The importance of Chiara's texts

These Christians feel abandoned and nostalgic for a past time, supposedly idyllic, which they have not lived. They are overcome by sadness and resemble the bent-over woman in the Gospel (Lk 13:10-17), unable to lift her head up to heaven. These Christians, in need of regaining their joy that Christ brings usIt would be good for them to deepen and meditate on the texts of Chiara, a woman always attentive to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. She knew very well that the Christian's strength never ceases to be borrowed, for our weakness becomes strength in Christ.

Chiara and the figure of Christ

One of my favorite texts by Chiara Lubich is an article written for the Zenit agency for Good Friday 2000. She was eighty years old at the time, although she could have written it at the beginning of her spiritual journey, for here we find one of the most characteristic features of her spirituality: meditation on Jesus forsaken.

In contrast to the expectations of those Christians attached to the supposed security lived in other times, Chiara presents the figure of a Christ stripped of his divinity on the cross in order to unite himself even more to man, to experience the anguish and helplessness of the human being at certain moments of his life. This is the meaning of the fourth word pronounced on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" (Mt 27:47).

Chiara and the wounded of life

I once read an explanation that did not convince me at all: Jesus had begun to pray a psalm containing these words and his exhaustion prevented him from continuing his prayer. It is possible that Jesus could have been praying that psalm, but it is certain that his words clearly express what he was feeling at that moment. For centuries insufficient attention has been paid to this fourth word, perhaps because some imagined it to be an unanswerable question.

En cambio, los creyentes sabemos, tal y como recuerda Chiara, que el Padre resucitó y ensalzó a su Hijo para siempre. Sobre este particular, señala además: “En Él, el amor estaba anulado, la luz apagada, la sabiduría callada. Estábamos separados del Padre. Era necesario que el Hijo, en el que todos nos encontrábamos, probara la separación del Padre. Tenia que experimentar el abandono de Dios para que nosotros no nos sintiéramos más abandonados”.

Hope at the feet of Christ

Chiara sees in this Jesus who cries out his abandonment many people who suffer physically, such as the blind, the mute or the deaf, but she also sees those who suffer in spirit: the disillusioned, the betrayed, the fearful, the timid, the disoriented... The latter are the wounded of life, an expression used on some occasions by St. John Paul II, and which I saw not long ago as the sign of a section in a bookstore in Lourdes. I think that those who are sick in spirit are much more numerous than the others, because in a society lacking in solidarity there are countless people who live in loneliness and helplessness.

In them Jesus is abandoned, for as Chiara says: "We can see him in every brother who suffers. By approaching those who resemble him, we can speak to them of Jesus forsaken.".

Sufferers have been sold the idea that their life is a failure and that nothing is worthwhile. But Jesus has suffered much more than all of them. Chiara reminds us that behind all the painful aspects of life there is the face of Christ. We could add that it is a concrete face with identity, even if it has very varied representations, and if his face is recognizable, so must be the face of our brothers and sisters because, as Chiara points out, each one of them is Him.

It is our task to transform pain into love, a task that humanly seems impossible, but it will be possible thanks to the strength and other gifts that the Spirit of Christ infuses us with..

Chiara and her vision of youth

La evocación del abandono de Cristo crucificado me lleva a relacionar a Chiara con Olivier Clément, un conocido teólogo ortodoxo francés. Ambos sentían una gran admiración por el patriarca Atenágoras y mantuvieron algunos encuentros personales de los que dejaron constancia en sus escritos. Ante las tormentas político-sociales de la época, como el mayo del 68, Atenágoras no es pesimista ni tiene nostalgia de un pasado supuestamente mejor, y asegura a Clément que esos jóvenes contestatarios le inspiran compasión.

Aunque no se den cuenta, son jóvenes completamente abandonados y su grito no deja de ser un grito de huérfanos. El patriarca, un gran experto en humanidad, ve la revuelta estudiantil como una llamada de auxilio. Por su parte, Clément subraya que, pese al aparente triunfo del nihilismo, existe un gran vacío en un movimiento de protesta que se proclama heredero de Marx, Nietzsche y Freud.

Authentic Christian ecumenism

Creen, como tantos otros, en la transformación de las estructuras, o a lo mejor ni siquiera en eso, aunque no se dan cuenta de que la única revolución creativa en la historia es la que nace de la transformación de los corazones. Por su parte, Chiara Lubich, testigo de una época turbulenta en la que Cristo es nuevamente abandonado y sustituido por utopías sin esperanza, encuentra en Atenágoras el corazón de un padre, un espíritu juvenil lleno de fe y esperanza.

No le califica de hermano separado, una expresión muy frecuente en la época del posconcilio, pues tiene el convencimiento de pertenecer a una misma casa, a una misma familia. Este es el auténtico ecumenismo, en el que las diferencias han perdido su color gracias al sol de la caridad. Tanto es así que el grito de Jesús abandonado en la cruz está necesariamente dirigido a todos los cristianos sin excepción. El encuentro con Jesús abandonado, presente en tantos hermanos a los que no podemos dejar solos, es un buen ejemplo de ecumenismo.