Dear friends,
Today, the Lord has called our dearest Father Aldo Trento to Himself. The news of his ascent to Heaven inevitably fills our hearts with deep sorrow, but also with the clear certainty of knowing that he is now fulfilled in the final embrace of the One whom he ardently desired and loved throughout his life: Jesus Christ.
I join in prayer and remembrance with the many people across the world who, through their friendship with him or in an indirect encounter with his radical witness of faith, were able to discover–touching with their own hands and seeing with their own eyes–what Christ can generate in the encounter with a living humanity and a beating heart, wounded by life’s contradictions and yet completely open to truth. Father Aldo was a man of deeply moving faith, who revealed through his own tumultuous life and his care for the most destitute and marginalized–the ‘discarded’ of the world–how the infinite charity of Christ, risen and present among us, saves life, no matter the circumstances. The fruits of Father Aldo’s faith, once encountered, leave an indelible mark. Those who have visited or are familiar with his work San Rafael in Asunción, Paraguay, know exactly what I mean.
Father Aldo revealed through his own tumultuous life and his care for the most marginalized how the infinite charity of Christ saves life
We are profoundly grateful to the Lord for placing Father Aldo on our path–a great and moving gift to the movement, the Church, and the world. We are also grateful to Father Giussani who, meeting Father Aldo in the late 1980s, recognized God’s plan for him. Father Aldo himself remembered Father Giussani thus: “While I felt an urge to tell him about all my problems and my doubts, he told me something extremely important: ‘God embraces you not in spite of what happens to you and in spite of your limits, but within what happens to you; he seizes you within your limits.’ Father Giussani’s view is a shocking one, if I think of the moralism many of us priests have. He welcomed me and took me with him, giving me fatherhood, judgement, and friendship” (A. Savorana, The Life of Luigi Giussani).
As we entrust him to the intercession of the Mother of God, let us treasure the beauty of our friendship with Father Aldo in our hearts. Now, in the fullness of the Lord’s Grace, he will be an even more precious companion on our journey.
With affection,
Davide Prosperi
