At the heart of every saint\u2019s story is a series of events so unexpected that it takes your breath away. Grace always builds on nature, but when grace comes, when God takes hold of a heart that has invited him in, he does so like a lightning bolt in the night. We are always surprised!<\/p>\n
\u00bfQui\u00e9n pod\u00eda esperar que Elizabeth Ann Seton, reci\u00e9n enviudada, con el coraz\u00f3n desgarrado por el dolor, descubrir\u00eda a Cristo en un pa\u00eds extra\u00f1o, lejos de su hogar? \u00bfQui\u00e9n podr\u00eda haber predicho que esta joven Episcopal<\/em> mujer en pocos a\u00f1os se convertir\u00eda en Cat\u00f3lica Romana<\/em> religiosa? \u00bfQui\u00e9n habr\u00eda imaginado su disposici\u00f3n, como nueva cat\u00f3lica, a asumir todas las dificultades aparentemente insuperables para fundar una nueva congregaci\u00f3n de religiosas, la primera en florecer en suelo americano? \u00bfY qui\u00e9n habr\u00eda imaginado que crecer\u00eda, florecer\u00eda y se extender\u00eda por nuestra tierra como un gran \u00e1rbol fruct\u00edfero? Este es el tipo de trabajo que s\u00f3lo el Esp\u00edritu Santo puede hacer. Y este es el tipo de tormenta que podemos esperar en nuestras propias vidas si le dejamos entrar.<\/p>\n Hoy nos fijamos en un testimonio igualmente extraordinario de la obra del Esp\u00edritu en la vida de la Sierva de Dios Chiara Lubich, fundadora del Movimiento de los Focolares, una presencia internacional tanto en la Iglesia cat\u00f3lica como fuera de ella.<\/p>\n Chiara\u2019s birth name was Silvia, and she was born in 1920 in Trent, Italy, to a fervent Catholic mother and a Socialist father. She knew hardship from childhood when her father\u2019s refusal to join the Fascist party led to unemployment and hunger for his family.<\/p>\n And she knew Christ. From the age of seven Silvia went to a weekly Adoration time for children organized by a nun. Kneeling attentively before the Lord, the little girl begged to be \u201cenlightened\u201d by him. And slowly, in the depths of her heart, he began to send that light. He had a plan for her. At ten, Silvia contracted acute peritonitis. The doctors gave up hope, but her father demanded that they operate. Her mother told the nuns, who stormed heaven with their prayers, and Silvia survived.<\/p>\n She went to teachers\u2019 college and after graduation at the age of eighteen, she began to teach in nearby schools. In 1942, she joined the Franciscan Third Order. Captivated by Saint Francis\u2019 counterpart, the bold and beautiful Clare of Assisi, Silvia changed her name to \u201cClare,\u201d \u201cChiara\u201d in Italian. \u201cChiara\u201d means \u201cbright,\u201d \u201cclear\u201d: it was another moment of light.<\/p>\n But the next year was the lightning bolt. On a cold, snowy day that year, Chiara was on an errand to buy milk for her mother when she heard a voice, \u201cGive yourself completely to me.\u201d She wrote at once to her spiritual director. She wanted to consecrate herself to God, she told him. He gave permission, and on December 7, in the Capuchin chapel, Chiara took Christ as her spouse for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n El a\u00f1o siguiente trajo otro rayo. Era la Segunda Guerra Mundial y las fuerzas angloamericanas empezaron a lanzar bombas sobre Trento. De repente, la muerte y la destrucci\u00f3n rodearon a Chiara. Chiara busc\u00f3 consuelo en lo m\u00e1s profundo de su alma.<\/p>\n What, Chiara wondered, is the only reality that cannot be destroyed? It is God. In the end \u201conly God remains,\u201d she concluded. As she read the Gospels, Chiara began to feel that everything she was reading was possible. She shared this news with her friends, who were captivated. As the bombs fell, the young women fled into the air-raid shelters and gathered around Chiara.<\/p>\n M\u00e1s tarde escribi\u00f3,<\/p>\n One day I found myself with my new companions in a dark, candle-lit cellar, a book of the Gospel in hand. I opened it at random and found the prayer of Jesus before he died: \u2018Father. . . that they may all be one’ (John 17:11). It was not an easy text for us to start with, but one by one those words seemed to come to life, giving us the conviction that we were born for this page of the Gospel.