“What is Christianity, if not the event of a new man who by his nature becomes a new protagonist on the scene of the world?” These words, pronounced in October 1987, are a good synthesis of the way Fr. Luigi Giussani thought of the nature of Christianity.

He had a chance to reiterate this in December of that year, when he traveled to Extremadura to spend the days between Christmas and New Year’s with some Spanish friends: “The origin is the mystery of how the person of Christ was communicated to the human person, to the person.” But this event is not truly realized unless it penetrates the one to whom the communication is directed. Therefore, Giussani underlined that, “the time of personalization has come.” What kind of personalization did he intend? “Of the new event come into the world, of the factor of a new protagonism in history, which is Christ, in communion with those that the Father has given to Him.” The Christian announcement, then, can only permeate the fiber of humanity if it becomes a personal experience.

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