In the Western world, the 1980s were marked by a variety of factors: optimism and trust were driving the progress of economic and social development. The Cold War was reaching an end and the economy was going global. 

The authority of the United Nations, on the other hand, was undermined by the refusal of nation states to allow it to play its role in the resolution of conflicts. 

In 1986, the tragic accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, jarred the world’s environmental conscience. In 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall offered the illusion of a future lived in democracy and well-being based on the Western model. The digital revolution had started and the awareness of the united destiny of the human race was becoming ever clearer. 

During that period, Chiara Lubich’s activity promoting the spirituality of unity reached unprecedented intensity. She was considered an important religious leader by the majority of Christian churches and representatives of the world’s religions. Government leaders and international organizations praised her commitment to peace and universal brotherhood and established productive relationships with the movement of dialogue and collaboration in multiple humanitarian and cultural arenas.

The Focolare was by then present in almost every country of the world. The branches of the movement organized periodic international events – Genfest, Family Fest, Super Congress – that provided an experience of a world that can live as one. Such events reached a worldwide audience through the latest means of communication available, including extensive satellite use. 

In 1984, Chiara founded the Gen 4 movement dedicated to young children ages 4–8, an indication of the Focolare’s eye on the future. 

Chiara Lubich and Pope John Paul II

Visiting the International Center of the Focolare in Rocca di Papa (Italy) on August 19, 1984, St. Pope John Paul II defined the spiritual experience of Chiara as “a radicalism that discovers the depths of love and its simplicity, that discovers all the needs of love in different situations and that tries to see that this love wins always, in every situation, in every difficulty.” 

It is a definition that calls to mind the multiple dimensions of the spirituality, that of being projected towards the infinite in a contemplation that is rich in spiritual depth, but is also extended horizontally in relationship and communion with one’s neighbor.

The presidency of the Work of Mary

During an audience on September 23, 1985, Chiara asked the pope if he approved the hypothesis that the president of the Work of Mary should always be a woman. His reply was immediate: “Why not? Let me say more: it would actually be something beautiful.” 

This norm became part of the Statutes of the Movement, approved in 1990, and seemed almost a confirmation of the fraternal harmony existing between the two protagonists of this conversation, both intent upon developing the model of Church as communion, an idea both of them esteemed and modeled. 

The layperson in the Church and in the world

In 1985, Chiara was nominated as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and she participated in the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the topic of the 20th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. 

Through the intuitions she received in the 1940s, Chiara was ahead of her time in defining the figure and the role of the layperson in the Church and in the world. The Focolare Movement, both before and after the Second Vatican Council, offered to the Church a patrimony of experience and precious wisdom for the development of the theology of the laity. 

In a talk given in December 1986, Chiara summed up her vision of the laity. “It might seem obvious, but for me, the layperson is the Christian, in as much as he or she is a follower of Christ and his Gospel. 

“For this reason, the layperson must live to the fullest the plan of love that Jesus has designed for him or her, and work, above all, at expanding the kingdom of God and building up the Church. Given that they move and act in the midst of the world, they will imbue it with the light of the Gospel, filling everything with it.” 

The Seventh Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops was imminent. This time, it would examine the role and the mission of the laity in the Church and in the world and would be followed by the publication of the Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (on the Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful).

Jesus crucified and forsaken as the basis of the charism of unity 

Following in Jesus’ footsteps all the way to Calvary is a profound challenge, yet only in this way can one know him fully. His cry from the cross sheds light on the prayer raised by David in Psalm 22, which called out the abandonment by God but, at the same time, declared the fullest trust in God’s promise and covenant. 

In this way, the meaning of the relationship and the reasons for hope would prevail. Chiara’s intuition, in this sense, would find an echo in Church magisterium or teaching authority with John Paul II in his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris (Redemptive Suffering) published on February 11, 1984.

Thus, as the 20th century drew to a close – with its successes and horrors – it would be fully recognized that the culminating point of human suffering is reached in Christ’s passion, and that it is fully described by the word ‘love.’ A love that creates good by drawing it forth also from evil: “The Cross of Christ has become a source from which flow rivers of living water.” (Salvifici Doloris, 18)

From the mystery of the Incarnation to that of the forsaken Jesus: using a refined image, Chiara, during a conference call on June 21, 1984, invited those listening to “chisel the figure of Christ in us.”

Maurizio Gentilini

(First published in Città Nuova, Italy)

A layperson like us

Mary is a layperson like us who demonstrates that the essence of Christianity is love and that even priests and bishops, before being priests and bishops, must first be true Christians, living crucifixes as Jesus was, who founded his Church on the cross.

Mary, by highlighting in the Church the fundamental quality of love that makes it one, presents to the world the Bride of Christ as Jesus wanted it to be and as every person today awaits: ordered charity, organized charity.

Only by emphasizing this fundamental quality can the Church today properly fulfill its function of contact and dialogue with the world, which often finds the hierarchy less interesting, yet is sensitive to the witness of love in the Church, the soul of the world.¹

¹ C. Lubich, Essential Writings, New York, London: New City, 2007, p. 112