If one day all people, not as individuals, but as peoples would learn to put themselves aside, to put themselves aside the ideas they have about their own countries, their kingdoms, and offer them as incense to the Lord, the king of a kingdom that is not of the world, the guide of history and if all would do this as the expression of the mutual love between states that God asks for, just as he asks for mutual love among individuals, that day would be the beginning of a new era.

For on that day, just as Jesus is present among two who love each other in Christ, Jesus will be alive and present among peoples, given finally his true place as the one king, not only of individual hearts but of nations: he will be Christ the King.

Christian peoples, or their representatives, must learn how to sacrifice their “collective” egos. This is the price. Nothing less is asked of each of us in order for our souls to be consumed in unity. Now is the time for every people to go beyond its own borders, to look farther.

Now is the time to love the other countries as our own, to acquire a new purity of vision. To be Christians it is not enough to be detached from ourselves. The times we live in demand from the followers of Christ something more: the awareness of Christianity’s social dimension, which not only builds up one’s own land according to the law of Christ but assists in the building up of all other lands as well, through the universal actions of the Church, and through the supernatural vision given to us by God the Father, who sees things quite differently from the way we do.

We need to live the Mystical Body of Christ in such an excellent way as to translate it into the mystical body of society. History speaks most exclusively of wars, and as children in school we have learned most that wars are good and holy, almost the safeguard of our homelands. This maybe so and sometimes it was so.

But if we hear echoing in our souls the appeals of the popes, we will recognize how they feared war, for the sake of humanity, and how they reached out to government leaders, whether they were asked to or not. They strove to appease anger and self-interest in order
to avoid the disaster of wars that destroys everything, while with peace everything is gained.

For history is a series of fratricidal conflicts among brother nations, whose lands were given them by the one Master of the world, to live on and to cultivate.He blesses peace because he is peace in himself. We see one by one the Lord is conquering the hearts of his children of all nations and languages, transforming them into children of love, joy, peace, ardor and strength.

And we hope that the Lord may have mercy on this divided and confused world, on peoples closed within their shells contemplating their own beauty – the only beauty that exist for them (though it is both limiting and unsatisfying). They strain to hold onto their treasures against all odds, are dying of hunger. May the Lord cause all barriers to fall, and allow love to run uninterrupted through all lands, flooding them with spiritual and material goods.

Let’s hope that the Lord brings about a new order in the world. He is the only one who can make humanity a family and cultivate the unique characteristics of each people so that the splendor of each, placed at the service of others, may shine with one light of life.

This light of life in making beautiful each earthly country will make it the antechamber of the eternal. It may seem like a dream. But (apart from the fact that if the relationship among Christians is one of mutual love, then the relationship among Christian peoples cannot but be one of mutual love, because of the gospel logic which does not change) there exists a bond that even now powerfully unites peoples to one another. It has already been proclaimed by the voice of the people, by every people, in the voice of the people that is often the voice of God. This bond hidden and cherished in the heart of every nation is Mary…

…If today non-Christian laws have almost made some of the boundaries disappear among peoples who are yet still very Christian, perhaps God is permitting this so that the progress of Mary in the world, which must come, be less obstructed.

The Queen of Angels

In this way everything can become her “footstool” (cf. Mt. 5:35), footstool of she who is the greatest queen known to heaven and earth: Queen of all humanity, Queen of saints, Queen of Angels – all because on earth she knew how to sacrifice herself totally, becoming the servant of the Lord, And is thus able to teach her children the way of unity, of the universal embrace of all human beings, so that everything maybe “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Chiara Lubich

From the Book, Mary, the Transparency of God pp. 102-106