An Ideal worth living for
A promise always kept
A new style of life
The apex of love
We had been born for those words
Joy, light, peace
Who hears you hears me
That first group became a Movement
Trials and fruits
In every corner of the earth
What is the secret?

An Ideal worth living for

I was twenty-three years old and my friends were the same age or younger. We were in Trent, where we were born, and the war was destroying everything. Each of us had a dream. One wanted to have a family and was waiting for her fiancé to return from the front.
Another was busy decorating her house which she loved. I believed that I could find fulfilment by studying philosophy ... All of us had an ideal to attain.

But the fiancé never returned. That house collapsed. I was unable to continue my studies in philosophy as I could not travel to the university because of the war.
What could we do?
Was there an ideal that no bomb could destroy, for which it was worth spending our life? At once , the light came: yes there was. It was God. God who in those moments of war and hatred, revealed Himself to us for what He truly is: Love. God Love, God who loves each one of us.
It all happened in an instant. We decided to make God the reason for our lives.

But how? So we wanted to do as Jesus did, to do the Father’s will and not our own. Indeed, we wanted to be another little Jesus. We knew that every Christian is already another Jesus through baptism and faith, but in a very small way, so to speak. To be another Jesus more fully, we must do all our part.
We wanted to do it.

A promise always kept

The war was ruthless and without respite.
Many times during the day and even at night, we had to go to the air-raid shelter cut into the rock. When the sirens sounded, we had to run and could take nothing with us except one small book: the Gospel.
It was in the Gospel that we found out how to do God’s will, how to be another Jesus. We opened the Gospel and read it.

But those words, read so many times before, seemed very new to us, as if a light were illuminating them one by one and from underneath we felt urged to live them to the full.
"In so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me". Then, when we left the shelter and throughout the day, each one of us looked for "the least of these brothers" in order to love Jesus in them: they were the poor, the sick, the wounded, children ...
We used to look for them in the streets, to write down their names and addresses in order to reach and help them. We used to invite them to our dinner table, giving them the best seat; to prepare food for all.
Although we ourselves had very little, nothing was lacking because the Gospel says: "Give, and it will be given to you". We gave the little we had and very many things came, so many that sacks and packages filled the corridor of our house every day.
The Gospel tells us: "Ask and you will obtain". So we asked. "I need a pair of shoes size 12 for you (in that poor man)", we said to Jesus in front of the tabernacle and, coming out of the church, a woman handed us a pair of shoes, size 12.
The Gospel says, "Seek the kingdom of God ...and the rest will be given to you". We tried to let Jesus reign in us by living His Word, and we received everything, all that we needed.
Often it was like this, always.
We were happy. Everything promised in the Gospel came true. We felt that we were living a miracle.
We knew that the Gospel was true. But then we saw it for ourselves.


A new style of life

All the words of the Gospel attracted us, especially those that speak of love. We tried to make them our own. And whoever loves lives in the light. Jesus said, "I will manifest myself to those who love me". We understood that God did not ask us to love only the least, but all the neighbours that we used to meet in life.
Meanwhile, other young people joined us, wanting to live the same experience.
The dangers of the war were getting worse. The bombs fell even above our shelter. Even though we were young, we could die.
A desire came to our hearts: we wanted to know which of the words of Jesus was most important to Him. We wanted to live it completely in what might have been the last moments of our life.
We found it. It was the commandment that Jesus calls "new" and "his": "I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you".
Sitting in a circle, one beside the other, we looked straight at one another and declared: "I am ready to die for you". "And I for you". All of us were ready to die for each other.
We used to do all we had to (work, studies, prayer, rest) on this basis. Mutual love was our new style of life. It had never to be lacking, and if this happened, then we re-established it. Of course, it was not always easy; it was not easy straight away. Years of spiritual training are needed to be able to live in this way all the time.


The apex of love

Nevertheless we soon came to a better understanding of the secret for maintaining this way of life. We had to love one another with Jesus’ measure of love.

