LETTERS Some of the very numerous testimonies sent to the editorial office on the occasion of Fr. Giussani’s deathIn the Grotto of the Annunciation While we were pilgrims in the Holy Land, we received the news of Fr. Giussani’s being called to the Lord as we were beginning to celebrate Mass in the Grotto of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Fr. Giussani taught us to love the instant in which the “yes” of Mary made it possible for the Mystery to take on flesh, becoming our companion and friend. Now the definitive “yes” of Fr. Giussani guides us in offering our life, that it may be entirely Christ’s. In this place, we have entrusted him and the entire Movement to the Father’s embrace. Fr. Mario Garavaglia and 40 pilgrims The Only Road Dearest friend Carrón: The death of our father, Giussani, who continues to generate life, reanimate human hearts, open eyes, change people, and unite the people of God on earth, is the glory of Christ; it is the miracle of the infinite Presence; it is precisely the only road for each of us; it is the step toward the realization of the “I” and of total unity with the eternal Father; it is the preference of Christ to embrace His beloved, and a preference for us is the only way to live always. He was given to love us, and he was taken to save us. Dima, Astana (Kazakstan) In the Delivery Room Dear Fr. Giuss: The day you reached the Father, it was my shift in the delivery room. I witnessed the delivery of a child who died only a few minutes later, whose parents did not want to name him. I baptized him and called him Luigi, so that he might keep you company in the host of the saints. Then, leaving the Mangiagalli Hospital, I passed in front of the steps of the Berchet High School to say a Glory Be and thank God for all you have been for us. Andrea, Milan Dignity and Clarity Hi, Fr. Giuss: I’ve never had the pleasure of hugging you or shaking your hand, but you have embraced all of me and my life. Until I was 16, I lived waiting for something that would give meaning to the emptiness I felt. You gave a face to this waiting of mine, dignity and clarity to my questions, and solid ground under my feet. Now I am a wife and mother of two children. I ask the Lord and Our Lady that I may follow you, so that my life may become a prolongation of yours in the little piece of world that surrounds me. Silvia, Milan All the Faces Encountered In facing the death of a father like you, Fr. Giuss, I see flashing before my eyes the images of the all people, the men, the women, the children… all the faces I’ve met since I ran into your charism 6 years ago. That moment was the moment when my life became more conscious. The faces in England, in the pub where I worked, in Brazil where I traveled and lived, at work, those of my family, in the morning subway, and while cycling in traffic… It’s impossible to detach your face from that of the human beings encountered–you who gave your life for Being, for Mystery. Now I ask you and Him to be like you. Cristina, Milan New Form Dear Fr. Giuss: Thank you for welcoming into your life the Presence of Jesus Christ and making Him real in my existence, in my way of looking, thinking, and being, even if I’m not capable of loving Him as much as He deserves. But you instilled in me the desire for Him, opening my heart and mind wide open. Thank you, Giuss. Our friendship, your paternity, are not interrupted. They will just have a different form. What a waste my life would have been without the beauty of the encounter with the Movement. What celebrations they must be having for you today in Paradise! How many friends met again and, above all, your eyes within the gaze of the One for whom you gave your life. Entreat Our Lady to help me raise my family well, love my wife, my friends, my parents, and the entire world. I hope to become a warrior of the ideal, a true man, as you were. Mauro, Turin In a “Meeting” with Jesus Dear Fr. Giuss: You’ve begun your walk toward the Mystery, the good Mystery that you always pointed us to as the solid rock of our life. I was tempted to be sad, but my 7-year-old daughter, Matilde, wouldn’t let me. She looked at me, and with a big smile reminded me of what she had told me a few days before, when I had asked her to pray with me for your healing. “Mamma, don’t worry. He’s going to have a meeting right away with Jesus.” Matilde doesn’t know what the Movement is; she only sees that her mother and father have lots of friends with whom they simply share their lives, with whom they pray together, with whom they have School of Community. And yet in a fraction of a second she testified to me about it with a clarity and purity of heart from which I can only learn, notwithstanding my 25 years of belonging to this great history. Laura, Milan In a Conference Dear friends: Today more than ever, I feel your presence, and I thank God that one day, in a conference room in Madrid, I met an old man. It was my first time at a Movement conference and, before it even began, I wished that it were over. But when I heard for the first time the word “Christ” from his mouth, forcefully–he clenched the armrests of his chair as if he would wrench them off–and when I saw how that “poor person” was transformed as he spoke of Christ, then our roles were inverted, and he was the young man of striking strength and enthusiasm, and I was a poor creature. In that moment, I realized that that was the truth; my friend was right, and that man and what he said were worthwhile, and I wanted to feel that same enthusiasm in speaking of Christ. Today, over fifteen years later, I feel like I’ve lost a father, but gained a saint who will accompany us all in following the Person who transformed him that evening, Christ. Pablo, Bilbao The