Saturday, November 03, 2007

Mary: Faith and Faithfulness

Today I read this article, comments by Fr. Giussani from a 1989 pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Snows in Italy.

Fr. Giussani astounds me. When I read his words I often find my heart sort of throbbing, like it can sense a promised freedom. It reminds me of that song we used to sing from Malachi 4:2:
"For you who fear my name/ the sun of righteousness will rise/ with healing in his wings, healing in his wings/ and you will skip about for joy like calves let from the stall...."

It is a freedom which I know, and yet it is also so foreign. His words stir up in me the longing, though, and that longing is priceless.

Here is an example of something that strikes me, spoken in the context of a meditation on the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth:
When are you free? You’re free when you’re willing to do what God wants. Before the Infinite, only before the Infinite is man free, detached from himself. When you’re like this, you’re immediately ready to feel and meet the needs of others. What a lesson for us! These are the first characteristics of a man who lives life as a pilgrimage.

See, this just does something to me. I can read other spiritual writers and find good thoughts, important principles, and the like, but reading Giussani pokes me in the heart and tells me "this is how you are to live." I have often said that the void I most keenly felt as a Protestant, as a young follower of Christ, was the void of having no one show me "this is how you are to live." It was all doctrine, ideas, beliefs. Which are all important. But they are also all useless if you do not live! Better late than never! Perhaps, I will finally learn, experience, how Christ wishes me to live!!

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