Tag: Luigi Giussani

The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth

Visitation LMonaco.jpg

The Word of God is not a literary expression, but is the indication of an event, it is always a fact: the Word of God is Christ. His word starts from the promise of an event. The figure of the Virgin is completely filled with memory, the word of her people, stretching completely toward the meaning of these events (the Angel’s announcement, Elizabeth’s greeting). This is why Elizabeth used the highest form of address: ‘Blessed is she who believed in the fulfillment of the Word of the Lord.’


Monsignor Luigi Giussani

Communion and Liberation opens cause for beatification and canonization for Luigi Giussani today

LGiussani.jpgFather Julián Carrón, the President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, the ecclesial movement founded Father Luigi Giussani (who died 7 years ago today) and which was approved by the Church 30 years this past February 11, gave the preliminary research to Angelo Cardinal Scola, Archbishop of Milan, to open the diocesan phase of investigating the eventual beatification and canonization of Father Luigi Giussani.

30th anniversary of Communion and Liberation

“On the 30th Anniversary of the Pope’s recognition of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, we ask the Lord for the gratitude for the meeting with Father Giussani’s charisma to become a renewed responsibility every day for our Destiny and that of all our human brothers, in our indomitable faithfulness to the Church in history’s joyous and tragic events. So let us say a special prayer for the Holy Father, invoking upon him the comfort of the Holy Spirit in this moment of great chaos.”

Mass intention for the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, 2012

Christ is something that is happening to me now –our engagement with Giussani’s At the Origins of the Christian Claim


Fraternity CL Logo.JPGThose who follow the lay ecclesial movement, Communion
and Liberation, and attend the weekly School of Community, know that we’ve come
to end of our work on Father Luigi Giussani book, the The Religious Sense. For the
coming year we will be working on Giussani’s At the Origin of the Christian
Claim. On January 25, 2012, at the Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Milan, Father Julián
Carrón’s made a presentation of Father Luigi Giussani’s book. 


That presentation
is noted here: Christ is something that is happening to me now.pdf


Quoting Don Giussani, 

Et incarnatus est-Father Giussani says-“is singing at its purest,
when all man’s straining melts in the original clarity, the absolute purity of
the gaze that sees and recognizes. Et incarnatus est is contemplation and
entreaty at the same time, a stream of peace and joy welling up from the
heart’s wonder at being placed before the arrival of what it has been waiting
for, the miracle of the fulfillment of its quest. […]

As we approach the 30th anniversary of papal approval of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation on February 11th, let’s call on the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Benedict, co-patrons of the Movement to guide our way to the Word Made Flesh.

Through the Church Christianity is new life

“Christianity is a new life, it’s a new way of living, which is to say of perceiving, of judging, of feeling, of reacting and of manipulating things. It is a new way of life, a new way of living, not individually but essentially as a community. So, that the Church is present in an environment means that in that environment the Christian community is present as life, that the Christians live the life of that environment in everything, honestly, in every detail, lives the interests that make up that environment, but from another point of view.”

Father Luigi Giussani, to GS students, 1964. Printed in the July/August 2005 Traces

Peter John Cameron speaks on Luigi Giussani, the priest wounded by beauty

Vita Straordinarie - Don Luigi Giussani.jpgOn October 8, 2011, a film series co-sponsored by the Siena Forum for Faith and Culture and Crossroads Cultural Center on extraordinary Christian lives concluded with the showing of the documentary conducted by Elena Guarnieri of “Vita Straordinarie: Don Luigi Giussani” (Extraordinary Lives: Fr. Luigi Giussani”) on the life and work of Monsignor Luigi Giussani, called: the priest wounded by beauty by Pope Benedict when he offered the Sacrifice of the Mass for the repose of Giussani’s soul on 25 February 2005.

Dominican Father Peter John Cameron gave his commentary the film 150 people watched at New York’s Church of Saint Catherine of Siena (E. 68th Str.). Watch it… Cameron’s insights are good to reflect upon….

Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary



Coronation of the Virgin AdiBartolo.jpg

Queen of Heaven
means Queen of Earth, Queen of the Truth of earth, of earth in its permanent
truth, because veritas Domini manet: the truth of Being endures.

The wait for
Christ’s return-and each of us is called to experience this-is the passion and
the joy, the joyous hope for that day when all the world will be truly itself,
all mankind will acknowledge Him, and Christ will truly be “everything in
everyone.” That moment is the meaning of everything that is, the meaning of the
whole of time, of all that we do, and the apex, the heart of hope, because
man’s glory depends on this; in this adherence man begins to cry out God’s
glory. Our life seeks glory because it is made for this. Glory is not something
promised for the future, but is a promise already begun and already fulfilled.
To the extent that we offer ourselves and acknowledge that the substance of
everything is Christ, this promise is accomplished for us. Paradise is not
somewhere else; it will be here. Paradise is the total truth between you and
me, in the relationship between you and me; it is the total truth in the
relationship between me and the image that comes to me through thought, between
me and things. Paradise is a feast which “fulfills every feast the heart has
desired.”

