Pope Francis : “We Were Not Norn ‘Flawed.’ Publishers (Editore): Our Nature Is Made for Great Things” 9 Società Coop
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cover0815_Layout 1 22/09/15 15.15 Pagina 1 C O M M U N I O N A N D L I B E R A T I O N I N T E R N A T I O N A L M A G A Z I N E 5 1 0 2 8 VOL. 17 L I T T E R A E C O M M U N I O N I S THE SPARK News from the Rimini Meeting dedicated to the “thirst for infinity” that shows how an encounter can reawaken one’s humanity. CONTENTS September, 2015 Vol.17 - No. 8 PAGE ONE Communion and Liberation International Magazine - Vol. 17 THE CHOICE OF Editorial Office: Via Porpora, 127 - 20131 Milano ABRAHAM AND Tel. ++39(02)28174400 Fax ++39(02)28174401 THE CHALLENGES E-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.tracesonline.org OF THE PRESENT Editor (direttore responsabile): Notes from the dialogue between Julián Carrón, Davide Perillo Joseph H.H. Weiler and Monica Maggioni Vice-editor: Paola Bergamini at the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples. Editorial Assistant: Rimini, August 24, 2015 Anna Leonardi From New York, NY: Stephen Sanchez Editorial Just as in the Beginning 3 Graphic Design: G&C, Milano Davide Cestari, Lucia Crimi Letters Edited by Paola Bergamini 4 Photo: Archivio Meeting: cover, 6/15; Immagini tratte dalla mostra del Meeting di Rimini: “Abramo. La nascita dell’io”: 16/27; Close Up Meeting The Spark of the Unexpected by Davide Perillo 6 C. Campagner: 28/31 Pope Francis : “We Were not Norn ‘Flawed.’ Publishers (editore): Our Nature Is Made for Great Things” 9 Società Coop. Edit. Nuovo Mondo Via Porpora, 127 - 20131 Milano Syria The Fragrance of Christ Amidst the Bombs by Ibrahim Alsabagh 12 Reg. Tribunale di Milano n°. 740 - 28 ottobre 1998 Iscrizione nel Registro degli Operatori Timothy Shriver “People Look You in the Eye” by Paolo Perego 12 di Comunicazione n. 6.147 CL Life International Assembly of Responsibles “I’ve Never Seen a © Fraternità di Comunione e Liberazione for Place Like This” by Paola Bergamini 28 the texts by Luigi Giussani and Julián Carrón LUIGI GIUSSANI In American Protestant Theology, Luigi the context of spiritual life and American Giussani traces the history culture. He also displays full respect for the of the most meaningful theological religious depth from which Protestantism expressions and the cultural significance of was born and where it can reach, and American Protestantism, from its origins expresses great admiration for its most in seventeenth-century prominent thinkers and spiritual leaders, Puritanism to the 1950s. including Jonathan Edwards, Horace Bushnell, Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Giussani clarifies and assesses elements of Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich. Protestantism, such as the democratic approach to Church-State relations, “The Further testament to Giussani’s Great Awakening” Calvinism and clear-minded and comprehensive Trinitarianism, and liberalism. His rich knowledge of Christianity, American references and analytical descriptions Protestant Theology makes the reconstruct an overview of the development work of a master theologian available in 0773541977 of a religion that has great importance in English for the first time. 276 pages - format 6 x 9 inches ISBN-10: MCGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS EDITORIAL0815 22/09/15 15.16 Pagina 1 EDITORIAL JUST AS IN THE BEGINNING n image made its way around in the last month. It was of Aylan, the three-year-old Syrian child who drowned while traveling to the West and was found by a Turkish police officer on the beach in Bodrum. It’s impossible to look at that image without feeling pierced, without a cry welling up within: why? We saw it again and again, with the tale of his family’s tragic plight. The question was dissected by the press: should they publish it or not, was it right to make their life into an icon like other images that made a mark on people’s hearts, and so made their mark on history? Amidst all the discussion, often disconnected from reality, another question arose: if this doesn’t get to us, if a fact like this doesn’t make us aware of ourselves and the world around us in torment, what can? AThen, little by little, that cry, like many before it, fades. Inevitably, we move on to other things: other stories, other tragedies. Other events that fall into the category of “emergency,” a word so exhausted by use that it’s no longer in individual headlines, but rather one of the permanent subheadings written above a story to let us know the topic of the article. It is just a “category.” Still, that question of why remains intact. It’s