One year after Father Aldo’s death, and in response to his desire to remain “forever with the poor,” with the approval of our Bishop and the City Council, on December 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, his mortal remains were transferred in front of the clinic for the terminally ill that he founded and named after Don Luigi Giussani.
The figure of Father Aldo and his total dedication to the most needy in Paraguay are well known to all. Those who were closest to him and knew the radical nature of his life feel that this simple posthumous presence in the gardens of his most beloved work echoes the words of Jesus Christ: “I am going away, but the poor will always be with you” (Mt 26:11).
He allowed himself to be loved by Him and, living in this way, allowed Christ to enter the world.
Recently, I have been reflecting on how rare it is to have an experience that does not allow us to relativize the Gospel and that, precisely because of their concreteness, becomes life. Jesus’ preference for the poor requires men and women willing to respond “yes” to this call.
The love, patience, tenderness, and mercy of Christ, when incarnated, become a true display of conversion. This is the true face of His mercy: converted men and women. When the Lord allows us to see, breathe, think, and act like Him, this way of living is the projection of His presence in the world. Together with the Eucharist, the testimony that “it is possible to live this way” is what most contributes to our authentic experience of Christianity.
Thus, Jesus’ preference for the poor is made concrete in the ‘yes’ of some. Father Aldo’s “yes” to this preference spurs us to take on the coordinates of Christ in our own lives.
Without a doubt, Christ is the true protagonist of this story because, as Giussani said, “Christ is the beggar of man,” and this was the main beggar that Father Aldo embraced. He allowed himself to be loved by Him and, living in this way, he allowed Christ to enter the world. As a result of that embrace, we are now left with the greatest of responsibilities: not only to support a work, but to remain alive and allow the same vital torrent that led Father Aldo to love the poor to flow through our veins: Christ himself.
