of Father Federico Lombardi

Dear baby seven billion! I don't know if you are a girl or a boy, if you are Indian or Chinese, born in a metropolis or in a village, or if instead you were not born in the pampas or under an igloo, or in a small remote island, or fleeing under a tent. I don't know if you are healthy or sick or disabled. I don't know if both your parents are hugging you or just your mother. I don't know if they will say that you and your peers are too many or too few. Today this doesn't matter to me.
This world you come to is a little complicated and not hospitable to everyone. We weren't that good at preparing it well for you. The leaders of the richest and most powerful peoples are around a table agonizing over how to move forward without causing further disasters, and we too are wondering about your tomorrow.
But today I want to tell you that you are unique and different from everyone else, that you are a wonderful gift, that you are a miracle, that your spirit will live forever, and therefore you are welcome. We wish you that when you smile someone will respond to your smile and when you cry someone will caress you. May you go to school and not go hungry. May someone wisely answer your questions and encourage you in your initiatives and in assuming your responsibilities. May you love others, grow, work and live with your family, with many friends, in a people and in a world that is free and at peace. May you understand that your life has full meaning beyond death.
Because you were born for this. Your Creator and Father made you for this. We will do our part to make this possible; get busy, because your future will also depend on you and it will be your turn to welcome baby eight billion.

Editorial of Vatican Radio, 5/11/2011

I went down, giving you my arm, at least a million stairs
and now that you are not there, there is emptiness on every step.
Even so, our long journey was short.

Mine still lasts, and I no longer need them
connections, reservations,
the traps, the scorns of those who believe
that reality is what you see

I've gone down millions of stairs giving you my arm, not because perhaps with four eyes you can see more.
I got off with you because I knew that about the two of us
the only true pupils, although so clouded,
they were yours.

Listen Now!

by Tarcisio Stramare

The Bible begins the story of salvation history with God the "creator". Things come into existence in response to his word, becoming the “visible” image of what he plans and wants, a process that culminates and ends in man: “And God created man in his image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1, 27). The detailed description of the formation of the "two" - the male and female man - wants to underline the "unity" in the "diversity" (Gen 2,18-24).
A "wisdom" reflection on the story of creation, taking into account the entire sacred history and theological development, leads us to discover the profound meaning of things, going back from the visible "created" to its source, that is, to the invisible "Creator", “lover of life”, as we read in the book of Wisdom:
“You, in fact, love all things that exist
and you have no disgust for any of the things you have created;
if you had hated something, you would not even have formed it.
How could something exist if you didn't want it?
Could that which was not called into existence by you be preserved? You are indulgent towards all things, because they are yours,
Lord, lover of life” (11, 24ff.).

by Concetta Desando

"You will always have the poor with you." Jesus had warned us. Today as yesterday, poverty still affects a significant portion of the world. And you don't need to go far, to Africa or India, to the so-called Third World countries: sometimes you just turn the corner and you find them in front of you, the poor. Or just lower your gaze right there, where we avoid resting our eyes because we are distracted or annoyed by the "indecent spectacle": the beggar who reaches out his hand on the sidewalk or the barefoot children who enter the subway are certainly not things for us "busy people", too busy in the daily tom tam to pay attention to certain things. Not to mention the hundreds, thousands, of refugees who flee from poor and war-torn lands seeking refuge on our coasts.