Through circumstances we learned that Jesus, on the cross, suffered the most when He had the terrible impression that He had been abandoned by His Father and He cried out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?".
In a surge of generosity, and not without special help from above, we decided together to follow Jesus in this way, to love Him in this way.
And it was precisely in that cry, the height of His suffering, that we found the key to being always in full unity with one another and with everyone. Jesus experienced the most tremendous division, the most terrible separation; but He did not hesitate: He re-abandoned Himself completely to the Father: "Into your hands I commend my spirit", He said. Following His example and with His help, there would be no dissension or divisions in the world capable of stopping us. Our mutual love could always be a wonderful reality.


We had been born for those words

Once, in order to protect ourselves from the war, we met in a dark cellar and by candle-light we opened the Gospel: It was the solemn page of Jesus’ prayer before dying: "Father, may they all be one". We had the impression that we had been born for those words, for unity, for contributing toward building it in the world.
The new commandment, which we made the effort to keep alive among us always, achieved precisely that, unity.
And unity brings with itself an extraordinary, exceptional and divine reality: Jesus Himself. He said: "Where two or three are gathered in my name (that is, in His love), there am I in the midst of them". Wherever there is unity, there is Jesus.


Joy, light, peace

And because Jesus was present, because He lived among us and in us, we could not help but be aware of His presence.
We felt a joy we never knew before; we experienced new peace and ardour; a light enlightened and guided our soul ...
And, because we were united and Jesus was among us, the world around us was converted. Jesus said: "May they be one so that the world will believe". Thus many people discovered God for the first time, and many others returned to Him.
Because Jesus was among us, He called. Thus a variety of vocations came to life: some wanted to consecrate their lives to God in virginity so as to build unity everywhere, and focolari centres began; others got married, but were completely at God’s disposal; some entered the convent … others became priests ….
We also experienced the hatred of the world promised by Jesus, but we experienced that He, present in our midst, was stronger. He does not leave the situations around us as they are, but enlightens also economy and politics, work, social structures. He makes the society around us Christian, He makes it new.
And because Jesus is life, we continued to grow in number. Approximately two months later, there were five hundred people of every age and social class, men and women of every vocation.


Who hears you hears me

It seemed to us that we were nothing but Christians, only Christians who tried to put the Gospel into practice. Nevertheless we realised the need to present our experience to the Bishop. His judgement would have been that of Jesus, who said to the apostles: "Who hears you hears me".
The Bishop gave his approval: "Here, there is the hand of God".
So we went ahead.


That first group became a Movement

That first group spread, it became a Movement, and year after year it spread like an explosion, at first in Italy, then in Europe and now, after more than fifty years, it is almost in every nation of the world.

We attribute this rapid expansion to having always maintained, with the help of God, a very strong unity among us, which brought about the presence of Jesus, and to having always kept ourselves very closely united, like branches to the vine, to the hierarchy of the Church, to the Pope and Bishops, in whom Jesus is also present.


Trials and fruits

Throughout the years, the Spirit outlined the form that this Movement was gradually to acquire. There was a great abundance of light, beyond words.
There were also trails because a tree that bears fruit must be pruned. And there were countless fruits, so that we could see, also through this Movement what Jesus is able to do if we Christians, even though we are small and poor, allow Him to live in us and among us.


In every corner of the earth

We want to enkindle everywhere the love of Jesus. We want love to spread like fire to every corner of the earth.
We want to bring unity, increasing it in the religious world and in all human endeavours among individuals, groups and peoples.
We want to do this alongside and in collaboration with all the realities that have arisen in the Church throughout the centuries, and with new groupings - the movements, associations and other groups - characteristic of our times, with tens of thousands of Christians of other Churches, with members of the other religions and with people of good will who are attracted by the strong brotherhood they find here.


What is the secret?

It is that we risked our life at the beginning for a great Ideal, the greatest: God. It is that we believed in His love and then we abandoned ourselves moment by moment to His will.
If we had done our own will, if we had followed our plans, there would have been nothing of all this today. Instead - despite our limitations - we plunged ourselves into this divine adventure.