Fervor of Life Dearest Fr. Carrón: Amazement for the great and unique gift of Fr. Giussani’s charism glows even more intensely in me with the circumstance of his death, and what he said to you after the Saturday afternoon lesson of the Fraternity Exercises is realized: “The problem is not a victory as a relief inside a death, but the meaning of death inside the fervor of a life.” Since his 1971 visit to Kitgum in North Uganda, Fr. Giussani’s face and words have been profoundly impressed in my mind and heart, and the desire to bring the gift of his charism to all Africa, ignited from the very beginning, has become ever-more burning. My life has become a prayer and a work to be able to comprehend and live more intensely what I encountered, what happened to me. Now, in the circumstance of dearest Fr. Giussani’s death, his face, his words, and his charism take on a new and mysterious emphasis. In these days, all our communities have followed with great attention the indications that you have sent us on behalf of the presidency and, on the very day of the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, we had Mass in Mbuya parish presided over by the Apostolic Nuncio, as well as in many other places in Uganda and Rwanda. Today, we will celebrate in the Church of Christ the King, in the city center, at the same time that you will celebrate in the Milan Cathedral. Fr. Giussani’s death does not leave us orphans. I have the full sensation and conviction that he is present, and in a new way, with a deeper and more personal consciousness of each of us, particularly of those he has called to share the responsibility for the charism. For this reason, I began right away, while we prayed for him, to invite Fr. Giussani to pray that his charism may be vibrant in each of us. The mission God entrusts to a great (or even little) saint does not end with his death, but continues with a mysterious presence that sustains those the Lord gives him. Fr. Giussani’s task, which he declared many times was for the entire Church and for the whole world, continues to the end of the world, and continues to guide the companionship with the judgment, so sharp and precise, that you illustrated so well in the Fraternity Exercises. It will guide through you, sustained by our great companionship, with ever-greater intelligence. I pray for you intensely, and I entrust you to Our Lady, living fountain of hope. Fr. Pietro Tiboni, Kampala Faithful Companionship This morning, when Marco told me the news about Fr. Giussani’s death, he was crying like a child. We cried together in an embrace that was the full sharing of a given experience. I thought back on our struggles, the years of marriage with each of us trying to prove to the other that he or she was right, all the fights... Our two children must surely have wondered just where this experience of the Movement was that we parents so highly extolled. Thank God everything does not pass only through us; but it is “already” everything…notwithstanding us! A lacerating, painful experience, the cause of anger and rancor–in 2000 Marco and I reached the breaking point and he left home, hosted by “great” friends–led me and Marco to the encounter with Christ, real, true, suffered, and desired through a faithful companionship of friends. I am thinking of Claudio, who never failed to bring me back to reality when I began with my high-flying, erratic monologues trying to deny what had happened, and Fr. Fabio, who I found thanks to my dear friend Barbara, who did not put herself in the position of interpreting or judging the situations, but simply gave me a note with Fr. Fabio’s phone number. I had to engage my freedom there, and thanks be to God, so it was. I came to him, fearfully, and received a fatherly, brotherly embrace that gathered in everything and put me back on the road, like a child until her next fall. And from there, once again, I began to walk again, to pray, and to desire the good for me and my family. All this passed before my eyes this morning, in that embrace, all this passed: the people, the faces that, thanks to God, through Fr. Giuss have reached me today, now, because, as my youngest daughter said this morning while we prayed the Angelus on the way to school, the most beautiful part is: “...and dwells among us.” Thank you, Fr. Giuss, because for me it is flesh, it is history, the fact that through no merit of my own, today I can look at my husband with the certainty that he is for me. Sabrina Teacher of Teachers I am a high school religion teacher. I don’t belong to your Movement, though I boast many dear friends who do. When I was a young religion teacher, I wanted to meet the man who had been able to do so much in that position; the value of becoming close to his work seemed evident to me. Then, the need to know the charism that fascinated so many young people brought me to love, in particular those books typed up from lesson notes or interview transcripts, in which I could trace the living conversation of your dear Fr. Giuss. He became a concrete reference in my teaching, and I consider him a “maestro” of religion teachers. Who knows, maybe one day he’ll become their patron saint. To you, dearest friends of the Movement, a heartfelt embrace in the painful moment of losing such an authentic and great father. At the same time, I am certain that you will live that real encounter with Christ that Fr. Giussani showed you, throughout the world, and I am sure that you are alongside me in testifying to the beauty of our faith, even more committed, even greater, because Fr. Giussani will still guide and inspire you. Paolo, Alassio From the Land of the Rising Sun Dearest friends: Though I am in far away Japan, I participated with you by Internet in the rite