{"id":19037,"date":"2026-08-10T09:09:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T07:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/non-ce-cosa-piu-bella\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T09:09:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T07:09:27","slug":"there-is-nothing-more-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/there-is-nothing-more-beautiful\/","title":{"rendered":"There is nothing more beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"COPERTINA<\/picture>
Young priests of the Fraternity of St. Charles during a time of formation in Varigotti, in Liguria.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

While it speaks to us mainly of Jesus, the Gospels present us with His friends as well. It is an aspect of His life that always surprises us: He too had friends; He too experienced the gratuity of given relationships; He desired them and took care of them. And this is the way that He began to become flesh in history, calling us \u201cfriends.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From that moment, friendship became our path as well as our task. In what way? I want to present three small images that can help us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is the story of two great men who lived in the 4th century, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzus. They met when they were young studying together, first in Caesarea and then in Athens, and they were united by a mutual affection. As Gregory wrote: \u201cWe aspired to the same good and every day we cultivated more fervently and intimately our common ideal. This was our grace: not who was the first, but who would allow the other to be.\u201d The search for the true good leads them to dedicate themselves completely to Christ. They wanted to do it together. And so, when Basil founded the first community of monks in the East, Gregory followed him. Then, when the call arrived for both of them to leave the monastery to serve the Church of God as bishops, it was not easy to accept but they did, and did so together, yet again. Not without struggle but certainly without hesitation. The Church celebrates them together, on the 2nd of January, consecrating their friendship in this way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Friendship became our path as well as our task.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The second image is taken from literature and it comes from A.J. Cronin in his novel, The Keys to the Kingdom. <\/em>When she reaches Fr. Francis in the mission of the Vicariate in China, Sr. Mary Victoria finds herself struggling with her own pride. She would like to belong to Christ and to serve Him sincerely but she is not capable, obstinately resisting, and the figure of that humble priest reminds her, without her wanting it, every day. Interiorily she is battling against him because she feels, at the same time, attracted and judged by such an authentic figure. The woman is unable to control her own hardness of heart until, one beautiful day, after having seen the priest humiliated and nevertheless in peace, she feels herself crumble and finds the courage to liberate herself from the weight she was carrying. She reveals it to her friend and asks him for forgiveness. And it is the beginning of a new relationship that makes her fruitful in her mission. But only when she returns to her homeland will she finally be able to say those words that she had in her heart and had always desired to be able to say: \u201cDear\u2026dear friend.\u201d Time was needed; her temperament had never changed but a light had by now entered into the darkness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third image is that of Msgr. Pierre Claverie, a French Dominican, and Mohamed Bouchikhi, his driver, an Algerian Muslim. They were friends and died together on the 1st of August, 1996, in Oran, at the hands of Islamic terrorists. They were also victims of the Black Decade that Algeria went through during that period but, within all of that suffering, their blood, which was mingled in their death, made their friendship a promise of a greater communion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These three images unite themselves to those that you will find in this edition of Fraternity and Mission in the stories of our priests. What do they say to us? Above all that friendship is the most beautiful gift because it reveals to us that the nature of our being is communion, gratuitous and desired. It is a gift that makes our freedom possible: we can leave them space, adhere to them, and even let them change. Our heart already desires this. Because it is true: there is no greater love than he who gives his life for his friends. There is nothing more beautiful, that we desire more, in which we are more whole than having friends and being able to give our life for them. Just like Jesus did. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

True friendship reveals us to ourselves and sets us free. A meditation from the Rector of the House of Formation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"There is nothing more beautiful - Fraternity of St. Charles","description":"True friendship reveals us to ourselves and sets us free. A meditation from the Rector of the House of Formation."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[374],"tags":[362,1365,471],"writers":[119],"regions":[385],"cities":[437],"class_list":["post-19037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","tag-amicizia-en","tag-compito","tag-comunione-en","writers-ruben-roncolato","regions-italy","cities-roma-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19040,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19037\/revisions\/19040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19037"},{"taxonomy":"writers","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writers?post=19037"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=19037"},{"taxonomy":"cities","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cities?post=19037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}