by Angelo Forti

In the Gospel, Jesus accomplished the most significant and joyful moments around food: he began in Cana of Galilee with wine, then, near the lake of Galilee, bread and fish; the dinners of mercy always have sinners at the centre, until the final moment in the Cenacle, in Jerusalem, the last one completed with his apostles, which became the model for all dinners.
Even in our culture, sitting at the table is always a moment of sharing and joy; it is for a birth, a wedding, an important achievement in the world of work, a diploma or degree in the field of study, a reunion with friends. Eating a shared meal is a fundamental element of our life.
October 23, 2011, both for the universal church, but in particular for us who try to live the spirituality of Don Guanella, this date becomes a milestone in the history of the Church. The Pope with his solemn magisterium will indicate in the person of Don Guanella a model of holiness who was able to live in his earthly days with enthusiasm and passion the same feelings of Jesus towards God the Father and in his relationship with his most fragile and wounded brothers in life.
Then it will be a day of celebration for everyone and we would like with all our strength that it becomes a banquet of brotherhood especially with the poorest in the world spread across the various continents of the earth where the Don Guanella Work is present.
On that day we would like no elderly, handicapped, orphan, street child or "homeless person" to remain alone and we would like to shout out loudly the appeal of the prophet Isaiah when he proclaims: "Thirsty come to the water [...] eat wine and milk". And to us citizens of well-being, the prophet says: “Why do you spend money on what is not bread? Listen to me and you will eat good things and enjoy succulent foods."
The Pious Union, born from an intuition of Don Guanella to be close to all extreme poverty, wants to be the spokesperson and executor of the cry of the prophet Isaiah to put the thirsty and hungry at the table on October 23rd in the hope of the solidarity of many in all Guanellian houses in mission lands organize a community lunch, illuminated by the luminous embrace of a rainbow which has its source of colors in the Philippines and its point of arrival in extreme Patagonia.
A joy continued without interruption for a long day of light and brotherhood.
A meal for a big day of celebration.
In order to be able to organize this "banquet of joy" in time to feel loved by God with a very tender love and, in the wake of Don Guanella, to be blessed and pointed out by the mother and teacher Church as authentic disciples of Christ, we open a subscription among the our associates to contribute to this "meal" on a blessed day.
The subscription can be made either with the usual postal current account..... or with a bank transfer....
We truly pray that on that day no one will be without bread and without joy, but for everyone a laid table and, above all, the joy of feeling loved.

by Graziella Fons

"My mother, give me a hundred lire, I want to go to America." This song has entered popular folklore as a cry of hope at a time marked by profound misery in many Italian regions. Both the beginning of the industrial revolution and the post-war period of 1945 were marked by great exoduses: from Friuli to Sicily a large movement of people crossed the borders of Italy in search of fortune. Some emigrants stopped in European countries, others with the "hundred lire" crossed the oceans towards the United States, Canada and South America, spreading their families like leopard skin. These brothers of ours of the "hundred lire" with a great nostalgia of the soul have also brought with their regional dialects the culture and traditions of their territories of origin.
The summer period renews the embrace between emigrants and their land of origin. it is a dip in the lake of memory, a meeting with the new born members of the family, but above all a savoring of the scents and climate of one's country of origin.

by Giosy Cento

The two passages to Fraciscio in my youth as a priest are always alive in my mind and heart. The winding roads, the beauty and song of the mountains, the smallness of the village and its hymn to simplicity, toil, to poverty, to attention for each person because there is only to share and then share what you are and what little you have. There, in front of the large hearth, where the external cold is transformed into the warmth of a family united by clean love and prayer. Here are the sources of Don Luigi Guanella, a young friend of the poor in every sense and father of the young people who generously want to follow him. From Fraciscio to St. Peter's Square, by God, the step is not impossible.

by Gabriele Cantaluppi

Without wanting to neglect the aspects of the mystery of the Church inherited from Tradition, the Second Vatican Council privileged that of the "people of God", in continuity with the best biblical view: "The universal Church presents itself as 'a people gathered in the unity of Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". Perhaps the influence of the collapse of the dictatorial hegemonies of the first half of the twentieth century is not unrelated to this turning point, which changed cultural sensitivity, also favoring the public role and popular strength. And it has become increasingly visible that the people of God find their full fulfillment around the Eucharist, the sacrament which, from Baptism and through Confirmation, completes the identity of the Christian.
Strong moments of this understanding of identity were the celebrations of the Eucharistic Congresses, both international and national: forty-eight of the former and, in Italy, twenty-five of the latter; the next one from 3 to 11 September in Ancona will be the twenty-sixth. The series opened with the one celebrated in Lille in France in 1881, while it was Naples' turn in 1891 to host the first of the Italian ones; it should be noted that during the period of Don Guanella's life there were 25 international ones and 5 national ones.