"Marisa Cerini, one of the first focolarine from the early days in Rome. For fifty years she built the Opera with zeal, wisdom and passion."
This was how Chiara announced her "departure" on 17 November 1998.

Marisa was born,the eldest of seven children, in Rome in May 1924. She was studying classical literature at university when, in January 1949, she came across the Focolare Movement for the first time. There was a meeting in a middle class area of Rome in a large hall with red decor. There were a lot of other university students present, as well as four foreign priests. She herself explains: "Chiara spoke about simple things, but things which were full of the divine, of the Gospel lived. She spoke about charity and about mutual love in a way that overwhelmed me. I understood the Gospel again! I had to take it to everyone, and straightaway, just as Chiara told us. That world, which was weighed down by suffering and which I knew so well and was part of, was to be transformed.

That world, the universities that were so cold, my friends and their incurable anxiety, those offices in Rome that were so full of lethargy and sadness, my relatives and colleagues, the people in the street who rushed past me.
That world, that very world, was to understand and welcome that explosion of love that Chiara was communicating without measure, and which was to be transformed."

Marisa was fascinated by the new life to which she had opened herself from that first meeting:

"I had an intuition that with Chiara there were virgins who did not withdraw from the world, but who , if anything, ‘went out’...
Married and unmarried people, going towards the world, in the world, to God there present. And I decided: ‘I want to be like them.’"

So it was that her adventure as a focolarina began.

From 1949 Marisa was in focolare in Florence, Turin, Sassari and Milan... and she was also amongst the first group of focolarine and focolarini who left for America, landing in Brazil in November 1959. On her return to Italy, Marisa was responsible for a focolare house in Rome for five years. In 1967, Chiara, who from the beginning had had an intuition that a new doctrine would emerge from the new spirituality of unity, asked Marisa help her develop the cultural aspect of the Movement.

Marisa started immediately to study theology. With great passion, she taught theology and ecumenism for 13 years in the little town of Loppiano.
She herself comments:

"Those 13 years were important, because we had reached the stage of living what was to become the start of a new school, one where the first rule is mutual love between teachers, between students, between teachers and students, with the whole town."
We experienced that presence of the Risen One promised by Him to two or more united in love.
He is the Teacher, not us. And this is really amazing.
It is the Truth who explains Himself."

At about the same time Chiara asked her to help prepare her talks and themes, by researching into Sacred Scripture, the Fathers of the Church and the writings of theologians. Marisa writes:

"It was a service, but it was also a wonderful ‘school’ for us.
This is my experience: the Ideal we had in our hearts was like a beacon whose light illuminated for us all the treasures of the Church... of humanity... They were gold mines...
And at the same time all the wisdom of the Church and of the world helped understand even better the greatness of the charism of unity, its universality..."

In 1980, Chiara called her to Rocca di Papa, to the Movement’s Centre.
There she worked hard, together with Giuseppe Zanghì and Bruna Tomasi, one of the first focolarine from Trent, to give birth to the Popular Marian University and to the various schools on society and ecumenism, to inter-religious dialogue, inculturation in different parts of the world and the development of study in all the branches of the Opera.
In December 1991 the Abba School was born, the latest flowering of this aspect of the Opera. Marisa and Fr Andrea Balbo were the first to whom Chiara entrusted the intuitions she had had during a special period of 1949, so that they could start to draw from them the doctrine contained within.
It was an experience in which she became immediately and deeply involved.

"At a certain point it seemed to me that the Abba School wasn’t just a school of the clearest light, but also a school of sanctity."

Marisa had a special task: to draw out the new doctrine which the charism brought to Mariology. After her ‘departure’, Chiara wrote:

"Mary!
It was task her in the Abba School to contemplate her and to give her... She didn’t spare herself, leaving us with a precious work."

Her unity with the source of the charism characterised the whole of Marisa’s life, making her capable of expressing in theology, with wisdom and with great faithfulness, competence and transparency, Chiara’s thought.

Numerous were her publications. One of the last was the learned Dimensione mariana della Chiesa [the Marian Dimension of the Church] which appeared in the journal "Unità e Carismi" (no 1, 1998).

Her book Dio Amore nell’esperienza e nel pensiero di Chiara Lubich [God Who is Love in the Experience and Thought of Chiara Lubich*] is now in its 4th edition in Italian and has been translated into various languages. Reviewed by important theological journals both in Italy and abroad, it is marked by an exceptional beauty and profundity. It throws light on the expectations of women and men today and offers new and original answers to any theology that is searching for a greater understanding of the mystery of God.
*published in English by New City Press.

(19-02-2001)