Among the good children, i.e. the poor crackpots that Don Guanella particularly favored and loved, there was one called Chard, alluding to his clumsiness, his tousled way of speaking and walking, and his absolute lack of malice.
Who knows why this Chard always took it out on one of his equals, with reddish hair, who was logically called Carrot: they were born to be together, but they couldn't be together without arguing once in a while.
One day, while Don Guanella was receiving some people, the door opens and swoops in the direction like a wild bull Chard with the signs of a worrying alteration. Regardless of the presence of the guests, Chard stands in front of Don Guanella shouting:
"Either he goes, or I go!" Either he goes, or I go!
Naturally he was referring to his friend Carrot with whom he was angry who knows why.
Sister Chiara presents herself as a saint of yesterday, but for a sanctity of today. it is the disconcerting validity that seals the cause of beatification. We reread it.
“This humble daughter of the Church, dedicating herself to carrying out the usual actions of daily life, has achieved very high virtues. She herself can indicate to all the faithful who, like her, wander through the difficulties and struggles of life, what path to take in order to reach the goal more easily and more surely. Even more we are filled with great admiration and feel comforted, because everyone is given the opportunity to see great perfection and abundance of merits, through the fulfillment of simple everyday actions, done for the love of God. This is what we decree and want. be valid now and for the future."
And again, Blessed John Paul II declared in his homily: “The relevance of this Blessed's message lies in the fact that she carried out the simple actions of every day with love, remaining in continuous harmony with God and thus sanctifying everyday life. In her life there were no extraordinary phenomena or gestures; extraordinary, however, was her way of relating to God, leaving space for Him in her entire being. The blessed says that holiness is possible, she is accessible to all, as long as she remains faithful to God and faithful to man” (Rome, 21-04-1991).
These expressions that resonated 20 years ago on the radiant day of Sister Chiara's beatification still reach us today with proactive force and raise existential questions: what is Sister Chiara's secret?
Sister Chiara and Don Luigi Guanella... the spiritual father and the daughter: how did they experience this profound relationship?
And what about us, today, in front of Sister Chiara?
Let's try to answer the first question.
That April 20, 1887, the tolls of "death bells" chased each other on the still surface of the lake. With their cadenced lament they announced the groan of a people in mourning; but a song of hope echoed among the branches of peach trees in bloom. A small group of little girls, gathered in a corner of the orphanage courtyard with their eyes wet with tears, were wondering: "Will Sister Chiara return to us?". Don Guanella, although immersed in pain, comforted those girls by telling them that Sister Chiara would return, or rather that they would find her again in the great final celebration, when God would call everyone to play eternally with him together with his family and our friends.
But God wanted Sister Chiara, crowned with glory, to return first.
She re-entered the world scene like a queen dressed in splendor, with the luminous face of one who has seen God and immersed her gaze in his eyes.
A Nobel Prize winner in literature, the Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marques, wrote: "I would give wings to a child, but I would let him learn to fly on his own." Little Luigi Guanella was given wings in a "dream" on the day of his first communion, when he found himself tending a bunch of sheep on the Gualdera hill a couple of kilometers from his birthplace.
It was Holy Thursday. Then the day of the First Communion retained the rhythm of everyday life; it was the world of the invisible flooded with the light of divine grace. Then, unlike today, there were no known gifts for the occasion. That day the alarm clock was brought forward. We had to be in Campodolcino at dawn, in the parish, before mass. Then the journey back to Fraciscio, a frugal breakfast and, instead of school, out to pasture with the sheep.
Saint Luigi Guanella, new saint of the third millennium. I remember the words of the Pope who opened this new millennium together with young people from all over the world: "Do not be afraid to be the saints of the new millennium! With Christ, holiness - a divine plan for every baptized person - becomes achievable... Jesus walks with you, renews your heart and strengthens you with the vigor of his Spirit”. Holiness, then, is a project that, together with Christ, every baptized person can realize. We must count on Him; believe in the invincible strength of the Gospel and place faith as the foundation of hope. Even more can be said: every human project should be considered from the perspective of sanctity, if it wants to give something true to life and last even beyond life. With a little faith you can understand how God has a mysterious plan for each of us, yet to be discovered and which requires commitment, effort, even suffering and struggle. It's worth every penny, because it's salvific, it's about salvation. In Mary, the plan of beauty, authentic happiness and love, the plan of holiness that God has for each of us, is fully realized. Maria is the masterpiece we look at with certain hope.
