Chiara Lubich and the Jesus of the Fourth Word

Chiara is an indispensable reference in these difficult times in which many Christians feel discouraged because they are a minority in the midst of a pluralistic and complex society that seems to live with its back to God.

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.

En contraste con las expectativas de esos cristianos apegados a la supuesta seguridad vivida en otros tiempos, Chiara presenta la figura de un Cristo despojado en la cruz de su divinidad para unirse todavía más al hombre, para experimentar Él también la angustia y el desamparo del ser humano e en algunos momentos de su vida. Tal es el sentido de la cuarta palabra pronunciada en la cruz, “¡Dios mío, Dios mío! ¿Por qué me has abandonado?” (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.

On the other hand, we believers know, as Chiara reminds us, that the Father resurrected and exalted his Son forever. In this regard, she also points out: "In Him, love was nullified, light was extinguished, wisdom was silenced. We were separated from the Father. It was necessary for the Son, in whom we all found ourselves, to taste separation from the Father. He had to experience God's abandonment so that we would no longer feel abandoned".

Hope at the feet of Christ

Chiara ve en ese Jesús que grita su abandono a muchas personas que sufren en lo físico como ciegos, mudos o sordos, pero también percibe a los que sufren en su espíritu: los desilusionados, los traicionados, los miedosos, los tímidos, los desorientados… Estos últimos son los heridos de la vida, una expresión utilizada en algunas ocasiones por san Juan Pablo II, y que no hace mucho contemplé como rótulo de una sección en una librería de Lourdes. Pienso que los enfermos del espíritu son mucho más numerosos que los otros, pues en una sociedad poco solidaria son infinidad las personas que viven en la soledad y el desamparo.

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

The evocation of the abandonment of the crucified Christ leads me to relate Chiara to Olivier Clément, a well-known French Orthodox theologian. Both had a great admiration for Patriarch Athenagoras and had some personal meetings which they recorded in their writings. In the face of the political-social storms of the time, such as May '68, Athenagoras is neither pessimistic nor nostalgic for a supposedly better past, and assures Clément that these young protesters inspire him with compassion. Even if they don't realize it, they are completely abandoned young people and their cry is still a cry of orphans. The patriarch, a great expert in humanity, sees the student revolt as a call for help. For his part, Clément stresses that, despite the apparent triumph of nihilism, there is a great void in a protest movement that claims to be the heir of Marx, Nietzsche and 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.