Where Chiara’s Beauty Lies

The Gospel experience of Chiara Lubich and the first focolarine had fascinated the Italian politician Igino Giordani so much that he joined himself to this small “company” in a new way of holiness. We offer an unpublished talk of Giordani’s in which he presents his own portrait of Chiara Lubich.

Where does Chiara’s beauty lie? It lies in the simplicity with which she lived the Gospel. She took the Gospel literally and lived it. It’s all here. Because, as St. Paul told to the Greeks, Christianity is not found in a culture, but in life, in a few laws of life that are very simple. I’m always very struck by Chiara’s union with God.

I’ve never seen anything like it. She lives with God in each moment, no matter what she says, no matter what she’s doing, wherever she is. She’s managed to achieve that for which we have all been called, that is, to recuperate our unity with God, unity that has been broken by Original Sin.

She is a human creature in whom, whatever she says, whatever she does is in complete harmony with the will of God. Therefore, I can recall how we used to take hikes in the forests during the first Mariapolises. She would pluck a flower and offer the most beautiful interpretation of the blossom, more sublime than you could ever imagine, because she was able to see the work of God: why had God made that corolla, why God had made those petals, why God had made nature in that way, why God had made human beings in that way. . . She searched everywhere for this presence of God’s love.”

Igino Giordani, Loppiano 3 July 1974