{"id":25380,"date":"2010-03-02T13:34:32","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T17:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2010\/03\/luigi-giussani-led-by-christ\/"},"modified":"2014-06-06T16:23:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-06T20:23:00","slug":"luigi-giussani-led-by-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2010\/03\/luigi-giussani-led-by-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"Luigi Giussani, led by Christ –recalls Archbishop Prendergast for Communion & Liberation-Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around the world in past 2 weeks Communion and Liberation’s Schools of Community\u00a0have been praying for the good of\u00a0Communion and Liberation<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>while remembering\u00a0the fifth\u00a0anniversary of death of Monsignor Luigi Giussani. In the Archdiocese of Ottawa last\u00a0Monday (February 22) Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, SJ celebrated\u00a0Mass for\u00a0CL-Ottawa<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and here is a portion of his homily. One of the touching points in His Grace’s homily is the phrase, “to follow Christ.” The same phrase I used for my coat of arms; see above.<\/i><\/p>\n

Five years ago today, Don\u00a0Luigi Giussani, the founder of a movement that came to be known as Communion\u00a0and Liberation was called home to God by the Lord Jesus Christ. Cardinal\u00a0Ratzinger, our present pope was sent by Pope John Paul II as his legate to the\u00a0funeral ceremony in Milan. On that occasion, he testified to the way in which\u00a0Don Giussani had\u00a0allowed himself to be led by Christ in a loving relationship\u00a0from his earliest years, just as Peter had from the moment of his first encounter with Jesus: “This love affair with Christ, this love story which is the whole\u00a0of his life, was however far from every superficial enthusiasm, from every\u00a0vague romanticism.\u00a0Really seeing Christ, he knew that to\u00a0encounter Christ means\u00a0to follow Christ<\/b>.\u00a0This encounter is a road, a journey, a journey that passes also-as we heard in the psalm-through the ‘valley of darkness.’ In the Gospel,\u00a0we heard of the last darkness of Christ’s suffering, of the apparent absence of\u00a0God, when the world’s Sun was eclipsed. He knew that to follow is to pass\u00a0through a ‘valley of darkness,’ to take the way of the cross, and to live all
\nthe same in true joy.”<\/p>\n

St. Francis Xavier expressed this in a lovely poem, “O\u00a0Deus, Ego Amo Te,” translated touchingly by his brother Jesuit, the poet Gerard\u00a0Manley Hopkins:<\/p>\n

O GOD, I love thee, I love thee-
\nNot out of hope of heaven for me
\nNor fearing not to love and be
\nIn the everlasting burning.<\/p>\n

Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me
\nDidst reach thine arms out dying,
\nFor my sake sufferedst nails, and lance,
\nMocked and marred countenance,<\/p>\n

Sorrows passing number,
\nSweat and care and cumber,
\nYea and death, and this for me,
\nAnd thou couldst see me sinning:<\/p>\n

Then I, why should not I love thee,
\nJesu, so much in love with me?
\nNot for heaven’s sake;
\nnot to be out of hell by loving thee;<\/p>\n

Not for any gains I see;
\nBut just the way that thou didst me
\nI do love and I will love thee:
\nWhat must I love thee, Lord, for then?<\/p>\n

For being my king and God. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around the world in past 2 weeks Communion and Liberation’s Schools of Community\u00a0have been praying for the good of\u00a0Communion and Liberation\u00a0while remembering\u00a0the fifth\u00a0anniversary of death of Monsignor Luigi Giussani. In the Archdiocese of Ottawa last\u00a0Monday (February 22) Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, SJ celebrated\u00a0Mass for\u00a0CL-Ottawa\u00a0and here is a portion of his homily. One of the touching points … Continue reading Luigi Giussani, led by Christ –recalls Archbishop Prendergast for Communion & Liberation-Canada<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,49],"tags":[1715,32097],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25380"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30945,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25380\/revisions\/30945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}