I am sure that all of you have embraced the Focolarino ideal because it appeared to your eyes firstly as a great gift of grace, as a totally undeserved “favor from God,” as a gratuitous offering of divine benevolence that opened your hearts to new perspectives of knowledge of God, of prayer, of community life, and of charity towards those in need. This is how you experienced your first encounter with the Movement.

But you have also experienced how the encounter with the charism of the Movement, how adhering to it has made the life of each of you more beautiful, more joyful, more free. Those of you who knew Chiara perceived her ‘beautiful life,’ the discreet but profound charm of a woman inhabited by God and in love with Jesus. Her presence conquered hearts, especially those of the young.

Dear friends, on the day on which the Focolare charism began 80 years ago, here, in the house of Mary, close to the manger (in Santa Maria Maggiore, there is a relic of the manger of Bethlehem) and to the mystery of her divine maternity, let us thank the Lord for the gift of Chiara Lubich and of the great family that came to life around her. I repeat to you the words of the Angel Gabriel to Mary: “Do not fear!” You too “have found favor with God!” From you too, from your apostolate, Jesus must “be born,” to be offered to the world as the Savior of all.

Reject, therefore, every form of discouragement, and never doubt that the Lord inspired Chiara with a particular way of living the faith and following Jesus that is destined to remain and still bear much fruit. The ideal that Chiara passed on to you remains ever relevant, even in today’s secularized world, so different from that of the beginnings of the Movement. Your charism contains within itself a great vital charge, but as the Holy Father often says: “it is not a museum piece… it needs to come into contact with reality, with people, with their anxieties and problems. And so, in this fruitful encounter with reality, the charism grows, it is renewed and also reality is transformed, it is transfigured through the spiritual strength that such a charism brings” (Address to the General Chapter of Schoenstatt Priests, September 3, 2015).

I entrust you all to the maternal intercession of the Immaculate Conception, inviting you to ”stand at the crossroads of today” (Pope Francis, General Audience, November 29, 2023) with the same trusting and generous attitude as Mary, certain that “nothing is impossible for God.”

Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell