All Quiet on the front of the school: it's been a month since the beginning of the courses, we have now entered into a normal pattern and pretty quiet. The main topic of the course of the first "half" the General Rules (Book I, Part II) and the hierarchical constitution of the Church (Book II, second part). Single teacher "new" - for now - is that of course Latin level 2. Examinations do not talk until the end of January 2008, so life is very quiet ...
... if it were not for those E- lessons: yesterday's second round of students have elected two representatives of the students in the Faculty Council. I found out I had to shoulder a large electorate! How would a cardinal met Monday night: " NEVER would have thought ...." Oh well, if you trust ...
Meanwhile tonight the Dean has already sent an e-mail invitation and agenda of the first meeting of the Council: damn, that timing!
Uhm, sto accumulando titoli: sarà mica l’aria di Roma?
Stamattina, arrivando a Rebibbia per la Messa di Tutti i Santi, ho appreso che Giuseppe è evaso , sfruttando un permesso di sei giorni presso la sua famiglia a Torino e non presentandosi al rientro.
Uno può alzare le spalle e dire a se stesso: «Sei a Rebibbia, cosa pretendi..?». Oppure: «A cinquant’anni suonati, se quello là non ha cervello tu cosa puoi fare?».
I did not expect anything from him in return, except that complete his journey of serving the sentence (he missed a few months, after more than twelve years without ever leaving even for a day). But, equally, it was a hard blow to absorb.
Now, Lord, "Blessed are the meek ... Blessed are the merciful ... Blessed are the peacemakers .... " OK, I'm your pick and provocation. But allow me, good Jesus, that is a little bitter ..?
[the great fish of Jonah and the Samaritan] shown to have "compassion" (Luke 10:37) that neither "the sailors afraid "(Jn 1:5) or" the priest "(Lk 10:31) nor" the Levite "(Luke 10:32) are able to manifest it too much taken from the store's own life and in the case cited by Lord Jesus, not to jeopardize their ritual purity. Instead
good whale and the Good Samaritan know stop for a moment on their journey and take "care of him" (Luke 10:35). Both the whale that the Samaritan, in reality, do not change their lives since the first "after three days and three nights" (John 2:11) gets rid of the weight maybe a little 'indigestible of Jonah and the Good Samaritan, already "the next day " (Luke 10:35) resumed his way. But if neither the whale or the Samaritan hnno changed their lives, both the first and the second - on their willingness to spend some 'time - have literally saved the life of Jonah and the man who "went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers who stripped him, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead "(Luke 10:30).
An excellent way to describe what happens to Jonah and "threw him into the sea" (John 1.15) in free-fall into the "abyss, in the heart of the sea" (John 2:4). And who of us, just and only because of the human condition is not always on the way to a road that goes down, sometimes in a terrible way to feel "that undermines the life" (John 2:8)?
To the extent that we acknowledge that we go down "that road" (Luke 10:31) we can only make us neighbors, let us "others" (Luke 10:36) to "bind up the wounds" (Luke 10:33) of 'and another, just as we are doing, feel that pours out a balm on the wounds that we carry within ourselves and in our hearts. It is not that difficult "to inherit eternal life" (Luke 10:25)! Just look at "the Act" (Luke 10.26) of the life to which we subject all of them: "Take care of him" (Luke 10:35). Every time we take care, in reality, we are merely being faithful to our hearts and, inevitably, we also take care of ourselves. The Lord Jesus gave us the example and we also give the command: 'Go and also do likewise "(Luke 10:37) ... in one word: be a good and nice and not a whale shark.
The first reading of the Sunday just gone through:
A cry. One answer: Write! He records! carved and clear words that remain forever! True today and never false.
Our God is revealed, it acts with a mighty hand, speaks loudly and often biting words.
But, also, is silent.
that do not silence him. Maybe we are not able to perceive its voice, not tuned to its wavelength. And maybe sometimes it's better this way: leaving out the voice of our hearts we can better learn who we really are, without continuing to hide ourselves. He was born fear and dismay, the better. It means that even in his apparent silence God is e-ducando , there is drawing-out of our misery and poverty.
