“I thank you for this extraordinary meeting. I was able to visit your Centre, the Mariapolis, that embraces all the Focolare communities of the world; I was able to talk with Chiara and her collaborator and to get a rapid glance at how the Movement lives and develops, how it accomplishes its mission, its apostolate on all the continents. After this conversation, I was able to take part in the second portion of the meeting, during which three testimonies were presented which were very moving and took us to the heart, I would say, of the Focolare Movement. Then there was an artistic testimony, in which we saw how that love which pulsates inside the Movement and is able to animate all the human values, the values of beauty and art, which are eternally destined to express what is deepest in the human spirit, the most spiritual, which is human and also Divine, because humankind is made in the image and likeness of God. During the different phases of our meeting, I made many reflections. I’ll try now to summarize everything with an observation and a wish: The observation touches the central nucleus of your Movement: love. Love is certainly the beginning of many institutes and structures of the entire apostolate, of all the religious families. Love is rich, it carries within itself diverse potential and spreads diverse charisms in human hearts. With this meeting I was able to draw out a bit more what forms your own charism which is proper to your Movement or, I could say in a different way, [I] understood better how love – which is the gift of the Holy Spirit, poured out in your hearts, the greatest virtue – constitutes the most perfect way, the principle animator of your Movement. It is good that you have found such a path, this vocation to love. Listening to the testimonies, I am convinced even more of what for many years and each day I realize: that in today’s world, in the life of nations, of societies, of different environments, of people – hatred, and struggle are very strong. They’re programmed. Therefore, you need love. You could say that love has no program, but it also creates very beautiful ones like yours. We need the presence of love in the world in order to face the great danger that threatens humanity, that threatens humankind: that of finding ourselves without love, with hatred, struggle, with the different wars, with different forms of oppression, with the different tortures, as we heard. Love is stronger than all this, and this is your faith, the inspirational spark of all that is done under the name “Focolare,” of all that you are, of all that you do in the world. Love is stronger. It’s a revolution… In this world so overwhelmed by revolutions that have hatred as their principle, we need this revolution of love; it’s necessary that such a revolution shows itself to be the stronger. This is also the radicalism of love. There have been many radicalisms of love in the history of the Church, almost all contained in the one supreme radicalism of Jesus Christ. There was also the radicalism of St Francis, of St Ignatius of Loyola, of Charles de Foucauld and many others up to our own day. There is also your radicalism of love, of Chiara, of the Focolarini: a radicalism that uncovers the depths of love and its simplicity, all the demands of love in all the different situations, and it strives to always make this love win out in every circumstance, in ever difficulty; even where the human being – humanly speaking – could be overcome by hatred even, to that point it doesn’t allow this human being, this human heart to be overcome, but makes love win.” “I wish for you in the meantime that you continue on this same road. You already have a clear direction, a deeply imprinted characteristic, a charism in the richness of love that has its source in God himself, in the Holy Spirit. You’ve already found your camp, your dwelling. I wish for you that you always develop this reality, which is proper precisely to your vocation, and to bring it into today’s world that is in so much need…love and, by means of love, to bring God. This is my wish for you.” […]