Abstract / DOI
Kenosis in the Service of Unity. As early as 1944 the forsakenness of Jesus on the cross was the leitmotif of Chiara Lubich’s spiritual path and it became even more so in the three and a half years of her spiritual trial before her death. The right approach to everything that she thought, said and lived can only be found through the key of Jesus Forsaken, the epitome of kenosis. A kenotic life – kenopraxis – becomes a way of holiness in everyday life, builds Church communion and make possible a dialogue with the various religious and non-religious realities.
In these elements lies, so to speak, a ‹liturgy of the profane› in the sense of the epistle to the Philippians: the existential descent into the depths of human existence and the deprivation of God, the understanding of leadership in religion and politics as a service to the people coming from below, a dialogue without reservation with all those sincerely willing to dialogue, advancing to achieve unity in diversity. Following in the steps of the Mediator between God and man, the Christian becomes the ‹vanishing mediator› who can thus make his specific contribution to building society and Church from below and from within.