The centenary of the birth of Chiara Lubich is an opportunity to give thanks.

Thanks to God for choosing a daughter of the Trentine territory and Church as an ambassador of the extraordinary beauty of the lived Gospel in the world.

Thanks to Chiara for letting the Word shape her, becoming an inexhaustible witness of this Word.

Thanks to our friends of the Focolare for always having emphasised Chiara’s Trentine roots. She was born and raised here, the bishop of this Church acknowkedged her charism since the beginning, laying the foundations of its universal dissemination.

Thanks to you, friends from every corner of the world, who visit Chiara’s homeland on the centenary of her birth. At this time in history, in many ways a dark time, your presence from many countries is a beam of light. You are the demonstration that it is possible to love the homeland of others as one’s own. You are a real prophecy.

Feel welcome as she, our Silvia who became Chiara, would have welcomed you: with her irresistible smile, a door open to dialogue and a mirror of inner serenity. A serenity which only belongs to great mystiques, who are capable of incarnating the twofold dimension of every mystical experience in the relationship with God: ineffable joy, but also moments of uncertainty and discouragement where the absence of God seems to prevail – the premise, however, of the complete abandonment in Him.

Letting herself shape by God’s love, Chiara started from Trento, from the debris of a bloody war, to give to the Church the charism of unity. A unity which is not built on a vague loving each other; but on the familiarity with Jesus of Nazareth, the crucifix who nourishes of lowliness and is at the centre of the Trinitary Mistery. Chiara did not accomplish any specific theological studies; still, she could be defined Doctor of the Church, in so far as she helped us understand the Love of the Father towards the Son, in the breath of the Holy Spirit. The Trinitary bond is at the basis of the spirituality of communion, professed by Chiara Lubich. And God alone knows how much we need to build communion in our present time. In the Church in the first place, and then in society. Starting from the simplicity of everyday life, where Chiara was able to build her “next door sainthood”. I wish you all a good journey on her same path!

+ archbishop Lauro