus has transformed it into a tool for victory over the real death which is sin.
So, “the cross can no longer be separated from glory; the crucified Christ cannot be separated from the Risen Christ. These are two aspects of the same mystery of God who is Love. … This precious teaching of the Crucified and Risen Lord … will shed light also on the role that suffering plays in our lives and on its extraordinary fruitfulness”[43], wrote Chiara, exhorting us with the following words:
“Day after day, as we are afflicted by small or great sufferings …let’s make the effort to accept them and offer them to Jesus as an expression of our love. …
If we do so, we will be able to experience something unusual and unexpected: our souls will be invaded by peace, love, light and even pure joy. We will find a new strength within us. We will see how, by embracing our daily crosses and uniting ourselves through them to Jesus crucified and forsaken, we can share in his risen life already here on earth.
Enriched by this experience, we will be better able to help our brothers and sisters find blessedness in the midst of tears, and transform all that troubles them into contentedness. In this way we will become channels of joy for many people, channels of happiness, the happiness that every human heart longs for.”[44]
In Jesus Forsaken even the meaninglessness of human suffering acquires meaning. He – the mediator between God and humankind – is the answer to every meaninglessness, because it gives us the chance to meet God face to face in every situation.
Recalling the two perspectives Chiara has put before us: Jesus Forsaken the window of God – the window of Humankind – chosen as the title of this talk, God can see humankind because Jesus Forsaken is the human being and human beings can see God because Jesus Forsaken is God.
Conclusion
Now we conclude knowing that we have only touched on a few aspects within the extraordinary wealth of doctrine, which Chiara understood in Jesus Forsaken. We will have time throughout the year to deepen these and other facets in direct contact with Him.
But there is yet another aspect of Jesus Forsaken we cannot fail to mention, perhaps the most intimate and rich spiritual legacy that Chiara left not only to us, members of the Focolare Movement, but to the whole of humanity.
Once she confided to us:
“I would like to be remembered only as the spouse of Jesus Forsaken, as (and we can all express ourselves in this way), a soul who is the spouse of Jesus Forsaken.
This possible definition of my life (may God help me in this!) seemed marvellous to me even though it is very high, even though it is still “what I must become”. And yet I sensed it is my vocation.
We know … that in order to become saints, we need to focus on only one idea that sums up all others, which for us can be nothing other than unity; but unity is reached only if our soul is the spouse of Jesus Forsaken.” [45] This seems almost like the crowning of what Chiara already understood in 1949 when she wrote: “Jesus Forsaken is Holiness because from the soul torn by forsakenness springs the Light of God, the Light: God.” [46]
And again:
“What joy at the thought that I have all I need to become a saint.
I do not need the approval of my Institute, nor anyone’s help, nor other souls with me (even if my Ideal is unity and supposes there be at least two) or anything else.
For me the cross that comes moment by moment is enough, the one He sends me and which is one of the many faces of my Forsaken Love, who was Crucified in soul and body…, made all mine, as my only everything.
In this way, without needing anything or anyone, I go ahead with confidence on the way He has marked out for me, hindered by no one, for I have made hindrance itself my passion and my flight of Love.” [47]
_____________________________________
[1] C. Lubich, A new way, New City, London 2002, p. 53.
[2] C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, p. 136.
[3] Cf. John Paul II, Salvifici doloris 15.
[4] Cf. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte 23.
[5] Doriana Zamboni, one of Chiara’s first companions.
We have just come to the end of a year in which we committed ourselves to focus on unity. With joy and deep gratitude to God I too can say that we have experienced how fruitful this has been. Certainly the presence of Jesus has grown amongst us everywhere in the world. Similarly, our “going out” to humankind awaiting us has been more convincing on all fronts.
We know very well, however, that unity is hard to achieve on all levels and is only possible if we place Jesus Forsaken at the centre of our hearts, as our only everything. In fact, Chiara reminds us that “All light on unity flows from that cry,[1] referring to when Jesus on the cross cried out to the Father: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34; Mt 27:46).
In recent times, by simply looking around even for a moment, we have been able to see how true it is that humankind is “one great Jesus Forsaken”. His cry resounds today more than ever in the most varied ways: it can be heard in existential peripheries, certainly, but also in contexts closer to us like our work places, our families, our relationships and within us, very often.
