 1920
Chiara was born in Trent. During
the period of Fascism her family experienced extreme poverty: her socialist father lost
his job because of his political convictions. To support herself while studying Chiara
gave private lessons.
December 7, 1943
Alone, she responded to the call to
give her whole life to God.
May 13, 1944
A night of fierce bombing in Trent.
Chiara’s house was among the many destroyed. As her relatives fled into the nearby
mountains to seek refuge, she decided to stay in Trent with those who were already
following her. Amid the ruins of the city, she met a woman who had lost her senses at
seeing her four children dead. As Chiara comforted her she understood that she was being
asked to embrace the suffering of humanity. It was among the poor of Trent that "the
divine adventure," as Chiara has often called it, began. From this experience came
the certainty that the Gospel, when it is put into action, gives rise to the most powerful
of social revolutions: here are found the first indications of the Movement’s
continual commitment at a social level.
1948
Chiara met Igino Giordani,
statesman, member of parliament, writer, journalist, pioneer in the field of ecumenism,
and father of four. The meeting took place in the Italian parliament. He became a
co-founder of the Movement with Chiara because of his contribution to bringing about a
social incarnation of the spirituality of unity which in time gave rise to the New
Families Movement and the New Humanity Movement.
1949
Chiara met Pasquale Foresi, a
young man who grew up in Catholic environments. Troubled by a profound inner searching, he
felt an intense need to connect Gospel truths with his life in the Church.
He was the first
focolarino to become a priest, ordained in 1954. Always at the side of the foundress, he
contributed among other things to giving life to the Movement’s theological studies,
to starting the Cittą Nuova Publishing House and to overseeing the building of
Loppiano, the little town of the Movement near Florence, Italy. Throughout the
Movement’s development, he has given a noteworthy contribution to concretizing its
ecclesial and lay expressions. Along with Igino Giordani, he is considered to be a
co-founder of the Movement.
1954
A meeting took place in Vigo di Fassa
(near Trent) with refugees from the forced labor camps in Eastern Europe. The
Focolare’s spirituality of unity began to influence individuals and groups in Soviet
bloc countries.
1956
The Soviet invasion of Hungary. Faced
with this dramatic development Chiara felt the urgent need to bring God back into society
so that humanity could recognize him once again as its source of freedom and fraternity.
This marks the birth of the "volunteers of God," dedicated people at work in the
most diverse fields of action: from politics to economics, from art to education. They
were to become the animators of the New Humanity Movement.
1959
In Europe many of the wounds caused by
the violence and hatred of World War II remained. At the Mariapolis (summer gathering of
the Movement) in the Dolomite Mountains, Chiara addressed a group of politicians inviting
them to go beyond the boundaries of their respective nations and to "love the nation
of the other as you love your own." Internationality was soon to become the hallmark
of the Movement which was growing rapidly first in Italy, then, beginning in 1952,
throughout Europe, and in 1959 on other continents.
Little towns, starting
with Loppiano in 1965, together with international meetings, and the use of the media
contribute to the formation of people who live for the ideal of a united world.
1967
In response to the growing crisis of
the family in today’s society, Chiara founded the New Families Movement.
1968
Young people throughout the world are
protesting. Beginning in 1966 Chiara Lubich had called on the Focolare youth to live
according to the radicalism of the Gospel as an answer to the profound desire for change
claimed by young people everywhere. The Gen Movement is born (New Generation). It would
later give life to the wider "Youth for a United World" movement (1984). |
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1970
From the very beginning there have been
younger teenagers and children who have made the spirituality of unity their own. The
third generation of the Movement which would then become the backbone of the wider
"Young for Unity" movement was born.
1977
Chiara received the Templeton Prize
for progress in religion. The presence of many representatives of other religions at the
ceremony signalled the beginning of the Movement’s participation in interreligious
dialogue.
1991
During a trip to Brazil, and as a response to
the situation of those who live in sub-human conditions in the outskirts of big cities
there, Chiara launched a new idea: the "Economy of Sharing in Freedom." This
quickly developed in many countries involving hundreds of businesses and giving rise to a
new economic system.
1995
Two recognitions which she received from the
mayor and the bishop of her native Trent opened a phase of public life directly involving
Chiara.
1996
An honorary Degree in Social Sciences from the
Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. Professor Adam Biela spoke of her having brought
about the "Copernican revolution in the Social Sciences." Since then she
has received 12 honorary doctorate degrees in such disciplines as theology, philosophy,
psychology, economics and social communications. These were conferred by religious and
secular universities in the United States, the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina,
Italy and Poland.
1996
"In an age when ethnic and religious
differences too often lead to violent conflict, the expansion of the Focolare Movement has
also contributed to a constructive dialogue between persons, generations, social classes
and peoples." This is the motivation of the 1996 UNESCO Peace
Education Prize, awarded to Chiara in Paris. |
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1997-99
dialogue: Chiara has spoken on numerous occasions encouraging ecumenism, recently in
Great Britain (West Yorkshire Ecumenical Council), Germany (Evangelical Church of
Remembrance in Berlin) and Austria (Second European Ecumenical Assembly in Graz). Among
other recognitions, she has been awarded with the Golden Cross of St. Augustine of
Canterbury by Dr. George Carey, Primate of the Anglican Communion, and the Byzantine Cross
by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I.
Chiara was the first
Christian and the first lay person invited to communicate her spiritual experience to a
group of 800 Buddhist monks and nuns in Thailand (January 1997). She has addressed 3,000
African American Muslims in the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque in Harlem, NY (May 1997), and the
Jewish community in Buenos Aires (April 1998).
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At the United
Nations Headquarters in New York, she addressed a symposium entitled, "Toward a
Unity of Nations and a Unity of Peoples."
In September 1998 in Strasbourg she received the European
Prize for Human Rights awarded by the Council of Europe for her work "in defense
of individual and social rights." |
2000
Chiara returned to the United States to receive
an honorary doctoral degree in Education from
The Catholic University of America. A crowd of 4000 witnessed the event which took
place in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. “Our
Movement and the stages of its development can be viewed as one continuous, extraordinary
educational event,” Chiara said in her acceptance address.
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On November 12,
Chiara addressed a major interreligious event entitled “Faith Communities
Together” which drew 7000 to the Washington Convention Center. Imam Warith Deen
Mohammed, leader of the two million strong Muslim American Society (MAS), had asked Chiara
to address the topic, “A Spirituality of Unity for the Harmonious Living of the Human
Family.” William Cardinal Keeler, Archbishop of
Baltimore, who has actively encouraged the development of the relationship between the
Focolare and the MAS, presented to the assembly a message of greetings from Pope John Paul
II expressed by Cardinal Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State. |
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Chiara Lubich