A saint is not a star. A saint does not resemble a successful man. Christians know this. And they know that there is a big difference between success in the things of the world and success in the things of heaven. The things of heaven, moreover, are the same as those of earth but experienced, so to speak, in a hundredfold way, in a poorer way, but in an endless way, eternal as God is. This is what is written in the Gospel, as it is written in the lives of all the saints, the famous ones and the less well-known ones, those at home, in the parish, in ecclesial groups and movements.
People who have lived in the ordinariness of the world, but with the conviction that not everything ends in the world. People who have experienced and made others see the Infinite in finite things. The sky inside the earth, a hundredfold down here, which is a wealth of meaning. An incalculable wealth in the eyes of a world of earth.
At the conclusion of these reflections on the sixth commandment, we can therefore say some very simple things. First of all, that sexuality is a very powerful impulse in everyone, and that therefore it must be lived well, because this force must be well channeled: it is therefore not a question of denying or repressing it - that would only make it worse - but of integrating it into a context of fully human life, of deep and emotional relationships that are not false or illusory. In short, the sixth commandment invites us to learn to love, because, despite the fact that we are all "naturally" capable of it, this does not mean that we always succeed well. Ultimately, we must say that love, like any other human reality, needs to be redeemed: and this is, after all, the profound meaning of the sacrament of marriage, which is aimed at freeing the couple from ambiguities or distortions that can always arise in this relationship.
One hundred years ago Enrico Medi was born, one of the protagonists of the very long live TV broadcast during which he told and commented on Neil Armstrong's moon landing. Later, recalling that memorable night, Medi wrote: «4.56 am, 21 July 1969 of the Christian era. The man's foot wavers then lowers... it rests on the lunar ground... here it leaves an imprint: the man's signature. Man is on the Moon" (E. Medi, "La Luna ci Guarda", Rome, 1970, p. 79).
The physicist and popularizer Franco Gàbici - taking inspiration from A. Gliozzo's volume, “Enrico Medi, scientist and believer” - comments on these words on the Disf.com website: «That of specifying belonging to the "Christian era" of the year of that extraordinary feat was certainly not a simple temporal annotation, but the demonstration of the Christian Weltanschauung of a man of science who, faced with an epochal event, intended to remember that that important success of human technology should not make us forget the hand of the Creator. Granted, he was still the man "who took a first step", but that step was allowed by the "laws of physics that God allowed him to use".
We are therefore, finally - given the long journey already made previously - at a decisive point, which however is only the first, and will be followed by many others: God revealed himself to Abraham, drawing him out of his homeland of origin and making him begin a response to the promise, and in faith Abraham "believed", he left, he lived his adventure as patriarch of his people, known precisely as the patriarch of the promise...
Thus the biblical story reached Moses, to whom the new divine "presence" was revealed on the mountain, which confirmed itself and then invited him to new work: "I am with you!", and now you must free my people, which is also yours, from Egyptian servitude. Centuries of history told like this, in a few pages that express the awareness of a promise and a real journey experienced by men like us...
So finally, and still on the mountain, this new God, Yahweh, presents himself to Moses and speaks. He speaks, but Moses does not see his God, but listens to him... This characteristic is fundamental: the God of Israel is not a God who shows himself, who makes himself seen.
Divine Heart of Jesus,
I offer you by means
of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary, Mother
of the Church, in union
to the Eucharistic Sacrifice,
prayers and actions,
the joys and sufferings
of this day:
under repair
of sins,
for the salvation of all
men, in grace
of the Holy Spirit,
to the glory of the divine Father.
The priests,
united with the Heart
of Christ, let them be
true witnesses
of love
of God.
May the Holy Spirit do
numerous vocations arise from our communities
missionaries.
The Holy Spirit
encourages moments of meeting and sharing between associations, groups and movements.