Every time we feel the unity Jesus asked of the Father is still a distant ideal, and an almost unreachable goal, Jesus Forsaken is there. He invites us to a deeper encounter with Him and it seems he is saying to us as he did to Chiara: “If you don’t love me [if all of you don’t love me], who will love me?”
We are dedicating this year to Him.
I have prepared this talk by reading Chiara’s book The Cry once again. What book could be more suited to this task since Chiara herself wrote it, defining it “Like a love letter to Jesus Forsaken”?
This time I was particularly struck by one of the last pages, where Chiara defines Jesus Forsaken as “an infinite void through which God looks at us: the window of God opened upon the world, and the window of humankind through which we see God.”[2]
She defined Him in this way during that period of great illumination, which in the Movement is known as “Paradise ’49.”
I think this affirmation would be enough to understand that Jesus Forsaken (together with unity) is not simply a point of the spirituality alongside all the others that we have lived, but He is a fundamental cornerstone. Last year we said that unity has the same measure: in Jesus crucified and forsaken, the other side of the same coin.
Therefore, this is our approach:
- First we will look at Jesus Forsaken as “the window of God opened upon the world”;
- Then we will look at Him as “the window of humankind through which we see God”.
It is a journey from the Trinity to the Trinity: God who became flesh on earth so as to lead the whole of humanity back to Himself. He himself is the mediator: Jesus Forsaken.
As always, and necessarily so, we will draw on the sources of the Charism of unity, seeking to review Chiara’s life and works in the context of where we are today.
Jesus Forsaken: “the window of God opened upon the world”
We will start from the Gospel, the first legacy Chiara left us.
In one of the most beautiful pages of St John’s Gospel we read: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16).
Pope John Paul II reflected on this as follows: “This truth radically changes the picture of man's history and his earthly situation.” This happened despite sin, which took root in history. In fact, God the Father who loves his only Son and loves him in an immeasurable and eternal way, precisely because of “this all surpassing love, “gives” his Son that he may strike at the very roots of human evil and thus draw close in a salvific way to the whole world of suffering in which man shares.”[3] “… It is only because the Son of God truly became man that man, in him and through him, can truly become a child of God.”[4]
This is how God became incarnate in history.
Jesus came on earth to lead all people (who had distanced themselves from God through sin) back into full communion with Him. On the cross, he took upon himself every negative aspect of human beings, their sufferings, anguish and desperation; their pain and their sins… making Himself, He who was the Innocent, like a sinner.
Jesus Forsaken as Ideal
How did Chiara experience this reality?
Here we must go back to the roots of our history and remember what happened in Dori’s[5] house: “If Jesus’ greatest pain was being forsaken by his Father,” Chiara said to Dori and her first companions, “we will choose him as our Ideal and that is the way we will follow him.”[6]
This choice had a visible, external starting point. It happened on the day when, after taking away all the poor furniture from the tiny apartment that housed the first focolare, Chiara and her first companions left only mattresses for beds and a picture of Jesus Forsaken on the white wall. Chiara said, “That picture alone, in the bareness of that room was enough to remind us on waking each morning that we had chosen only him, Jesus crucified and forsaken.”[7]
In fact, a statement goes back to those early days – which is almost a declaration of love -, that was said every day when they woke up, with all the joy in their hearts, addressing Jesus and Mary, “Because you are forsaken, because you are desolate”. It was like a prayer which expressed the reason for living every day. This practice is still used today.
Proof of God’s love here on earth
From the very first moment, Jesus Forsaken revealed himself to Chiara as “the living proof of God’s love here on earth”.[8]
She wrote to one of her companions: “I know you’ll fall. I too fall, often and always. But when I lift my gaze up to Him and see Him there, incapable of revenge since He is nailed to a cross because of His boundless love, I let myself be caressed by His Infinite Mercy and I know this is the only thing that must triumph in me.
What is the point of him being so infinitely Merciful? What is the point - if it were not for our sins? … God doesn’t want many things from you, just your heart.”[9] Chiara wrote that in 1945.
Pope Francis seemed to echo these words during his homily for World Youth Day in St Peter’s Square on 20th March 2016, when he emphasised in particular God’s mercy towards humankind. He said:
“To be totally in solidarity with us, [Jesus] also experiences on the Cross the mysterious abandonment of the Father. In his abandonment, however, he prays and entrusts himself … at the height of his annihilation, [he] reveals the true face of God, which is mercy. He forgives those who are crucifying him, he opens the gates of paradise to the repentant thief and he touches the heart of the centurion. If the mystery of evil is unfathomable, then the reality of Love poured out through him is infinite, reaching even to the tomb and to hell. He takes upon himself all our pain that he may redeem it, bringing light to darkness, life to death, love to hatred.”[10]
- “Light to darkness, life to death, love to hatred.”
