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Sencillez, hija fácil de la felicidad
Simplicity, Docile Daughter of Happiness
Notes from the talk at the “professions”1 of the Memores Domini.
Milan, December 24, 2003.

by Luigi Giussani

Forgive me if I add a little of the emotion that this moment arouses in me, even though my voice cannot be trusted and my strength is failing me.
What an impressive thing it is that we are “committing,” putting into the hands of the whole universe, the whole world, all of history! This is a moment when the “I” is renewed, because it is recreated, as our dear Fr Pino reminded us a little while ago: it is the moment when the “I” is replaced, or–better–becomes one with the “You” said to Jesus, said to Christ.
The “Hymn to Our Lady” on which we have learned to meditate in recent weeks,2 the “Hymn to Our Lady” by our great poet Dante, opens for us a breach in the confusion that is possible, in the superficiality that can remain as a temptation, or as a point of view, in any case.
“ That love whose warmth allowed this flower to bloom within the everlasting peace–was love rekindled in your womb”: the flower that you are, my friend; the flower that you are, my brother; the flower that, in any case, you are, man. Your whole life is hit, run over, and dragged towards the horizon, all your humanity–this is why it is a very serious moment–all your humanity, friend, companion, and brother: what God expects from you, what the Mystery expects from your life, what the world, humanity is waiting for from you, what history is waiting for from you, all of life is engaged here, like the verses I read have reminded us.
“ In your bosom love was rekindled.” If the “I” does not become the subject of love, what destiny does it have, what destiny would it have, what nothingness would it be? “In your bosom love was rekindled [the totality of your feelings and the impetuous impulses into which you translate them]/ by whose warmth [all the warmth of your existence, everything, is inside this moment, is summoned by this moment] in the eternal peace [this moment in which you enter into the eternal peace: in your proper position in front of Christ, of Christ who embraces you, of Christ who recreates you].”
Your life is called to a responsibility, to a response, every morning, in all the changes of attitudes and forms in which you will create, in relationship with all the world, so that you may repeat in sincerity and truth also the one in which the “Hymn to Our Lady” continues: “For us above, you are the noonday torch [an ardent fire, fully kindled, at midday] of charity [at the moment when your love can no longer be love, and cannot be an expression of your “I,” of your personality, it cannot be a re-creation, unless it is charity, unless it reflects and reverberates the mystery of the relationship the Eternal has with the nothingness that you would be].”
“ For us above you are the noonday torch of charity, and there below, on earth, among the mortals, you are a living spring of hope.” Life, all of your “I,” becomes love. All of your life becomes hope–a hope, and thus a chance for purity and choice, for the recovery of every instant. Hope, because you take part in and recognize that you have been “confronted” and run over by Christ because of this, because you recognize that you are charity, that you have become charity, participation in the Mystery just as Our Lady was able to be, as Our Lady discovered, as she understood (“eternal peace”: this is why in her, everything was eternal peace).
But this renewed consciousness of your existing does not imply some strange, different ability–no, no. It engages your origin, your whole origin; it engages the Being who looked at you; He engages it in accord with the simple totality, the simple totality of your feeling, of how you felt, of how you felt at certain moments that are now destined to be the moment of forever.
Carmen sent me a poem by Juan Ramón Jiménez celebrating simplicity: “Simplicity, docile daughter of happiness [docile daughter of happiness, because happiness is already presence. “I am present”3: this happiness for which your existence, your “self,” was created corresponds to the sincerity of your saying, repeating your self]! Rise up [the poet says], simplicity, rise up from life like the sun every day rises up from the East. You find everything to be good, beautiful, and useful [to wake up every morning and find everything to be good, beautiful, and useful]. Pure simplicity [thus simplicity is the purity of life; it is the consciousness in which you feel yourself, you perceive yourself being gathered up and accompanied by the great company that has brought about in peace your bond with the world, your presence; your presence: “I am present!”]; pure simplicity, wellspring of the tender meadow of my soul [the meadow: the immediate, pure expression of nature], perfume of the secret garden of my soul [this tender meadow is full of perfume, is alive with perfume], … light of the clear day of my soul [a light on a clear day, whose possibility will be unending].”4
Mary is the name of the one who is with you perceptibly, who will be with you: “Lady, you are so high, you can so intercede, that he who would have grace but does not seek your aid, may long to fly but has no wings.” Our Lady, my lady, Our Lady is the term that indicates the one because of whom the world was made, history was made, so that your life becomes His, Christ’s.
Since happiness, as a terminal subject, is indicated in this fulfillment of your creation–“you are so high, you can so intercede”–that for which you were made, for which your soul was made (and you feel that you were made for this the more your simplicity takes everything back to the attitude of a child: “If you do not become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” you will never enter, you will never understand, you will never feel, you will no longer exist), what has been given to your life to discover as life of life, as burning, as impetuous risk, you will express in a desire, express in an expectation, and you will express it with a hunger and thirst for sweetness and fullness: everything will be given to you! And, with the help of Our Lady, in the company of Our Lady, nothing will be neglected of what you ask of God, of what you ask of the Mystery. Nothing will be left out.
“ Lady, you are so high, you can so intercede [you participate so much in Being, “eternal peace”] that he who would have grace” has to turn to her–to this Lady in whom you are recreated in your body, even in your body, even in your renewed body. Whatever you ask has to be asked for without a shadow of doubt (faith is without a shadow of doubt in a child), because what you ask for, you may ask at any moment, you must ask at any moment, every moment you will ask for it with Our Lady’s breath. You will ask: be sure, rest assured, like the child who is sure of the hand that caresses him, of the voice that calls him; like the child, in simplicity, for whom certainty is like the sun that is renewed behind you and will bring back the day, is like this incorrupt continuity of re-creation. Then it can be experienced in you; the true fountain will be your hope, the true fountain. May you become great with Mary’s pace, at Mary’s pace!
“ In you mercy.” Of you it may be said, “In her mercy,” “In him mercy,” “In your soul mercy.” “In you mercy”: compassion for the limitation of the person who is by your side, in the street, at the office, or at home. “In you mercy [pity for the limitation] in you pity [for a limitation filled with errors, just as you would have been if you had not been constantly called back], in you munificence, in you is gathered every goodness found in any creature.”
This was meant to be an expression of good wishes, and it has become something like a certainty said with a shaky voice, a youth. Enough. “I have not lost you. You are still there, at the bottom of my being. Yourself you are… You are another, more beautiful. You love, and don’t think you are loved; for every flower that blooms or fruit that reddens or baby that is born, to the God of fields and families you give heartfelt thanks,” to Jesus!5
Song6.
Let each one repeat the words that were suggested, “Certain of God’s faithfulness…”7