The call to embrace the cry of Jesus in humanity is as real today as it was in the early years of the Movement. Eighty years hence, Focolare President Margaret Karram challenges the members to be a constant and concrete expression of God’s love to every neighbor in need.

“Four of my loved ones are dead!”

This desperate cry of a mother who lost her family under the bombs of the Second World War made Chiara Lubich realize that she had to rush to the poorest and most devastated neighborhoods of her city to help as many people as possible. Again today, eighty years later, we are in the midst of a war. Indeed, there are many wars in the world, and that seed of unity and solidarity without borders that was sown in Chiara’s heart continues, more than ever, to be a pressing need and a source of hope. It calls on us to embrace it once again so as to bring back peace, wherever we are.

In 1943, Chiara went out into the streets of Trent, her hometown, where there was only death, suffering, and poverty. She was determined to give her life for her people. It is not different today. God calls all of us to embrace the cry of Jesus in humankind. He invites us to take upon ourselves every torment, every anguish because now, “four of my loved ones are dead” is the cry of thousands, millions of people who are under the rubble of wars, earthquakes, and various forms of violence and injustice. They have to leave their homes and their countries because of poverty and conflicts, putting their lives at risk and often losing them at sea.

Let us ask ourselves this question: How do we embrace the pain of these millions of boys and girls, our sisters and brothers? What are we doing so that the world may start believing once again in God’s love?

Let us ask ourselves with concern: Where is my neighbor today? Am I giving my time to those who are wounded, those who suffer from some form of pain, or do I just pass them by?

What we need to do today is to stop and heal “that” open wound before our eyes. We cannot get tired of sowing love through our deeds; we cannot fail to look around us because, close to each one of us, there is always someone in need.

If eighty years ago, in the small town of Trent, there was a small group of people with Chiara Lubich, we are a lot more today. There are thousands of us who adhere to the spirituality of unity. Think of all the good that we can do! Think of how much friendship we can give! Think of how much fraternity we can bring!

Margaret Karram