These words remind us of a prayer of praise and thanksgiving that Chiara dedicated to Jesus Forsaken and welled up spontaneously in her heart:
- “So that we might possess Light, You made yourself blind.
- To acquire union for us, You experienced separation from the Father.
- So that we might have wisdom, You made yourself ‘ignorance’.
- To clothe us in innocence, You became sin.
- So that we might hope, You almost despaired...
- So that God might be present in us, You felt him far from you.
- So that heaven might be ours, You felt hell.
- To make our time on earth happy, among hundreds of brothers and sisters and more, you were expelled from Heaven and earth, from humankind and nature.
- You are God, you are my God, our God of infinite love.”[11]
In this prayer we can see clearly who Jesus Forsaken is and who we are. But He “comes down”: he comes down to meet us where we are, to take our humanity on Himself. In this way he becomes “God’s window” onto the world, “the living demonstration of God’s love here on earth”.[12]
In this boundless measure of love, which the Forsaken Jesus had for every person of every time and culture, each one of our sufferings has been transformed; every emptiness filled; every sin redeemed.
Chiara was so convinced of this that she would have wanted to look through the dictionary to find all the negative adjectives, sure that she would have been able to find a countenance of Jesus Forsaken in all of them.
- “Jesus Forsaken - she wrote - is the image of the mute. He can no longer speak; he does not know what else to say: “et nescivi”: “and I did not understand” (Ps 73[72]:22).
- He is the image of the blind, he cannot not see; of the deaf, he cannot hear.
- He is the tired person who laments.
- He seems on the edge of despair.
- He is hungry… for union with God.
- He is the image of those who are deluded, have failed or are betrayed.
- He is fearful, disoriented.
- Jesus Forsaken is darkness, melancholy, contrast, the image of all that is strange, indefinable, all that seems monstrous, because he is a God who cries out for help! … He is meaninglessness.
- He is the lonely one, the derelict… He seems useless, rejected, in shock.”[13]
Jesus Forsaken “is the image of all that is unforeseen or long-waited, of accidents, surprises, doubts, accusations, condemnation, investigation, exile, excommunication, of being orphaned, widowed, divorced, of all that represents tragedy, ordeal, complete shock, catastrophe.
We will never finish finding him everywhere in this vale of tears here on earth.”[14]
Answer to the mystery of suffering
In Jesus Forsaken – who is both the height of suffering and the height of love – is enclosed the key to enter and respond to the deepest mystery surrounding the life of every person and all of humankind: the mystery of pain and suffering which Chiara – thanks to Him – was able to recognise and welcome as a mystery of love.
It is a mystery, a great mystery, which touches the depths of her heart:
“Jesus on earth …” she wrote with particular emotion, “Jesus our Brother… Jesus who dies between two thieves for us: He, the Son of God, put on the same level as others.
… If you came among us, it is because our weakness attracted you, our wretchedness moved you to compassion.
Certainly, no earthly mother or father waits more anxiously for their lost child or does more to bring them back, than does our Father in heaven.”[15]
This is said clearly by John Paul II in Novo Millennio Ineunte, which emphasises that “in order to bring the human person back to the Father's face, Jesus not only had to take on the face of a human being, but he had to burden himself with the ‘face’ of sin”.[16] After taking on Himself the whole reality of evil – a reality which first of all is an absence of love – he also experiences on the cross the depths of no longer even feeling his union with the Father (cf. Mk 15,34; Mt 27,46). However, although he experienced this separation he re-abandoned Himself to the Father and in this way made Himself (I am quoting Chiara now) “the author and way to people’s unity with God and with each other.” [17]
In the abandonment Jesus gives us the Spirit
As we read in Luke’s Gospel, in the supreme moment of death, Jesus turned to the Father saying, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). In this way, He transformed feeling forsaken by God into entrusting himself fully to Him. In that moment “by making himself nothing, he unites the children with the Father”[18] and gives us the Holy Spirit.
