Mario: I was very passionate about social justice, and wanted to bring about a “revolution.” When I met the Focolare’s Ideal of unity, I saw the concrete possibility of doing so – of getting to the root of things. Now, when I meet people, I still have the desire to speak to them about this world that we are trying to bring about.
Chiara: The social revolution. … Only yesterday I was thinking to myself that the Gospel has not been truly understood, for if it were truly understood, we would not need anything else. There’s a phrase in the Gospel that says: “Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:33). Or: “Anyone who has left house, brothers, sisters, father, children or land for my sake [and all of us have to leave them, not concretely, but spiritually, so that we can have God in the first place] and for the sake of the Gospel, will be repaid a hundred times over… in this present time, and, in the world to come, eternal life” (Mk 10: 29-30). Or take yet another: “Whatever you ask for in my name, I will do” (Jn 14:13). And then still another: “If you have faith, everything you ask for in prayer you will receive” (Mt 21:22). These four phrases would be enough to resolve all social problems.
You might ask: “But Chiara, what’s that got to do with this?” It is relevant, because when Jesus said: “Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well” … so much so that in the Our Father we are asked to pray for bread, and this means praying for concrete things. Now, I understand that it’s possible to deduce a Christian social doctrine, that we can study economic systems, and so on, but who has had the courage to start a revolution based on the words of God? Nobody, in my opinion. Do you know why nobody has done it? Because these words haven’t been understood yet.
And yet we have a treasure that one of these days will explode, I’m convinced. It was Our Lady who gave me this conviction with her Magnificat, which says: “He has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things, the rich sent empty away” (Lk 1: 52-53). This then is the social revolution: fill the hungry with many goods and send the rich away empty-handed, without armed revolution, without shooting them; it’s enough to send them away empty-handed. And these phrases of the Magnificat are from the Gospel! We have to become passionate about the Gospel. We need to have the firm desire in our hearts for this evangelical revolution to come about, so that we can explain the social revolution with the Gospel as its foundation. So let’s start! Will we have all the courage we need? I, as small as I am, as small-minded as I am, feel courageous, because someone puts it inside me. But if you were with me, I’d have even more courage!
Chiara Lubich
Dialogue with the Volunteers, Rocca di Papa (Rome), January 25, 1975.
