When the vocation happened to me, the first form in which I imagined it was that of priesthood, also because I did not know anything about the Memores Domini, the lay association whose life in CL had just begun. At that time, I imagined myself as a pastor in a small church in the hills above Rimini, living life with the simple people of the countryside. The thing that most fascinated me was being able and needing to immerse myself in the normal life of people, sharing with them their joys, sufferings, pain and problems. There was an aspect of the vocation that, at the same time, attracted me and disturbed me: that I could be called, at any moment of the day or the night, to give Last Rites to someone who was dying. Baptism and marriage are part of ordinary life, but the proximity to death is a moment that is completely unique and particular. Having to enter into a home to administer the sacrament implies becoming one with the physical and spiritual situation of those who are losing a loved one, beyond the situation of the person who is about to take a decisive step for their existence. I understood that this immersion required a complete stripping of oneself, of one’s own sentiments, of everything that, a second before, one was feeling or thinking. For this reason, I spoke of fascination and disturbance: it was a task at the limit of human possibility. It always annoyed me, and even made me a little mad, that a priest, celebrating a funeral, could do it as a “job,” limiting himself to conventional words and attitudes, without a real personal participation. This also depends, probably, on what I experienced on the day of the funeral of my brother, Albert, who died at 22 in an accident. That day, my friend, Fr. Piergiorgio, was for me and my loved ones a great consolation.
This total availability to the other seems to me to be an aspect of our charism
Now, after many years of walking in the Movement and in the Memores Domini, the awareness of the meaning of the vocation and mission of a priest is much clearer to me. One can say that a minister of Christ is constantly called to the self-emptying of which above, with a radical availability to share life with the persons entrusted to her to be a sign of the presence of Another. Self-emptying that repeats in one’s own flesh the kenosis of Jesus, to the point of becoming pure and total offering of self to the will of the Father.
I see this in my friends of the Fraternity of St. Charles, with whom I have had the grace to live with for a few months, interspersed often and in the most unexpected moments with admiration for this work of mercy that surprises me and grows. More than the numerous tasks they have, I am struck by the availability to respond to the requests of persons, obviously without neglecting any of their already established duties. It seems to me a precious way of conforming oneself to Christ and to the apostle, St. Paul who made himself “everything for everyone.” And I understand that, without the rule of prayer that they try to live as much as possible, such an attitude would be impossible or would become a practice of professionals. I’ll conclude by saying that in this, as in other aspects, these friends of the St. Charles are a witness and an example of charity, of that new humanity of which the Lord made us participants. After all, this total availability to the other seems to me to be an aspect of our charism that coincided with very person of Giussani. Those who had the grace to be able to speak with him face-to-face, had the vivid sensation of being totally unique in that moment, as if you were everything for him, at least this was my experience in the time in which I was able to enjoy his human hospitality.