Chiara draws out further important consequences from this:
“But like Him, who after crying out the abandonment abandons himself to the Father and dies in Him — we too, looking to our model, are able to recompose Unity everywhere no matter who may have broken it.” [19]
Jesus forsaken: “humankind’s window through which we see God”
We are at the beginnings of the Movement, in 1944, still at the height of the Second World War, when Chiara – as we have said – discovered Jesus’ greatest suffering in that “cry” and, together with her first companions (and all those who would then follow her Ideal) felt called to be a response of love to that very cry.
She wrote to one of them as follows:
“Do you know Jesus Forsaken? Do you know that He has given us everything? What more could a God give us out of Love than to forget that He is God?
Those of us who are following this most beautiful and appealing Ideal with you, have thrown ourselves with our whole soul into the new wound of the Abandonment! … But from within that wound we can see the entire Immensity of God’s Love which is poured out over the world.
Place yourself inside it too! You’ll have the Light of Love, because Jesus is the Light of the world.”[20]
Then, emphasising “our good fortune” to be able to follow this forsaken Love, she went on:
“In His inscrutable plans He has chosen us from among thousands and thousands of people to let us hear His anguished Cry: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” And, as God, He has made this Cry into the rule of a new life, according to a new Ideal.”[21]
The rule of a new life
“The rule of a new life”. A life founded on the words of Jesus, on the Gospel.
We read, still in St John’s Gospel, words which are fundamental for our life as Christians and focolarini. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends” (Jn 15:12-13).
Jesus’ words “as I have loved you” which find their climax in the abandonment, commit us too, to his same measure of love: “for us too, loving God means being ready to die for one another" (Cf Jn 15:13).[22]
There was an emblematic occasion in Chiara’s story when the choice of Jesus Forsaken became an explicit act which is that of giving our life for our brothers and sisters.
At the end of the summer of 1949 she had to leave the Trentino Mountains and the extraordinary experience of Paradise which had characterised that period, so as to go back to the city, and this was an immense suffering for her. Chiara shared it with us as follows:
“I did not want to leave Paradise. I could not believe I had to leave that Heaven in which we had lived for approximately two months. I did not see the reason for it and I did not understand it, not because of an attachment or a whim, but because of my inability to adapt myself to earth after becoming accustomed to Heaven. I believed God could not want this.
It was Foco [Igino Giordani] who gave me courage by opening my eyes when he reminded me that Jesus Forsaken was my Ideal and that I should love Him in humanity that awaited me. It was then, crushed by suffering and in tears that I wrote: ‘I have only one Spouse on earth: Jesus Forsaken. I have no other God but Him. In Him there is the whole of humanity, in Him the Trinity. What hurts me is mine. I will go through the world…’”[23]
By analogy, God asked Chiara to “come down” too so as to welcome into her heart – by sharing the suffering of every person – “all that is not peace, joy, beautiful, lovable, serene, all that is not Paradise”, as she said. God asked her to go through the world “like Fire which consumes everything that should fall and leaves only the Truth standing.” [24]
She did this throughout her life, giving a marvellous example up to her very last breath.
“I will go through the world”. Many years have gone by since that far off 1949. Yet, in following Chiara, this is our task today too. Like her, we go into the streets of the world so as to meet Him, our Ideal.
But where and how can we love him?
Love Him in those who resemble Him most
Chiara herself reminded us during a conference call in which – with the enchantment of someone who has made a new discovery – she encouraged us to renew our preferential choice of Him. In support of the experience she lived from the early days of the Movement with the poor and people in need, she affirmed:
“By loving Him in everyone but especially in those who resemble Him most; those who suffer in any way, those who seem to be furthest from God.”[25]
Then she urged us to look at the map showing the spreading of the Movement, and to take out the addresses of people who most need our care and highlight in particular those most resembling Jesus Forsaken: “We must pay attention to them first and give them our first available time.” [26]
It is a question of loving these people “to the point of bringing them to God, involving them in our revolution of love, in our same Ideal.” [27]
Steps taken and sufferings to embrace
Here too we must stop for a moment to see what has happened over the years and acknowledge with gratitude the steps taken.
It’s true. He has drawn us to himself, allowing us in a specific way at this time in history to share “the great tragedy of his passion, through which all things have been recapitulated in him (Cf Eph 1:10)”[28] But in various ways he has also made us sharers in his resurrection.
