Surely each of us has experienced unconditional love since birth, through the care of those who have looked after us. Thus, we have also learned to love with our lives more than with words.

This experience of love makes us realize that true love requires courage, effort, and risk in the face of adversity and suffering. Consequently, those who love in this way experience the freedom and joy of self-giving, freeing themselves from the selfishness that closes the doors to communion with their brothers and sisters and prevents us from growing in brotherhood and truth.

If we love each other, it's like when two electric poles touch, and the light turns on and illuminates everything around us. Thus, mutual love fulfills us.

Chiara Lubich tells us that bearing witness to this love is "the great revolution we are called to offer today to the modern world, which is under extreme tension."

How to do it? How to live this superlative love? Learning from recognized models to put it into practice, in particular, Chiara invites us to be at the service of our brothers and sisters, especially those around us, beginning with the smallest things, with the most humble services. We will strive to be the first to love them, with detachment from ourselves and embracing all the vicissitudes and difficulties, small or great, that this may entail.

In this way, we too will soon reach that experience of love, that fullness of light, peace, and inner joy that fulfills us as human beings.

A young woman named Santa often visits a nursing home. One day, along with Roberta, she meets Aldo, a tall, cultured, and wealthy man. Aldo looks at the two young women with a somber look: "Why have you come here? What do you want from us? Let us die in peace!" Santa is not discouraged and tells her: "We are here for you, to spend time together, to get to know each other, to become friends." They return several times.

Roberta recounts: "That man was particularly withdrawn, very depressed. He no longer believed in love. Santa was the only one who managed to enter his heart, very gently, listening to him for hours. She prayed for him intimately, keeping him firmly in her thoughts and heart, and once she gave him an object that he greatly appreciated and which he accepted. Later, Santa learned that Aldo had died, naming her.

The pain of her death was softened by the knowledge that she died peacefully, holding in her hands the gift she had given her.