The beginnings

as told by Chiara Lubich

An instrument in the Artist’s hand

My witness of life and faith goes hand in hand with the foundation and development of the Focolare Movement. It is quite a singular experience.

When God takes someone in hand to give rise to one of his works in the Church, the person concerned does now know what he or she will be doing. That person is God's instrument. And I think that this might be true in my case, too.

The Movement which was born has all the qualities of a work of God: unconditional unity with the Church, a fruitfulness and outreach disproportionate to any purely human strength or talent; crosses, but also fruits and fruits, very abundant fruits.

And God's instruments, generally speaking, have one characteristic: smallness, weakness. St. Paul says,"God chose those who by human standards are weak... God chose ... those that count for nothing ... so that no human being may feel boastful before God" (1 Cor 1:27-29).  And as God’s hand moves this instrument, he forms it through a thousand deft strokes, making use of joyful as well as sorrowful elements. In this way he makes it more and more suited to the task it has to fulfil, until the point that it acquires a profound knowledge of self and can truly say: I am nothing, God is everything.

When everything began in Trent, I did not have a plan, I knew nothing. The idea for this Movement was in God, the plan was in heaven. It was like this at the beginning. It had been so during the 60 years and more of the Focolare Movement's development.