Together with Chiara we have recognised in Jesus Forsaken the greatest “mystery of love”, the true “teacher of unity”[29]. In fact, He “sums up every physical and spiritual pain”[30]. He made himself our model, our “style of love”[31].
There have been and still are many experiences of recognising and embracing Him in sufferings of all kinds, beginning with those closest to home, so to speak. For example:
- There have been many personal and collective weaknesses and limits, which have lead some people to feel discouraged and even abandon a life that seemed too demanding considering all that is attractive in the world.
- The fact that there are fewer members of the Movement, fewer people who are able and determined to stake their whole lives for unity (the “that all may be one”; cf Jn 17:21), and the consequent lack of human and material resources for the many activities undertaken.
- The difficulty of providing adequate and effective answers to the problems of humankind around us, which is being attacked by evil that seems to be advancing relentlessly.
- At times there has been the clouding over of the brightness that comes from belonging all and only to God, which could attract and give rise to new responses to his call.
- At the same time, after Chiara’s death, there has been the gradual passing on to the next life of the first focolarini, the first witnesses, and true pillars of the Movement who have supported us with their unwavering faith in the power of the Charism of unity.
Jesus forsaken teaches to make unity with all
The list could go on… but then, going beyond our immediate circle, how often have we met Him in all divisions, in every ordeal, in the mutual indifference we’ve seen in families, between generations, between rich and poor, in the separation among the Churches, among different religions and between those who believe and those who do not have religious beliefs, in the many faces of people who suffer, are disunited or at war… Moreover, love for him has borne fruit.
If we think for a moment about the path to unity being followed in ecumenism, the deep relationship built with faithful and representatives of different Churches among which the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew bears witness to this.
Then there are the various meetings that have taken place at the inter-religious level – at such a critical a time in history –, meetings which make us already experience, despite everything, that fraternity is nearer.
There is the inculturation of the Charism of unity in the most varied cultures across the world and the vitality of the dialogue with culture, which, in its most diverse forms, has allowed us to build bridges with contemporary culture at many different levels.
There is the life and work undertaken by the wider ranging Movements.
Jesus Forsaken has taught us to “make unity” with all our brothers and sisters.
“I cannot enter into another soul if my own is rich. To love others I must constantly make myself so poor in spirit that I possess nothing but love.”[32]
It is this attitude regarding our neighbour which, being rooted in love for Jesus Forsaken, is able to renew society from within and establish fraternal relationships amongst all nations on earth, appreciating the specific identity of each one. It can heal the wounds troubling the world today, a world where God seems to be more than ever absent, especially in the West.
In the night of humanity
Every day we see terrible things in the media. The refugee boats where entire peoples are fleeing their lands due to hunger or war; there are cities ruined by people to the point of destroying ancient cultures; there is fundamentalism and acts of violence at the most varied levels.
To all this has been added a problem, which has intensified and was already mentioned by Pope Benedict XVI when he spoke about the “cultural night” surrounding us.
“How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking? … . Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true... Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be ‘tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine’, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.” [33]
In the “night” that seems to envelop the suffering world around us, Chiara puts before us the person of Jesus who cries out in a loud voice: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” saying:
“This was his darkest night, the climax of his suffering. This extraordinarily profound suffering that Jesus experienced as a man is a mystery of infinite depth and shows the measure of his love for humankind. He wanted, in fact, to take upon himself the separation which kept human beings far from the Father – and far from each other – and to bridge that separation.”[34]
But in that cry, which seems paradoxical and in that terrible pain are summed up the thousand names of human suffering.
Jesus crucified and forsaken is the star on this path. He gives us the courage and the light to take action in every one of these situations:
“In loving Jesus Forsaken we find the reason and the strength to not flee from these evils and divisions but to accept and embrace them out of love for him, and to then bring our personal and collective remedy.” [35]
In Jesus Forsaken Chiara shows us the light we can follow so as to experience – precisely by passing through darkness – the truth that St Lawrence affirmed, and Chiara reminded us of: “My night has no darkness, and all things are full of light to me.” [36]
Yes, it is possible because Jesus crucified and forsaken has conquered death and is risen from the dead.
The cry of abandonment: a doctrine
As I said, by entering into the mystery lived by Jesus in his forsakenness, Chiara saw a light spring forth that is able to give light and meaning to every experience of pain and forsakenness that can happen to a person, whether at an individual or collective level.
