God is Love! This discovery changes our lives.

It was 1944. The war was raging in Trent, too. It meant disaster, destruction, death. The bombings continued and the people or things that had been in some way the ideal of our young hearts were taken from us. One loved her home: it was damaged. Another was waiting to get married: her fiancé did not come back from the front. Studies were my ideal: the war prevented me from going to the university.

All that was happening affected us deeply. The lesson that God was offering us in these circumstances was clear:everything is vanity of vanities. Everything passes... A question surfaced in our minds: is there an ideal that does not die, that no bomb can destroy, an ideal we can give our whole selves to?

Yes, there is. It is God. Right in the midst of the destruction caused by war and hatred, the light of the charism made us understand something very new. As if for the first time, a dazzling truth emerged before us: “God is Love” (1 Jn 4,8): everything that happens to us – joyful or sad or indifferent – all things appeared to us as an expression of God’s love. The joy and amazement we felt were so great that we did not lose a moment to choose Him, God who is Love, as the Ideal of our lives. Immediately, we shared our great discovery to the people near us – relatives and friends: “God is Love, God loves us, God loves you!”