At the opening of the Academic Year of the “San Roberto Bellarmino” Religious Science College on November 25 in Capua City, near Naples, Maria Voce held a Lecture on one of the main points of the spirituality of unity, “Jesus Forsaken, A Light for Theology”. There were Bishops of the different dioceses of the Campania region present. The president of the Focolare Movement outlined “the salient aspects”, since – as she affirmed herself – “we cannot present briefly all the wealth of the doctrine of Jesus Forsaken in the spirituality of Chiara Lubich.” Here is an excerpt of her Lecture:

«I would like to begin with a quotation of a letter that Chiara wrote to a friend way back in 1946. An emblematic quote, which says:

“Look …, I am a soul passing through this world.

I have seen many beautiful and good things and I have always been attracted only by them. One day (one indescribable day) I saw a light. It appeared to me as more beautiful than the other beautiful things, and I followed it. I realized it was the Truth.”

Jesus on the cross. He came on earth to bring back people (who had distanced themselves from God because of sin) to a full communion with Him. He took upon himself every negative aspect of their life: sufferings, distress, desperation, pains, sins…, making Himself, the Innocent One, similar to human sinners. “In order to bring the human person back to the Father’s face, Jesus not only had to take on the face of a human being, but he had to burden himself with the ‘face’ of sin”[i], said Pope John Paul II.

Let’s go back to the beginning of the Movement, in 1944, in the midst of the World War. On one particular circumstance a priest told Chiara that, for him, Jesus’ greatest suffering was when he cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). Right away Chiara concluded: if that was the peak of his suffering, it was certainly also the apex of his love for us. Since then, together with her first companions, and later with all those who would have followed her Ideal, she felt called to become the “answer of love” to that cry.

Jesus Forsaken was therefore revealed to her as “the living proof of God’s love here on earth.”

This is well stressed in a famous “song” of praise and thanksgiving dedicated precisely to Jesus Forsaken and that spontaneously sprung forth from her heart:

“So that we might possess the light, you lost your sight.

To acquire union for us, you experienced separation from the Father.

So that we might have wisdom, you made yourself ‘ignorance’.

To clothe us in innocence, you became sin.

So that we might hope, you almost despaired…

So that God might be present in us, you felt him far away from you.

So that heaven might be ours, you felt hell.

To make our time on earth happy, among hundreds of brothers and sisters and more, you were expelled from heaven and earth, from human beings and nature.

You are God, you are my God, our God of infinite love.”

This infinite love that Jesus crucified and forsaken had for every human being on earth transformed all sufferings, filled up every emptiness and redeemed every sin. Our separation from God was annulled in the re-established communion with Him and among us.

Thus, Jesus Forsaken contains the key to penetrate and give an answer to the deepest mystery that envelops the life of the human being and the whole of humanity: the mystery of pain, of suffering.

This is a great mystery that deeply touches Chiara’s heart:

“Jesus on earth… – she wrote with feelings – Jesus our brother… Jesus who dies between thieves for us: he, the Son of God, sharing a common life with others. ‘… if you came among us, it was because our weakness attracted you, our wretchedness moved you to compassion.’ Certainly, no earthly mother or father waiting for their lost children or doing everything to bring them back could equal our Father in heaven.”

From the mystery that Jesus lived on the cross, Chiara saw a light emanate, able to illuminate and to give meaning to every experience of pain and abandonment that a human person may live. She speaks of this with simplicity, confiding that, since Jesus Forsaken manifested himself to her, she seemed to discover him everywhere:

“He himself, his face and his mysterious cry seemed to colour every painful moment of our life.”

“Darkness, the sense of failure and aridity disappeared – wrote Chiara. – And we started to understand how dynamically divine is Christian life that knows no boredom, cross, suffering, only those that pass, and makes one enjoy the fullness of life, which means resurrection, light and hope even in the midst of tribulations.”»