of the last farewell to Fr. Giussani. Thanking God that through Fr. Giussani He has involved my life in a great history, I unite with you in prayer. Shinji Metodio, Tokyo Passion for Man and for Life Even though I am an “atheist Communist,” I have to admit that Fr. Giussani’s presence in my life in these last two years has been anything but marginal, maybe not directly, but through the “disturbing” closeness to CL. So, strongly pained by the sadness I’ve seen in the faces of those I’ve happened across this morning, I declare myself to the whole “people of CL,” for what it’s worth, that I am close to you and deeply sorry, without hesitation or reserve. My anxiety derives from the “love-hate” that binds me to you, because your ideology has been a counter-attraction, an entirely respectable adversary to my thought, which has enlarged and at times dampened my “doctrine.” I have shared and drunk deeply of the true passion for man and life. Valentina, Milan Within the Church Even in death, this man has surprised us. What light! Such that in the corruption of the body–of this body, to which we said farewell at Sacred Heart, so undone, so consumed by the whole life God gave him and he accepted gram by gram, this body that we also in such a fleshly way loved–it is somehow evident to the whole world how much more this man was. How much more man is! Before such a man, even death–even though in a certain sense it is the insurmountable horizon of human life (in fact, even he died this way, with the agony of every death)–appears today diminished, contradicted, by an impetus that is not ours, nor even Fr. Giussani’s, but that God Himself placed in history, before our eyes. “O Death, where is thy sting?” It was Mañara, wasn’t it, who said, “I live on the threshold of death, yet there’s an inexplicable joy inside me.” Giussani has crossed that threshold. He has descended into the profundity of Being, which he always called by name, that is, the profundity of things themselves. And we–this is the miracle of these hours–sense it. And that inexplicable joy is inside us, precisely on this day of farewell, which takes on the colors of a celebration. It’s not true that nothing changes. From a certain point of view, everything changes. Now it’s our turn. A friend of mine said, “When Jesus understood that He had to die, He sought a way so the life and warmth He had lived with his own would not end; for this reason, He founded the Church. There is a kind of analogy with what is happening to us today.” The closeness Giussani will continue to have with each of us, now more than ever, also passes in this case through the fleshly knot that is the Church, in the form we have received–the form of this man, the form of what we are for each other. The husband for the wife, the friend for the friend… It is a beginning. Carlo, Bergamo Even in Jakarta Dear friends: I am a catholic Indonesian lady married to an Italian man and now living in Italy. My husband just called me and told me about the news that Fr. Giussani died this morning. I immediately looked for the news on Internet and spread it to all our friends, even ones in Jakarta (Indonesia) and Malaysia, and they were all shocked and sad too... Friends, I am very sad for this news, sad and shocked because I have never expected that he would leave all of us so soon. Do you know why I am so sad? Because I met my husband through CL... and this great movement was founded by him, a wonderful man he was! What a great loss! I have never met him personally, but I have read his books in English and they are a result of the great work by Fr. Giussani! I love his ideas. We really need someone like him to guide us to live in this terrible world! Italy needs someone like him. Now may his soul rest in peace. May Lord Jesus give us the strength to move on and follow and continue Fr. Giussani’s work. Shirley Hadisandjaja, Cesate, Italy Love Freely Given Dear Alberto and Silvia: I just wanted to send you a big hug. I am so sorry for this great loss. There are no words to describe this moment except to say thank you for the love the was given to Fr. Giussani and that was given by Fr. Giussani. I am with you in spirit and love and prayers. Sarah Emmons, Pensacola (FL) TO ALL THE FRIENDS OF COMMUNION AND LIBERATION Dearest friends: As you know, John Paul II has nominated me Bishop of the Church of San Marino-Montefeltro. I wish to thank all of you, from all over the world, who have wanted to share this event with phone calls, messages, and telegrams, a testimony of affection that has moved me deeply. Calling me to this new and definitive responsibility in and for the Church, the Pope has “awarded” our common faith, our affection for his presence and witness, and our common and daily attempt to announce Christ “Redeemer of man, center of the cosmos and of history” to every man and to all society. And all this, my friends, in the extraordinary event of the charism of Fr. Giussani, who I met when I was 17 years old and to whom I’ve remained faithful, though with my limits and in the difficulties of life. I have always tried to be with you and for you a witness of the love for the charism through which we have become and are becoming every day a conscious Christian people, impassioned about our freedom, and that of man. I have tried to communicate love for the Pope and his Magisterium, love of the Church, even in the real knowledge of her history. Now, for me, it is a “new beginning,” for my faith in Christ, my belonging to the Church, and my participation in her mission, as successor of the Apostles, in guiding the particular Church of San Marino-Montefeltro. Accompany me with your presence and prayers. With great affection, Fr. Luigi Negri Bishop-elect of San Marino-Montefeltro