May the hand of Our Lady introduce us into the Mystery, because this
is the meaning of our days, the meaning of time that passes. May her gaze guide
us on our journey, may her example teach us, may her figure be the plan of our
purpose. Generous Mother, who generates for us the great presence of Christ, we
want to be consoled, comforted, nourished, enriched, and gladdened by that
Presence which was born again from your flesh, and for this reason we ask you
to make us participate in your freedom, your readiness to help, your life.

Luigi Giussani

The Holy Rosary

The good zeal is not just for monks but for all Christians…

Service of monks.jpg

The daily grind makes us weary of the task at hand and sometimes we’re also weary of the “nonsense” of other people. There are times in which we are just ugly. Our own fragile and sinful lives can get in the way of things. Sadly, sometimes we get hurt, and we hurt others.

I was re-reading parts of Luigi Giussani’s Religious Sense this morning and then I saw that a friend made note of the Good zeal of monks (noted below) and I wondered… Why is it that we allow “wicked zeal of bitterness” to infiltrate our spirit and our relationships? Saint Benedict perceived a lack of coherence of what human beings say they believe and the lives lead. No doubt this same question/thought ought to concern every reasonable Christian if we are serious about faith in Jesus Christ and ultimate salvation. The tough thing about the Christian way of life is making sure that our faith informs our works and that we don’t replace faith with good works thinking that what we do will absolve our poor behavior. The good zeal Benedict exhorts his monks to have is really applicable to all baptized Christians and not merely the “professional Christians.”

Do we pay enough attention to reality? Am I too alienated from my own desires when I uncritically accept the ideas of others without doing the hard of work of verifying the truth of these ideas? Have I allowed wonder to take a back seat when looking at the reality I’ve been given by God? Have I sufficiently observed and understood what is in front of me? Have I love the Infinite, that is, the Triune God, to the best of my ability and without reservation? Where is my heart right now?

The Rule of Saint Benedict is insightful with regard to human nature: laziness, mediocrity, will not lead to ultimate happiness. That we have to put aside bitterness and that which does not build a deeper communion with God and neighbor. As Holy Father Saint Benedict and Father Luigi Giussani both said but in different ways: do we love?

Here is what the Rule of Saint Benedict says,

Just as there is a wicked zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal which separates from evil and leads to God and everlasting life. This, then, is the good zeal which monks must foster with fervent love…. (72.1-3)

Assumption of Mary, Mother of God


Virgin in Glory GBellini.jpgIn the Ascension, the Lord, with His Resurrection, has
become the Master of the World. Therefore, there is One among us who will save
everything that we are, who is so powerful as to save our life, as to preserve
it entire in order to give it back to us whole by forgiving our sins. The
demonstration of this is the mystery of the Assumption, when He took Our Lady’s
humanity and did not leave her in the clutches of death even for an instant.


With
the mystery of the Assumption, the Lord says, “You see, I will not let you lose
anything of what I have given you, of what you have used, of what you have
tasted, even of what you have misused, if you are humble with me. Blessed are
the poor in spirit, that is to say: if you acknowledge that everything is
grace, that everything is mercy, because your criteria are nothing, my
criterion will be everything.” Our Lady is already at this ultimate, profound
level of Being from which all beings draw substance, life, and destiny. This is
why she was bodily lifted into heaven, where the Mystery of God dwells: so that
she would be for us, daily, the Mother of the event.


The glorification of Our
Lady’s body indicates the ideal of Christian morality, the valuing of every
moment, every instant. Therefore it is the prizing of life, of our existence,
the life of the world’s body, it is the exaltation of matter lived by the soul,
lived by the consciousness which is relationship with God. It is the prizing of
our earthly life, not because it is a lucky one due to particular
circumstances, but because through even the smallest things is borne our
relationship with the Infinite, with the mystery of God


(Luigi Giussani, The
Holy Rosary)

Christ begging for the heart of man

“‘Christ begging for the heart of man, and the heart of man begging for Christ.’ What change needs to take place for our gaze to be able to look at ourselves like this? What familiarity, what a sharing of our lives with a different gaze, until we can look with the same compassion upon our humanity, as we always felt ourselves looked upon by Father Giussani.”
(Father Carrón, “Man is exclusive relationship with God,” 2007)