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by
Don Luigi Giussani
My words today are a thank you to God, in front of all of you, some of
whom I know, but the vast majority of whom I do not know yet, although
with them too I am destined to live eternity. An eternity that is in
us and among us, that day by day vanquishes the ruin into which man
would let himself fall.
I say what life has taught me. A great soul is needed, a great heart,
the heart of a child, because the Lord has said in the Gospel, not “if
you are not scholars, like many scholars, scientists, like many
scientists, clever, like many clever people…” but “if you are not like
children, you will never enter in.”
And how does the child demonstrate his presence? By crying, or
laughing, or smiling, or sympathizing.
The expression of the child is ultimately the one that says: “Mother!”
“Mother”; inside this word is everything that came forth out of
nothingness, there is everything that comes forth day by day, hour by
hour, moment by moment, out of our nothingness.
I urge myself, I have always urged myself every morning of my life to
pray to God, in other words to be a child, because being a child means
feeling this totality of grasp, this possession which an Other has of
us. An Other: the Mystery.
The expression of this Mystery in us is entreaty, it is prayer, i.e.,
the entreaty of prayer, prayer as entreaty, as begging: man begging
for Christ, just as Christ begs for man. There is this message that
our flesh, reliving its work every morning, reliving the beginning of
its daily work, has to give.
May the Lord accompany us towards understanding this. We ask Our Lady,
Our Lady who is our mother, so generous and efficient for so many
years, we ask this grace of Our Lady: to continue her pity, to
continue her forgiveness, to continue her mercy, as Dante’s prayer
says, thus making the breath of all the past centuries relive in us.
Even if we do not understand the words we say, let’s use them just the
same. We have no reason to say, for instance: “They are useless,” or
“They make no sense.” May prayer become entreaty, may it be
accomplished in its essence, which is entreaty.
May prayer become, on the edge of our horizon, the outpost, the
outpost of our humanity, of our embattled humanity, because the
condition of battle is inevitable and inexorable, indeed for the Lord
it was the cross: the cross is what defined the eternal Mystery. The
infinite Mystery produced Himself in our life; to impose Himself on
our life He died on the cross, He let Himself die on the cross. But
not one moment of his pain deprived Him of the ultimate joy that
awaited Him beyond the horizon, beyond the horizon of His human eyes:
the Father’s love.
Let us live prayer as the first outpost, the farthest outpost of the
battle in our life. May no errors of any sort, no repetition of our
errors stop us. Not stop us, because God is mercy. God is mercy, the
Eternal is merciful: we shall see all.
Our Lady, help us, you who were made the Mother of your Son! We, your
children, want to follow you and be born, be born again to the flavor
of your perfume and your face.
Help us, Our Mother, to be sure in whatever becomes evident in the day
that we have to live: pain or joy, or pain and joy.
Mother, Maiden, “Maiden yet a Mother, daughter of thy Son, high beyond
all other, lowlier is none, Thou the consummation planned by God’s
decree.”
The Mystery revealed Himself to us and reveals Himself daily as Being,
as love. Being means loving, and for the man who is still alive, still
in this earthly life, this being loved means being forgiven.
May the Lord help us, through the intercession of Mary, ever our
Mother.
Arrivederci!
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