Letter to the Fraternity

Dear Friends,

In a few days’ time it will be the anniversary of Fr. Giussani’s death. On this occasion, it is impossible for us not to be invaded by a wave of gratitude and emotion for his person and his work. Although we miss him, we do not feel orphans, but experience him more than ever as a father. Through him, Christ goes on working amongst us, as we have seen throughout this year by means of many signs.
The anniversary of his death places us all before his heritage, which is not merely something of the past, but an event in the present, which goes on challenging our reason and our freedom.
The charism will fascinate us more and more only if it becomes an experience in our daily lives. This implies judging everything that happens with the criterion that an Other has put into us: our heart. To follow the judgment of the heart is to follow God who created us with that bundle of needs and evidences that constitute our interior face: the thirst for truth, for beauty, for justice, etc. We need much honestly and simplicity with ourselves in order to keep steadfast in what emerges clearly as a judgment of the heart. Quite the opposite of subjectivism!
It is this simplicity that enabled us to recognize Christ as uniquely exceptional and to recognize Him continually amongst the vicissitudes of life. To follow the heart means to follow the impossible correspondence we have recognized in the encounter with Christ, to obey that surprising fullness which has happened to us.
In this way we will become more and more children of Fr. Giussani who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, as he was then, said in the homily at his funeral, “Wanted not to have life for himself, but gave life, and precisely in this way found life not only for himself, but for many others… In giving his life, this life of his bore rich fruit–as we see in this moment–, he became truly father of many and, having led many people not to himself, but to Christ, he won over hearts, and he helped to make the world better, to open the doors of the world for heaven.”
Thus the reasonableness of the faith will become more and more evident to ourselves, that is to say, why it is worthwhile being Christians. “Your grace is worth more than life.”
To live in this way is our contribution in this dramatic moment to the Church, in whose womb we are continually generated, and to our fellow men.
In fraternal friendship,

Fr. Julián Carrón