In fact, Chiara did not hesitate to confirm, supported by what St Leo the Great said, that Jesus’ cry is also “a doctrine” [37]. This doctrine, once appropriately studied (and the Abba School [38] already set out on this path with Chiara and continues its work), can bring new light not only to the knowledge of God, to theology, but also to philosophy and all other fields of knowledge, the most varied disciplines and as a consequence to the various sectors of human endeavour.
His cry, which sums up the nothingness of all things, has always accompanied human history. [39] This is why, in one of the most beautiful pages written in 1949, Chiara wrote:
“Jesus is Jesus Forsaken. Because Jesus is the Saviour, the Redeemer, and He redeems when He pours the Divine upon humanity through the Wound of His Forsakenness that is the pupil of the Eye of God upon the world: an infinite Void through which God looks at us, the window of God thrown open upon the world and the window of humanity through which we see God.” [40]
Many years later, reflecting on the writing from 1949 that I have just read, Chiara wanted to emphasise once more that he is:
“…the love of the Father come to earth … and he loved us by giving everything, taking everything away from himself, even God. And so what remained is the void.” So “if we live like Him, we can look into this void and see God the Father, and the Father can look into it and see us.” [41]
In his abandonment Jesus “is truly the Redeemer; he is the mediator who, by making himself nothing, unites the children to the Father.” [42]
Often, during the course of this reflection, we have said that Jesus’ passion and death is “the great demonstration of God’s love for humankind”. We cannot disregard this “light”. This love is so powerful that it is worthy of resurrection and yields fruit in drawing all people towards Him (cf. Jn 12:32).
In this way, the unity of the new people of God comes about, journeying towards Him.
Jesus Forsaken-Risen “way of holiness”
Let’s return to us, to our personal life, to our “Here I am!” that we want to say to Him.
It is clear that for us the cross is no longer a sign of a curse or death, because through his resurrection Jesus has transformed it into a tool for victory over the real death which is sin.
So, “the cross can no longer be separated from glory; the crucified Christ cannot be separated from the Risen Christ. These are two aspects of the same mystery of God who is Love. … This precious teaching of the Crucified and Risen Lord … will shed light also on the role that suffering plays in our lives and on its extraordinary fruitfulness”[43], wrote Chiara, exhorting us with the following words:
“Day after day, as we are afflicted by small or great sufferings …let’s make the effort to accept them and offer them to Jesus as an expression of our love. …
If we do so, we will be able to experience something unusual and unexpected: our souls will be invaded by peace, love, light and even pure joy. We will find a new strength within us. We will see how, by embracing our daily crosses and uniting ourselves through them to Jesus crucified and forsaken, we can share in his risen life already here on earth.
Enriched by this experience, we will be better able to help our brothers and sisters find blessedness in the midst of tears, and transform all that troubles them into contentedness. In this way we will become channels of joy for many people, channels of happiness, the happiness that every human heart longs for.”[44]
In Jesus Forsaken even the meaninglessness of human suffering acquires meaning. He – the mediator between God and humankind – is the answer to every meaninglessness, because it gives us the chance to meet God face to face in every situation.
Recalling the two perspectives Chiara has put before us: Jesus Forsaken the window of God – the window of Humankind – chosen as the title of this talk, God can see humankind because Jesus Forsaken is the human being and human beings can see God because Jesus Forsaken is God.
Conclusion
Now we conclude knowing that we have only touched on a few aspects within the extraordinary wealth of doctrine, which Chiara understood in Jesus Forsaken. We will have time throughout the year to deepen these and other facets in direct contact with Him.
But there is yet another aspect of Jesus Forsaken we cannot fail to mention, perhaps the most intimate and rich spiritual legacy that Chiara left not only to us, members of the Focolare Movement, but to the whole of humanity.
Once she confided to us:
“I would like to be remembered only as the spouse of Jesus Forsaken, as (and we can all express ourselves in this way), a soul who is the spouse of Jesus Forsaken.
This possible definition of my life (may God help me in this!) seemed marvellous to me even though it is very high, even though it is still “what I must become”. And yet I sensed it is my vocation.
We know … that in order to become saints, we need to focus on only one idea that sums up all others, which for us can be nothing other than unity; but unity is reached only if our soul is the spouse of Jesus Forsaken.” [45] This seems almost like the crowning of what Chiara already understood in 1949 when she wrote: “Jesus Forsaken is Holiness because from the soul torn by forsakenness springs the Light of God, the Light: God.” [46]
And again:
“What joy at the thought that I have all I need to become a saint.