"Heavenly Father!
In many ways you speak to a man: You, the only one who have wisdom and understanding, however, make you want to understand him.
You speak even when silent, because he who speaks is silent, to prove the beloved one who speaks is silent, so that is time to understand more deeply when it comes.
Heavenly Father, is it not so?
Oh, when everything is silent, when a man is sitting alone and abandoned and no longer hear your voice, then maybe for him it is as if the separation would be eternal.
Oh, in time of silence, when a man languishes in the desert and can not hear the your voice, then it's probably for him as if it were almost completely gone.
Heavenly Father, this is clearly the moment of silence, the confidential talks.
So, is' blessed be also your silence as every word he speaks to man, that he does not forget that you are talking about even when silent. Give him
, while it is waiting for you, the consolation to know that you are silent for love, for love, so to speak, so that, whether you speak or be silent, you are always the same Father, guide us with your teach us with your voice or silence. "
Two almost identical words, but ..
Convert I raised the image of a complete change of direction, a request to "point somewhere else, give a decisive and crucial, as a move away from me false, forged by wrong choices.
Converging , however, I think a movement contrary, return to me return to the center, to the point, where my life find unity and cohesion. But if this heart to stone was just one of many idols (and deadly intangible) that have accumulated inside me? If I could not really find the truth around which unit do with my life? Or, if this center and I were just me (my pride, selfishness, main character)?
then "convert me" and "converge" become the two roads that lead me - together! - The truth: to reverse the perverse inclinations of the heart (1.22 Bar) and orient it to where the compass orientation of the heart and pushes (who hears you hears me, he who rejects you rejects me; Luke 10:16).
Nemmeno lontanamente posso pensare di descrivere quello che ho visto in pochi giorni (ed è solo una minima parte della Grande Santa Russia): consiglio spassionatamente di farsi regalare da qualche benefattore un viaggio fin là per vedere di persona!
Provo lo stesso, però, a mettere giù qualche riga..
San Pietroburgo ? Più di cinque milioni di abitanti, attraversata da un fiume (Neva) che prima di sfociare nel Golfo di Finlandia si suddivide in una miriade channels, making the city a grid of one hundred seven hundred islands connected by bridges and culverts ..
capital of the tsars of Russia, a meeting point between East and West, guardian of glorious memories of priceless treasures (just think about what's in Hermitage only) should be the window on Europe but was also the starting point of the October Revolution and the Revolution of 1917.
For a poor priest used to the distances and space planning standards of the Po Valley, the impact has been breathtaking: 
in any of the streets of St. Petersburg there would be great Casale Cremasco including all farms
breathtaking ... including the impact with the atmosphere of Russian ubiquitous smell of kerosene, the exhausts of cars and battered anzianotte, in columns in such a chaotic traffic in Rome did not have to dream either.
Note this (among the many things that I remember) a single experience.
Suburbs anonymous and almost "normal", a rather dreary, cold morning, the church of one of only two Catholic parishes throughout the city, two Italian Franciscans to be followed by other activities out of town (which for them means a hundred plenty of miles out of town!).
The church is rather plain, but seem a church : I enter the door there is a concierge, along a corridor with several doors closed, however, I imagine, in the end will come in some aisle, but instead there is a flight of stairs and above, other scales and other ports .. that the outside is a church, inside a building!
concelebrated Mass in true church, fourth floor, a loft not so great: a few feet above me cruising the central vault is decorated with a simple flat cross of light bulbs. There are the original colors and solemn than any other church in the city, but only a gray uniform temperature, with some painted blue tube that pierces through the walls and smooth. There is the scent of incense but the smell stale and a bit 'unfriendly confined areas and old. There are marble and stucco plaster but smooth and uniform as raw wood floor. But the intensity with which I have experienced that celebration without equal. I can only imagine what happened inside and outside the walls (the brothers have given us some pictures from shudder) what it cost the Catholic and Orthodox Christians to regain their sacred space, made even more sacred by the blood shed in the persecution; what it costs today ...
