Carla Marchesoni, among the pioneers of the Focolare Movement, impressed people whom she met with her boundless love. Many think of her an angel.

The morning before her accident, Carla came to the kitchen with her candid smile, which invited people’s trust. To her companion at breakfast, she said: “Today I want to welcome surprises.”

Those words, said lightly, invited her companions to begin the day with clear gaze and generous heart. With simplicity, Carla told them she had just meditated on the passage of the Gospel in which Jesus appears to the disciples while he was walking on the water. The disciples were frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost. Realizing that it was Jesus remained astounded. “So I too”, - she says – “in meeting every brother or sister, I want to experience amazement, because in them Jesus is present. Yes, I have to be surprised.”

That day she was to meet with the Focolare communities of Emilia Romagna and Marche, in Bologna.

At the start of the afternoon program, Sunday, January 13, 2008, the surprise came at 82. Carla was going down the stairs with her usual spring when she accidentally fell. They rushed her to the hospital. The situation was serious. In fact, two days later she died.

Carla had been a young girl during the Second World War when she met and adhered to the evangelical ideal of unity. Her dad, a department chairman of elementary schools in different regions in the valley of Trent, was much esteemed for his professional and human talents. He was a young widower with five small children. Carla’s family lived with her grandmother on their father’s side and her aunt Stefania.

An intelligent and a sensitive child, Carla grew up surrounded by the affection and attention of her loved ones. But in her heart grew emptiness and regret for the loss of her mother who left them when she was just three years old.

Later in college, she took up a course in Education. If the war had not come along, she would have gotten a degree in Education. Instead, after the terrible bombardment of Trent on May 13, 1944, schools and universities closed down.

Despite the war, Carla had a calm adolescence. Her family had a solid, if somewhat an austere faith. Carla remembers an episode that happened in her fourth year of teaching training. Her religion teacher was a young affable priest, with a simple and calm air about him. One day he told them that if they had any questions or problems, they could write to him personally. She recalled, “I opened up with him. On the last day of school, writing to each one of us, he told me: “May your life be as clear as the waters of the lake under the blue and immaculate sky.”

When the war ended, their family returned to the city. But it was difficult to resume a normal life after so much discomfort and devastation.

Doriana Zamboni, one of the first companions of Chiara Lubich, remembers her: “Our two families lived not too far away from one another, and her father told me: Miss, do come to visit my Carla. What her thoughtful dad didn't know was that we had anticipated his desire to the best of our capabilities.”

In fact Carla, had been invited to join one Saturday gathering in Sala Massaia, on San Marco street, a venue well known in the history of the Focolare, because it was the meeting place of the Movement that was just starting.

Carla found a group of girls who were zealously distributing some packages of provisions for the poor. They welcomed Carla warmly and this made her come back to them. “I was caught up by their love immediately,” -she would later say - “Their language struck me: For them Jesus was really a person, so close to them, who was dealing with them in an "I to you" relationship. I too received Jesus every morning in the Eucharist, but I asked myself, “Who was he for me?” I looked at the way they were doing things. I got to know Ginetta, Lia, Graziella, Gis, Vale.... They were the first companions of Chiara. And among these were Doriana Zamboni or Dory, and Chiara herself, a person whom people were eager to listen to as she gave talk in the church. The first time that I heard her speak of Jesus, of his pain, of his love, it was all new for me-- I seemed to be in paradise,” Carla would later recount.

It was a beginning of a new life, illuminated and ordered by the words of the Gospel which, one after another, became a reality in her everyday life.

While waiting for a teaching job in a public school, Carla received another offer in Milan as a private tutor for two boys.

It was a different experience that drew her a little bit away from the intensity of the life which Chiara and her companions were living. Nevertheless, Dory would write to her from Trent and continue to support her spiritual life; yet she tried to convince herself that she could not live the way they were living the Gospel. But it was impossible for her to forget those young friends...

She returned to Trent for vacations and she met Dory with whom she shared for a long time about her new world, showing her photos of her skiing trips, and her happy life in Riviera. Those were two beautiful years as a teacher, but that enriching experience didn’t really satisfy her so she resigned, taking advantage of a teaching job in Trent to come back and be close to Chiara and her companions.

