Surely each of us has experienced free love since birth, through the assistance of those who cared for us. This is how we too learned to love, with life more than with words.
This experience of love makes us understand that truly loving involves courage, effort and the risk of having to face adversity and suffering. Consequently, those who love in this way experience the freedom and joy of those who give of themselves, they feel free from the selfishness that closes the doors to communion with their brothers and prevents them from growing in brotherhood and truth.
If we love each other, it happens like when the two electric poles touch and the light turns on, illuminating what surrounds us. Thus, mutual love fulfills us.
Chiara Lubich tells us that bearing witness to this love is «the great revolution that we are called to offer today to the modern world, in extreme tension».
How to do it? How to experience this superlative love? Learning from recognized models to put it into practice, in particular, Chiara invites us, in service to our brothers and sisters, especially those who are close to us, starting from the little things, from the most humble services. We will strive to love them first, detaching ourselves from ourselves and embracing all the vicissitudes and difficulties, small or large, that all this can entail.
In this way we too will soon arrive at that experience of love, at that fullness of light, peace and inner joy, which realizes us as human beings.
A young woman named Santa often visits a retirement home. One day she, together with Roberta, meets Aldo, a tall, cultured and rich man. Aldo looks at the two young women with a dark look: “But why do you come here? What do you want from us? Let us die in peace!” Santa does not lose heart and tells him: "We are here for her, to spend a few hours together, get to know each other, become friends". They come back other times.
Roberta says: “That man was particularly withdrawn, very dejected. He no longer believed in love. Santa was the only one who managed to enter his heart, very delicately, listening to him for hours. She prayed intimately for him, having him strongly in her thoughts and in her heart and once she gave him an object that she loved very much and which he accepted. Santa then learns that Aldo has died by naming her.
The pain of his death is attenuated by the fact that he died peacefully, holding in his hands that gift that she had given her.
