I believe there is no man’s heart, still less a woman’s, that has not at least once, especially in youth, felt the attraction of the cloister.

It is not the attraction of a cloistered way of life but of something that seems to be concentrated there, between those four walls, something that makes itself felt, resounding deeply, even from a distance.

In these communities, with which the world, thank God, is strewn like a dark night dotted with constellations, there is the light of the presence of God. A presence that stands out strongly, because it blossoms on the background of persons who, for God, have wished to immolate in the shadows their poor appearance.

Though sunken in silence, these houses of brothers or sisters united in God, through the mysterious power of celestial things, speak to the hearts of human beings and utter a voice unknown to the world: a blessedness of union with God that humanity longs for.

Yet also my own home can have the perfume of the cloister; also the walls where I live can become a kingdom of peace, God’s fortress in the midst of the world. It is not so much the external din of the radio turned on at full blast by the tenant next door, or the roar of the traffic, or the yelling of the newspaper vendors, that take away the enchantment from my house. It is rather every noise within me that makes where I live become an open square unprotected by walls, because unprotected by love.

The Lord is within me. He would like to move my actions, permeate my thoughts with his light, rouse up my will, give me, in short, the law of my stillness and my movement.

But there is my ego which, at times, does not let him live in me. If it stops interfering, God himself will take possession of all my being, and he will know how to give these walls the importance of an abbey, and this room the sacredness of a church, my sitting at table the sweetness of liturgy, my clothes the perfume of a blessed habit, the sound of the doorbell or the telephone the joyous note of a meeting with my brothers and sisters, which interrupts, yet continues, my conversation with God.

Then, upon the silence of me, Another will speak and, upon my extinguishing myself, a light will be lit. And it will shine afar, passing beyond and almost consecrating these walls that protect a member of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit. And other people will come to my house to seek the Lord with me, and in our shared loving search, the flame will grow, and a divine melody will be intoned. And though living in the midst of the world, my heart will ask for nothing more.

Christ will be my cloister, the Christ of my heart, Christ in the midst of our hearts.

Chiara Lubich

C. Lubich, Essential Writings (New York: New City Press, 2007), pp. 102-103.