I do not need the approval of my Institute, nor anyone’s help, nor other souls with me (even if my Ideal is unity and supposes there be at least two) or anything else.
For me the cross that comes moment by moment is enough, the one He sends me and which is one of the many faces of my Forsaken Love, who was Crucified in soul and body…, made all mine, as my only everything.
In this way, without needing anything or anyone, I go ahead with confidence on the way He has marked out for me, hindered by no one, for I have made hindrance itself my passion and my flight of Love.” [47]
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[1] C. Lubich, A new way, New City, London 2002, p. 53.
[2] C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, p. 136.
[3] Cf. John Paul II, Salvifici doloris 15.
[4] Cf. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte 23.
[5] Doriana Zamboni, one of Chiara’s first companions.
[6] C. Lubich, Unity and Jesus Forsaken, New City Press, New York 1985, p. 46.
[7] Cf. C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, pp. 39-40.
[8] C. Lubich, Inexistence. Message, Conference Call, 18th June 1998.
[9] C. Lubich, Early Letters, “Letter from 1945 to Fosca Pellegrini”, New City, New York 2012, pp. 52-53.
[10 ] Pope Francis, Homily, XXXI World Youth Day, St. Peter’s Square, 20th March 2016.
[11] C. Lubich, Writing of Summer 1950, in Paradise 1949, par. 1308-1316.
[12] Cf. C. Lubich, Costruendo il “castello esteriore”, Città Nuova, Roma 2002, p. 51.
[13] C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, pp. 47-48.
[14] C. Lubich, The Cry, New City London 2000, p. 52.
[15] C. Lubich, Meditations, New City London 1989, pp. 48-49.
[16] Cf. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte 25. Cf. CCC 603: “Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you Forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34; Ps 22:2). Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God "did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all" (Rm 8:32), so that we might be "reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Rm 5:10).
[17] C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, p. 31.
[18] Cf .C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, p. 29.
[19] C. Lubich, Early Letters, “Letter of March 13, 1948 to Fr. Bonaventura da Malé, OFM Cap.”, New City Press, New York 2012, p. 91.
[20] C. Lubich, Early Letters, “Letter of December 8, 1944 to Rosetta Zanoni”, New City Press, New York 2012, p. 29.
[21] C. Lubich, Ibidem, p. 30.
[22] C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, p. 36.
[23] C. Lubich, “Paradise 1949” , in New Humanity Review n. 15, March 2010.
[24] Idem.
[25] C. Lubich, On the Holy Journey, New City Press, New York 1988, p. 14.
[26] Idem, p. 15.
[27] Cf. C. Lubich, On the Holy Journey, New City Press, New York 1988, pp. 47-48.
[28] C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, p. 15.
[29] Idem., pp. 31, 41
[30] Idem., pp. 53-54
[31] C. Lubich, Unity and Jesus Forsaken, New City Press, New York 1985, p. 51.
[32] C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, p. 56.
[33] J. Ratzinger, Homily at Mass pro eligendo pontifice, 18th April 2005.
[34] C. Lubich, “Our response to today’s collective and cultural night”, Message to the Volunteerfest, Budapest, 16th September 2006.
[35] C. Lubich, “Our response …”, cit.
[36] St. Lawrence, Roman deacon, martyred in 258, cit. in C. Lubich, “Our response …”, cit.
[37] Cf. san Leone Magno, Sermo 16,7: PL 54,372, cit. in C. Lubich, Il grido, Roma 2000, p. 127.
[38] Interdisciplinary study centre promoted by Chiara Lubich to enucleate the doctrine inherent in the charism of unity.
[39] Chiara Lubich, Essential Writings
[40] C. Lubich, Writing August 1949, in Paradiso 1949, par. 415.
[41] Cf id., nota allo Scritto Agosto 1949, in Paradiso ’49, 420
[42] C. Lubich, The Cry, New City, London 2000, p. 30.
[43] Cf id., Parola che si fa vita, Roma 1989, p. 34-35
[44] C. Lubich, From Scripture to life, New City Press, New York 1991, pp. 28-29.
[45] C. Lubich, Message, Conference Call, 11th November 1999.
[46] C. Lubich, Writing August 1949, in Paradise 1949, par. 425.
[47] C. Lubich, Writing 14th October 1949, in Paradise 1949, par. 799-802.