RESPONSIBLES

Memory and Presence
“My soul clings to You; Your right hand holds me fast”

Notes from Fr Giussani’s talk to the CL Responsibles Assembly on June 11 and the National Council on June 29, 2002

I thank you for all you have said today, because none of your remarks must be forgotten.

But, precisely because of this, you understand also the concern with which I urge you to take to heart the teaching of what we have said today, the teaching that must pass through our way of living and our passion to man’s situation, since every situation is a copy of others, it feels the repercussion of the position of another.

I mean that it is necessary to establish a plan, so that what has been said today can be developed–synthesized in the two words Negri used at the beginning and that then prevailed throughout the entire assembly–that is to say, in memory is the problem, the strength, the capacity for conversion; the beginning of the end lies in memory; memory is the way to understand what we say and the way to participate in what we have been called to live: memory and presence. Memory and presence.

The last part of the two books that we may have in hand, the last part of Avvenimento di libertà [Event of Freedom] and the last part of the other book, the one on man’s destiny, on man’s existence and destiny, L’uomo e il suo destino [Man and his Destiny], must be, as it were, lived and transformed in toil and prayer: in toil, in the mobilization of the relationships to which we belong; and in prayer, as the mobilization of our gaze toward the Lord.

Let us pray to Our Lady that she may help us all.

Ciao, goodbye, have a nice vacation.

A verse from one of the Psalms condenses and enables the heart to have what we desire, what we aspire to, and what we attempt to do as we adhere to circumstances day by day: “My soul clings to You; Your right hand holds me fast” (Psalm 63:9).

“My soul clings to You”, in other words, all the desires we have, all the fascination of things come together and take shape in You.

“My soul clings to You”: You are the being of things.

“Your right hand holds me fast.” Everything is against this, because everything tends to fall apart in circumstances that, no matter how important they are when they happen, are at least equally useless when they fade away in silence.

“My soul clings to You; Your right hand holds me fast.” This is the “I” in the Church, the mystery, the substance of the “I”: what the “I” is and a society that is finally true, that has within it the strength to keep itself active and victorious over everything.

It is our hope that this phrase from Sunday’s Psalm may sustain all our days and all our communications to others–to our brothers and sisters, our children, all human beings.

Good luck and keep it up! Our Lady is the victorious emergence of this real humanity.