Responsibles

We Belong

Notes from Fr Giussani’s remarks to the CL Responsibles Assembly on April 9, 2002

I only wanted to say to you that, in all the world, it is difficult to find a moment of encounter that is as charged with awareness, with the feeling of affection, as that which you have carried out today. And may it be God’s will that this state of mind be made ever clearer, become ever more the gospel through which the Lord reaches our hearts, because it is through this that we shall be able to reach also all of mankind.

I take the liberty of asking you to seize the sheet on which I hope has been written as much as possible of today’s talks, and that by seizing that sheet you will feel yourselves to be flooded, overrun by the fatherly goodness and mercy with which God follows man’s life, because just as He follows mine, just as He follows the life of each one of you, so too does He follow the life of every man in the world.

At any rate, the prevalence of the word “event” and therefore the overwhelming awareness of a Presence over everything else, marks the reason why we must follow you, must follow–I am using the word that was used–those who are in command: this Event, this Presence, compel us to follow those in command, precisely because it is those in command who are the point where the revelation of the charity that God has for man lingers to knock at our door.

I thank you for what you have done and said today, and when I pray, not just today, but always, it will not be only for me, but also for each of you.

The event into which God has “thrown us,” in which God has grabbed us, is the most human thing, the only completely, totally human thing that we can touch. We belong, as was said; we belong to this event or to this living together. We belong! This is why we follow with love, with affection, fraternally, those in command.

Thank you.