How did the idea for this book come about?

Since I had several texts that had not yet been published, I thought of honoring Chiara Lubich in the centenary year of her birth, and, at the same time, I wanted to make an act of love to everyone in the Focolare Movement. When I began, several years ago, to use the expression, “Chiara’s ecclesial genius,” I saw how many people liked it, that is, they grasped in it a synthetic concept that could define the marvelous synergistic unity between Chiara’s person and her charism, as “all one piece.” I am convinced that Chiara, in addition to having been endowed by God with an “ecclesial instinct,” is, indeed, an “ecclesial genius,” in continuity with others in the Church who have opened up new horizons, has always rooted in the tradition that goes back to Jesus himself. It was right to study it more deeply during this centenary.

As you yourself have explained several times, the Focolare Movement, after its charismatic phase, is living its historical phase, the one you have defined as “a period of creative fidelity.” This is, therefore, the phase of giving Chiara’s prophecies concrete shape in the world today. What do you think is the main contribution that the Focolare Movement can make today to fulfill these prophecies in the ecclesial sphere, in the journey towards achieving “that all may be one”?

When I say that we have entered the phase of the historical foundation of the Movement, in creative fidelity to the phase of the charismatic foundation, I do not intend a dialectical opposition of the two phases. In fact, the charismatic foundation has also been historical and, therefore, the historical foundation also has a charismatic element. But they are two different phases, with different emphases, which involve both the foundation and the form of things. There is no doubt that today the theme of actualizing the charism of unity acquires a particular poignancy and urgency. Creative fidelity should always be exercised, keeping in mind two principles: listening to the questions that God proposes to the world and listening to what God continues to tell us in the foundational nucleus of the charism. In my opinion, one of the questions that God poses to the Church that lives and acts within history is what we could summarize as “synodality,” which implies openness, communal decisions, being close to one another, being attentive to the dignity of the person, especially those most vulnerable. The Focolare Movement contributes to this ecclesial journey with a very special emphasis, which comes from the heart of its charism, that is, a vital and concrete experience of the Triune God who has an impact on history, without which synodality is reduced to a new organizational form deprived of the life of the Spirit.

And which of these prophecies still need more time and effort to be actualized?

I think that in order to live up to our true vocation in the Church, the members of the Movement must grow in the sensus ecclesiae, to have “the mind of the Church.” Not that they do not have it, but there is a need to grow here, which means overcoming, once and for all, every attitude of self-referencing and reaching the maturity that all the recent Popes have asked of us. Moreover, we need to overcome any dualism between civil commitment and ecclesial commitment, looking at the model that we have always held up as Christians: the figure of Jesus, the man-God, truly man and truly God.

In the light of the reflections you offer in your book, what would you like to say, from your heart, as we draw to a close these six years in which you were co-president of the Focolare Movement?

I pray that God will give us the necessary graces to update the charism of Chiara Lubich in a vital and radical way. I think that we must begin anew, reborn from the heart of the charism, from what we call “the Ideal,” and from there, set in motion the necessary reforms so that the Movement, also as an institution, may better reflect the human-divine life that animates it. And rebirth means purification and conversion.

Interview by Anna Lisa Innocenti