Spirituality of Unity

• Category:

• Focolare

Today, as it has been throughout the centuries,
especially during moments of crisis, or at an epochal turning point
the Spirit, through the charisms he bestows,
brings forth new spiritual currents
from the heart of the Church, currents that give rise
to movements, communities, religious families:
and these are an incarnation, so to speak,
of a word which Jesus
wants to repeat to all humanity,
so that it may serve as a remedy for the ills of that particular time.

Unity, communion: words for the 3rd millenium
Communion, community, unity: the words Jesus repeats today. The spirituality of communion is a need that emerged out of Vatican II and which Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have repeatedly highlighted. Unity is precisely the characteristic of the Focolare spirituality.

Since the beginning, this spirituality emerged from a rediscovery of the Gospel. Chiara and her first companions discovered in Jesus' priestly prayer, "May they all be one" the meaning of their lives. It appeared to them as "a page of light" opening up in one of history's darkest hours: World War II. How can unity be accomplished in a world torn apart by hatred and violence? This is a question that turns into a prayer, which finds its answer in another "page of mysterious suffering," formulated by a God who, on the cross reaches the point of crying out his abandonment by the Father, in order to reunite us all to our Creator and among ourselves.

This apex of suffering is the measure of that mutual love that is capable of generating unity, the unity which renders the Risen Christ ‘visible' wherever we are -in the family, in the neighborhood, in the factory, in government. When the Risen Lord is among us - as he promised when two or three are united in his name, which means in his love - somehow we can touch the divine, Jesus' peace, light, love and life!

Chiara Lubich once recalled that "just when we thought we were simply putting the Gospel into practice, the Holy Spirit inscribed in our souls with letters of fire those concepts that later became the cardinal points of the "spirituality of unity," a new spirituality which was personal and communitarian at the same time."
A new current of spirituality
The spirituality of unity is not only the life-giving force which makes the Focolare Movement grow, or the seed bed from which its numerous activities flourish. As the spirituality spread across the globe, it offered effective answers to the thirst for unity, peace and renewal surfacing everywhere.

A vivid account of one who was present at the very beginning gives full expression of the novelty contained in this spiritual current.
Here Chiara Lubich shares her experience of life while in additional excerpts she presents the key ideas of the Focolare spirituality.

http://www.focolare.org/page.php?codcat1=246&lingua=EN&titolo=spirituali...