The feast of the 4th of October and the year 2026, anniversary of the passing of St. Francis, lead me to reflect once more on the figure of the great son of Assisi, seeking similarities between his existence and that of Fr. Giussani. I know very well how different were the times in which Francesco and Giussani lived, just as I know that the lives of all the different saints are incommensurable; however, at the same time, there exists between the two a communication in the Spirit that brings them together.
Around both Francis and Giussani, there were gathered thousands of persons. A numerical datum that is impressive, above all if you remember that these were both followings that were not foreseen, but generated by the fascination that the life and the words of the two founders elicited in the those who had the grace to encounter them.
These formations of a people were made up of the laity, both around Francis as there was around Giussani. Before the many movements of contestation in their times, they simply wanted, based on baptismal dignity, to serve the Body of Christ for Its reconstruction in the heart of men and of society.
These two peoples, Fransiscan and Ciellino, received from the Church constitutions and rules, but will always carry within themselves the stigmata of freedom. They revere priests, bishops and the Pope. They loved the sacraments. In force of this obedience, they feel the urgency to be themselves, according to the gift that originated them, even through all of the necessary pruning operated by the Church, with an invincible desire to speak to the whole world of the grace received.
Passion for Christ, passion for men: these are the twin flames that characterized the personality of Fr. Giussani. So it was for St. Francis. “Who am I and who are You?” was the dramatic question of the saint with his face pressed to the ground. This expression succinctly encapsulates the existential journey and the teaching of Fr. Giussani. The identification with Christ -which for Francis happened mysteriously through the event of the stigmata, crowned their entire existence-was passed down to us by Giussani through the words of Scripture that he underlined many times in our midst: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Even while I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God (cfr. Gal 2:20). We are one in Christ Jesus (cfr. Gal 3:28). The new man of whom St. John speaks in his Gospel – it is necessary to be born again, to be born from on high (cfr. Jn 3:3) – is above all Christ, but also it is us, brought by the strength of the Spirit to be identified to His person and His mission.
The experience that most unites Francis and Giussani is expressed by the word fraternity.
St. Francis and Fr. Giusasni were persons inhabited by Another: aware of their human fragility, certain of having received an immeasurable grace. There was no shortage in their lives of contrasts with men of the Church and even with those belonging to the peoples they founded. Giussani lived many experiences of abandonment; Francis spoke of the perfect joy that consists in carrying with lightness the refusal of one’s own brothers.
Joy and gladness: perhaps these words ought to be more deeply probed in their occurrences in these two authors to discover how close they really are. These terms do not refer to an ephemeral happiness, of a short life, but something found at the depths of the soul that comes from the certainty of a love received. A love that is ready to spill over to other men, a mysterious love, as we found written in a few annotations of the saint of Assisi and in many interventions of Fr. Giussani, especially in the latter part of his life.
The discovery of God as mercy brought these two men to contemplate the goodness of creation and the goodness of things and of events, even of death.
In this emphasis of the good that inhabits the design of God resides certainly another closeness between Francis and Giussani: their interior serenity.
The Canticle of the Creatures, the luminous origin of Italian literature, can be found here and there not only in the words but also in the sentiments that animated Fr. Giussani. He was the great poet who celebrated life because his soul was fixed in Christ. The experience that most unites Francis and Giussani is expressed by the word fraternity.
Used by Giussani primarily in the second part of his life, it expresses the flowering of communion in a new taste of sociality, but also the profound universal root of Christianity.
Brother and friend are the most precious expressions in all of Christianity. And in them, Francis and Giussani found a profound connection with one another.