December 8, 1951 was an unforgettable day for Carla. She narrated, “After the Mass in the cathedral, I went to the Focolare. There Lia told me that she had left everything to follow Jesus. Suddenly she asked me: “And you, Carla, what do you want? “I replied: what you too have chosen.” A few days later Carla asked her father’s permission to begin this new life. Her father allowed her and even gave her his blessing with these words, “May the Madonna and your mother bless you.” It was January 6, 1952. The city was covered by a beautiful white mantle of snow.

Carla’s story firmly now became interwoven with that of Chiara’s and her first companions. Chiara herself saw her spiritual and intellectual wealth, her love without limits, her constant presence like an angel and her zeal in building unity wherever God wanted her.

Many can now testify that wherever she was assigned she gave of herself without measure. Ide Manici, responsible for the Focolare Movement in Emilia Romagna, reminisces: I returned to Carla’s room to look for the things she needed in the hospital. In the room was an air that I would define as sacred, with a special harmony. Her things were all orderly in the drawers. It seemed that everything had been prepared for any separation, and as if she were expecting someone to come who could easily look for her things.

From Trent to Sicily, with the manifold responsibilities that she took on, from 1968, at the Center of the Movement right down to the unexpected assignment of the last five years, when she started to contact others influenced by the spirituality of the unity in the field of pedagogy, all remember her as someone who was always ready, with her disarming smile, to witness to this life of unity.

Francesco Châtel, one of her closest collaborators in the Commission on EdU (Education and Unity) remembers her—“the image that remained in my mind and heart, when I think of Carla, is that of a star. Yes, a bright star because dead to herself, she points the way to so many, illuminating in a particular way the path which leads to the light of the spirit of unity as we work in the world of pedagogy. Another image is that of a teacher and mother. Spontaneously all of us, her collaborators, upon hearing the news of the accident, felt like we were orphans. We were losing a mother who had made us feel at home when she listened to us, or when she transmitted the values of the family, someone who generated love for life without at times even saying anything. Our scientific and intellectual research and discussions with her were always moments to renew and live mutual love among us.

This atmosphere of mutual collaboration in organizing the activities of the EdU meetings in Bologna to Benevento, as well as the work that developed with the University of Zagreb under the professors Mile Silov's direction and Michael De Beni, on a course of improvement on the pedagogy of communion, was always influenced by mutual love and respect which was present among us educators. I believe that Carla’s life was somehow an example for us and will serve as one of the pillars of the pedagogy of communion which is already making waves all over the world.”

Caterina Ruggiu

- From Mexico: Carla made us feel the love of God with her very exquisite charity! Thanks Carla for the gift that you are. Now, from heaven, accompany us pilgrims as we learn moment by moment, from the only Teacher, the Risen one in our midst, He who can illuminate the dark night of today's culture with his light and his eternal Truth!

- From Argentina: I remember the concrete love with which she welcomed me when I arrived in Rome… Her joyful smile encouraged me to share on stage during the International Congress on Educators for Unity in March 2006 in Castel Gandolfo: She was a real, and great “mother” in the science of pedagogy.

- From Brazil: I still recall the loving glance of Carla, which was so personal. Her smile speaks of love more than any discourse. She was really living the reality of love that she was speaking about.

- From Holland: I am sure that she will help us from heaven to spread the pedagogy of unity, as she has always done with her great love when she was with us here on earth. I am grateful to God for having known her.

- From France: I know that, now from heaven, she will keep on following all the small and great steps in our inundation of love in the world of pedagogy and she will spur us to go ahead.

- From Slovenia: We feel privileged to have known and met her, because we have felt her delicate and personal love for each one of us. We feel that we can entrust to her all our concerns, certain that she will help us follow God’s plan in the field of pedagogy.

- From the Philippines: We personally experienced the love of Carla, when we confided to her our financial concern about attending the Congress of Educators for Unity in Rome in 2006. She concretely helped us by shouldering all the expenses during our stay in Rome and she was even willing to help us for our trip to Loppiano, the little town of the Focolare in Florence which is 3 hours away from Rome. Hers was really a love so concrete and personal that one could never forget it.

- From Italy:

- Rome: I can say that Carla has been indeed a “teacher of unity". She has given us an important lesson through her life and love, and this legacy of hers will always remain with me. I feel it is now our turn to offer such a treasure.

- Genoa: I feel that I can entrust everything to her and pray to her. Her example encourages me to commit myself to the pedagogy of unity which the world today is in extreme need of.