the same question that Fr. Julián Carrón posed some days ago to a group of CL responsibles: “It’s not that reality is missing. Reality is constantly provoking us. If we remain in indifference, it’s because the ‘I’ is missing. So, what is it that reawakens it?” At the Rimini Meeting, there was a lot of talk about various crises: Syria and the Middle East, Islam and religious dialogue, Europe, the economy, education… in other words, reality wasn’t missing. Instead, the deeper, more fundamental questions were also addressed. Pope Francis, in his message, phrased it like this: “In the face of our numbness in life, how can one’s conscience be awakened again?” How do we cultivate that “healthy restlessness” that we find inside, those questions that reside in the heart of every man and woman (he listed a succession of beautiful examples), that lack that reminds us “like the chime of a clock,” that we are made for something great? That we “thirst for God?” There is no ready-made answer, and there are no formulas or procedures to repeat to guarantee success on their own. Francis reminds us of this, as well, when he says, “for the Church this opens up a fascinating journey, as was the case at the beginning of Christianity.” It’s an adventure, a road to discover when it appears that everything around us is falling apart. In Rimini we saw something happening: in the encounters onstage and off, in face-to-face meetings that inspired unlikely collaborations (Russians and Ukrainians working together on an exhibition, or imans and rabbis in dialogue with a cardinal) in faces whose unimaginable joy was inscribed on our memory (the clearest example was Fr. Ibrahim Alsabagh from Aleppo) and in a myriad of stories that would have been unthinkable in theory, but that happened and are chronicled in the pages that follow. It’s precisely because they were impossible, but happened, that we need to fully consider them, and understand the implications they offer to our intelligence, so they can become firm steps forward on that adventurous road, and not just nice stories we tell, but end there. One of the protagonists of the Meeting was Abraham, described as the beginning of God’s method. It was the historical moment in which the Mystery called man to say “You,” and going out to meet Him, reawakens humanity to its full stature, with all its questions and thirst for meaning, because “without the Mystery there is no ‘I’,” as Fr. Carrón reminded us. God changes history through a single person. In a way, it’s the same thing we saw happen again in Rimini, both in the spotlight and behind the scenes. We saw snippets of the great adventure, signs of that “fascinating road.” The one we hope to follow. No 8 2015 3 LETTERS0815 22/09/15 15.16 Pagina 4 LETTERS FATHER IBRAHIM’S LGUARDIAN ANEGEL TTER Dear Fr. Julián: I’m a philosophy student. As a volunteer at the Meeting, I was assigned to be the hostess for Fr. Irahim Alsabagh. Fr. Ibrahim is a man who lives every moment of his day with exceptional intensity, tirelessly available and at- tentive, always ready to move with a disarming simplicity; a man certain of being in the hands of Another. Even this way of describing him is not adequate. Perhaps this is enough. During the exchanges of last goodbyes with Fr. Ibrahim, Fr. Pino let him relationships, found myself totally you available? They need a hostess know that many had said, “By looking open, longing to cooperate with his for the meeting with Matteo Renzi.” at him, I understood what it meant meetings with others. I realized that I had “worked” without a break for to live with a presence within a gaze.” being with Fr. Ibrahim was changing the past three days and I was very From the moment of his arrival at my face and my way of looking at tired. It never even occurred to me the Pavillion, and even more after the other. I desired to love my friends that the Meeting was still going on the Sunday afternoon meeting, hun- more, and to serve more the place and so did my work! My answer was dreds of people wanted to meet him, where I was. The morning he was a very tired, “Yes, let me change.” to thank him for his witness, to ask leaving I got up and suddenly I felt The first think I thought was, “Fr. for a prayer or a blessing, or just with alone. He called me from the airport Ibrahim would have moved imme- a timid greeting. Moving short dis- just before he departed for Aleppo diately” and I had not the heart to tances required a lot of time because (he wanted to make sure I had rest- pull back. A week before I would he never denied moment to anyone ed!!!) and to hear his serene voice never have done it! Or, I would have looking for him.