Too many words: I am not a sociologist and I understand that I can not delve into these issues. But there I understood - more than anywhere else - what it really body broken and blood poured .
Moscow? Almost eleven million inhabitants, sixty theaters, four libraries, one hundred museums ... the hill from the Kremlin, the heart of the city, from which a very broad avenues radiating pointing in every direction in turn connected by a ring road, almost perfect circle composed of sixteen lanes in the center, fifteen subway lines and stops ... I do not know how many so-called skyscrapers Lenin, each of which (800 apartments) can hold all the people of St. Benedict ...
Everything in Moscow is so dilated that I can not find adequate words to describe what I can remember.
The silence on the other hand is the only way to taste the holy and Orthodox Russia, and that of the golden domes of the monasteries, icons, ancient and beautiful
kept in museums or iconostasis. Describe how to wonder, admiration and bewilderment it all together? (Ah, the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin ...!)
experience is disturbing, in size and magnificence of the past regime, sometimes jarring contrasts that pass before my eyes ... not for nothing that the reason most of us was whistled for the film "Comrade Don Camillo" and the joke reflected the most commonly used words and Peppone of his faced with the "point x of the program, the next is ..".
But it is a must try!
Between the lack of mail waiting for me on the desk "Roman" I find a book dedicated to the memory of Don Luis Misson, a year after his sudden death. In 'Ouverture and I share these words of Don Tullio Citrini:
"We can not help but live projects and hopes. Without them, not enhance with love the creativity with which the Lord has endowed us with. But the ultimate meaning of our life has the face of the project but of vocation : every project is nice because it ultimately finds its truth in the dialogue for which we are challenged by God "Vocation" is the word sums up our life in obedience and peace. This was well understood Pope John, which of these two words, obedience and peace, had made the motto for his coat of arms. "
the blog again ... to close it again now: I will be away from Rome until 29 September, albeit with a short break in between. In the meantime, thanks for the visit and friendship.
you soon!
is better to do something which nn nn are convinced that it and have no regrets for life is mega
fear, no ....
: D: D: D
rebibbia you tell it to split everything
George Gray
Many times I studied the carved stone that I have: a boat with
furled sail at rest in a harbor.
It really is not, this, my destination
but my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, and I was afraid;
ambition called me, but I dreaded the chances.
Despite all the while I hungered for meaning in life.
And now I know that
must lift the sail And catch the winds of destiny Wherever they drive the boat
.
give meaning to life can lead to madness
But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire
-
is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
EL Masters, Spoon River Anthology
In other words: trust me, and explains the sails, otherwise the end will find that they are useless ..
Tormentone essential these days, in cream.
Question compelling coming from a person to whom I owe a lot at this stage of my life, not least the courage to make choices "other" compared to normal existence, and despite reservations and hesitations.
quote:
We believe and we trust completely
of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen
,
now living in his Church.
He is the Son of God made man
who has revealed the face of God and his life, fully human
told us who really is the man, the sense of
' existence,
the entire history of the peoples
and the universe.
He knows our personal story: mine and yours.
Trust yourself:
faith in Christ changes lives.
[The link to the right column. To read or download pdf]
"He listens with the whole person. You listen with your ears, picking up the words , bridges built to link the banks that separate us, and picking up the silences , who sometimes cry with them uncomfortable because they know roar of loneliness, injustice and agony of people and entire countries. "
A booklet, developed almost by chance among the" things to bring to Rome, for you never know "reopen the debate on listening, now I come back later to Rebibbia three weeks, and re-enter my ministry in this size and working everyday but so true. I have not forgotten, according to cream, faces, words and expressions of those who I met in the first three months of "jail", as I will not forget, in Rome, all those who came to meet me during the party.
"Listen, today, his voice" (Psalm 94), except that this psalm is proposed by the Liturgy as the first word to be pronounced in prayer and in daily life ... every single day . Every day becomes the day when God speaks to me every day I get invited to live in listening and listening to live with dignity.