<\/em><\/p>\n What was happening in Chiara and her young girl friends at this time? They were meditating on the word of God, letting themselves be fed by it. And by the power of the Spirit, this word was taking shape within them, moving them, and changing them. It was becoming their lives. Soon after, Chiara\u2019s home was damaged and her family fled the city. But Chiara, emboldened by the little community that was beginning, stayed. They found an apartment where they gathered around the hearth, or \u201cfocolare,\u201d to read the Gospel and share it. Then, they began to live it. They went out to care for their hungry and homeless neighbors.<\/p>\n At this time, a Capuchin friar pointed out to Chiara that Christ\u2019s love had brought him to the point where he accepted being forsaken by the Father: \u201cMy God, my God, why have you abandoned me?\u201d (Matt 27:46). This simple observation entered Chiara\u2019s heart and became the fundamental intuition for their work. The young women began to go out to seek \u201cJesus Forsaken.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFrom that moment on,\u201d Chiara later wrote, \u201cwe seemed to discover his countenance everywhere.\u201d They saw the forgotten Christ in the wounds of the people they served. And they saw him in each other. And each of them saw him in herself. Indeed, Chiara offered a beautiful teaching that all of us can take hold of. When I feel most alone and abandoned, then I can see Jesus forsaken in me. And then I can love Jesus Forsaken in myself.<\/p>\n It turned out that this way of looking at the world, through the lens of Christ\u2019s greatest suffering, was an unexpected source of joy for the young women. The wounds they saw, Chiara said,<\/p>\n didn\u2019t frighten us. On the contrary, because of our love for him in his abandonment, they attracted us. He had shown us how to face them, how to live them, how to cooperate in overcoming them when, after the abandonment, he placed his spirit in his Father\u2019s hands: ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,’ giving to humankind the possibility of being restored to itself and to God, and he showed us the way.<\/em><\/p>\n Todo podr\u00eda afrontarse as\u00ed, entregando todo<\/em> al Padre en el Esp\u00edritu. A trav\u00e9s de la Cruz, brill\u00f3 la luz de la Resurrecci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n \u201cJesus Forsaken\u201d became the principle of unity that guided Chiara and her followers in the years to come. By 1948, the little community in Trent had hundreds of followers. They lived as the early Christians, sharing goods in common. In the same year, a men\u2019s \u201cfocolare\u201d was founded. And in 1953, Igino Giordani, a married man, began the first focolare for married persons. Giordani is considered a co-founder of the movement, as is the priest Pasquale Foresi. Yet, it must be said that Chiara remained the primary force behind all that was happening.<\/p>\n Y este <\/em>es<\/em> unexpected. Of the \u201cnew movements\u201d that emerged in the Church in the twentieth century, Chiara\u2019s was the first. Are we not to wonder at God\u2019s initiative in choosing her to lead the charge?<\/p>\n Many did wonder. Beginning in 1951, the Holy Office investigated Focolare. People were suspicious of this group which preached \u201clove and unity\u201d and was led by a young woman who carried the Gospel in her pocket and put it into action in her life. As normal as this may sound to us, this caused a firestorm in a time when the word \u201clove\u201d was not at the heart of Catholic catechesis. Consecrated women typically entered convents, and the Gospel was usually studied in the seminary by men preparing for Holy Orders.<\/p>\n In 1962, Pope John XXIII ended a long period of testing by giving official approval to this movement that had arrived in a time of suffering and chaos through the profound prayer of a young woman. Pope John Paul II would later speak of the movement\u2019s feminine or \u201cMarian\u201d profile (in fact, the official name for Focolare is \u201cMary\u2019s Work.\u201d) It was a firestorm all right: the way the Spirit works.<\/p>\n