Chiara Lubich was born in 1920 in Trent, Italy. During the period of Fascism she lived years of extreme poverty. Her socialist father lost his job on account of his political convictions. To maintain herself through her studies she gave private lessons.

At the beginning of the 1940s, Chiara Lubich, little more than 20 years old, was working in the primary schools of Trent, her native city, and was registered in the faculty of Philosophy in the University of Venice. Then in the midst of the climate of hate and violence of the Second World War, and the collapse of almost everything from the previous world order, driven by what she felt to be the thirst for truth, she discovered God as the only remaining ideal. God, whom she discovered to be Love, was to illuminate and transform her existence and that of many others, and to show them the meaning of their lives: to work together for the realisation of the words of Jesus' testament — "That all may be one".

With time it became clear to her that God's original project for her, as she saw it, was expressed in these words: to bring together the human family in unity.

On December 7, 1943, alone, she responded to God's call to give her whole life to God. In that same year, during the height of World War II and at 23 years of age, together with a small group of friends, she began an experience of rediscovery of the Gospel, resulting in an ever-growing movement. This is considered the birth of the Focolare Movement. Together with these friends, Chiara began examining the teachings of the Gospel and rediscovered its values. Thus began the Focolare Movement, now active in 180 countries and with about 100,000 members. These Focolare (small communities of lay volunteers) seek to contribute to peace and to achieve the evangelical unity of all people in every social environment. Its goal became a world living in unity, and its spirituality has helped dismantle centuries-old prejudices. Today its members and adherents are Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, as well as thousands of people who profess no particular religion.

The May 13, 1944 is remembered in her life as the night of one of the most violent bombings of Trent. Chiara's house was among the many houses destroyed. As her relatives fled into the nearby mountains to seek refuge, she decided to stay in Trent to help the new life that was being born around her. Amid the ruins of the city, she encountered a woman who had lost her senses through the suffering caused by the death of her four children. In their embrace, she heard the call to embrace the suffering of humanity. It was among the poor of Trent that that which Chiara often calls the "divine adventure" began.

From this experience the certainty that the Gospel, when it is lived to the letter gives rise to the most powerful of social revolutions: here we find the first indications of the social commitment of the Movement.

In 1948 Chiara met Igino Giordani, Member of Parliament, writer, journalist, pioneer in the field of ecumenism, and father of four. This meeting took place in the Italian parliament. He was to be co-founder, together with Chiara, of the movement because of the contribution given by him in the context of the spirituality of unity's social incarnation, which gave rise to the New Families Movement and the New Humanity Movement.

The year 1949 marked the first encounter between Chiara and Pasquale Foresi, a young man who grew up in Catholic environments. Troubled by profound inner searching, he felt an intense need to couple Gospel and life in the Church. He was the first Focolarino to become a priest, ordained in 1954. Always at the side of the foundress, he contributed among other things, to giving life to the Movement's theological studies, to starting the Città Nuova Publishing House and to building the little town of Loppiano. Throughout the Movement's development, he has given a noteworthy contribution to concretizing its ecclesiastical and lay expressions. Along with Igino Giordani, he is considered to be a co-founder of the Movement.

In 1954 she met, in Vigo di Fassa (near Trent), with escapees from the forced labour camps in Eastern Europe and after 1960 the spirituality of unity and the Movement began to take shape clandestinely in those countries.

In 1956 there was the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Faced with this dramatic development Chiara felt the urgency of bringing God back into society so that humanity could realise that it has its source of freedom and fraternity in Him. This marked the birth of the "volunteers", people who are committed in the most diverse fields of action: from politics to the economy, from art to education. They were to become the animators of New Humanity Movement

In Europe many of the wounds provoked by the violence and hate of the Second World War remained. In 1959, at the Mariapolis (summer gathering of the Movement) in the Dolomite Mountains , Chiara addressed a group of politicians inviting them to go beyond the boundaries of their respective nations and to "love the nation of the other as you love your own". Indeed internationality soon becomes a hallmark of the Movement which rapidly spread, firstly in Italy; and then, since 1952 in Europe and since 1959 in the other continents. "Little towns" began to be born from 1965 on, with the birth of the first in Loppiano, together with international congresses, and the use of the media contribute to the formation of people who live for the ideal of a "united world".

In response to the growing crisis of the family in today's society, she founds the New Families Movement in 1967.

In the 1960s young people started protesting in large numbers throughout much of the world. From 1966 Chiara Lubich proposed to the youth to live according to the radicalism of the Gospel as an answer to the profound desire for change claimed by young people everywhere. The Gen Movement was thus born (New Generation) which animates the wider "Young People for a United World"

From the very beginning there had been younger teenagers and children who made the spirituality of unity their own. The third generation of the Movement, those who animate the vaster "Youth for Unity" movement, was born in 1970.

In 1977, Lubich received the Templeton Prize for progress in religion and peace. The presence of many representatives of other religions at the ceremony brought about the beginning of the Movement's inter-religious dialogue.

In 1991, shortly after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, during a trip to Brazil, as a response to the situation of those who live in sub-human conditions in the outskirts of the metropolises there, Chiara launched a new project: the "Economy of Communion in Liberty". This quickly developed in various countries involving hundreds of businesses, giving rise to a new economic theory and praxis.

In 1995 two recognitions which Lubich received from the mayor and bishop of her native city opened a phase of public life which directly involves her.

In 1996 Chiara Lubich received an Honorary Degree in Social Sciences from the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland. Professor Adam Biela spoke of the "Copernican revolution in the Social Sciences, brought about by her having given life to a 'paradigm of unity' which shows the new psychological, social and economic dimensions which today's post-communist society has been waiting for in this new and difficult transitional phase".

Still in 1996 Chiara Lubich was awarded the UNESCO Prize for education to peace, in Paris motivated by the fact that, “in an age when ethnic and religious differences too often lead to violent conflict, the spread of the Focolare Movement has also contributed to a constructive dialogue between persons, generations, social classes and peoples."

In 1997-98 Chiara Lubich became the first Christian, the first lay person, and the first woman to be invited to communicate her spiritual experience to a group of 800 Buddhist monks and nuns in Thailand (January 1997), to 3,000 Black Muslims in the Mosque of Harlem in New York (May 1997), and to the Jewish community in Buenos Aires (April 1998). New prospects for dialogue are opened. She received honorary degrees in various disciplines: from theology to philosophy, from economics to human and religious sciences, from social science to social communications. These were conferred not only by Catholic universities, but also by lay universities, in Poland, the Philippines, Taiwan, the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

All of these represented "providential circumstances" which brought about new developments on a cultural level, in a epoch noted for the collapse of values. In May 1997 she visited the United Nations, where she made a speech regarding the unity of peoples in the "Glass Palace".

In September 1998 in Strasbourg she was presented with the Prize for Human Rights '98 by the Council of Europe, for her work "in defence of individual and social rights".