The heart is the center of man and defines the stature of the person in that it carries in itself the desire for the infinite, that is, God. This is what we all have learned and continue to learn living the life of the Church, relistening to the words of Fr. Giussani, committing ourselves where we are with the persons to whom we are given. We are not always able to communicate this. When I was on mission in Taiwan, my “elder” brothers in the house often told a story in which, speaking about the desires of the heart, one of our friends and parishioners had said, more or less: “I am very grateful to Fr. Giussani and the Movement because, since I have been with you, I have understood that my heart is small and must always be smaller, to become content with the little things of everyday life.” Obviously, my brother priests were left shocked by these words: at first glance, they seem to be the opposite of what we want to live and to communicate.
Jesus continues to attract us to Himself, to His sentiments, to His sufferings and to His joys, through the life of the Church.
There is a Psalm that strikes me every time I read it. It says: “I have run the way of thy commandments, when thou didst enlarge my heart” (Psalm 118:32). The Christian path is in fact a progressive enlargement of the heart, of reason -as Benedict XVI would say-, of our gaze on ourselves and on the world. It is not, however, an increase of the “screen,” adding information or ideas. It is rather a change of the point of observation. Christian life is continuous immersing ourselves in Christ, a raising of our point of view on reality. Have in yourselves the same sentiments that were in Christ Jesus (Phil 2:5), write St. Paul to the community in Philippi.
And how does this happen, today? Jesus continues to attract us to Himself, to His sentiments, to His sufferings and to His joys, through the life of the Church.
A few days ago, I had the occasion to participate in the recitation of the Rosary in St. Peter’s Square, together with Pope Leo XIV, to invoke the gift of peace. In that moment, even though it was a precise and circumscribed point on the earth, we embraced the whole world. I have run the way of thy commandments, when thou didst enlarge my heart: You pull me out of my small thoughts to restore me to the greatness with which You originally thought me and to which I am destined.
The month of November opens every year with the solemnity in which we celebrate the communion of all the Saints. The Church Militant helps us to lift our gaze towards the Church Triumphant, enlarging our heart and raising it all the way to Heaven. Or better, it helps us to seek Heaven or its reflection within the instant.
It is possible to find the infinite in every finite circumstance of the personal story of each one of us because they are inhabited by the Mystery.
Perhaps what that parishioner in Taipei wanted to tell us was really this: it is possible to find the infinite in every finite circumstance of the personal story of each one of us because they are inhabited by the Mystery.
Fr. Giussani then ups the dosage saying that not only is it possible, but it is necessary and this happens through the life of the Church: “We must think about the entire world; we must keep in mind Christianity in Africa and Asia and not only the disobediences and the mistakes of every day. Man resigns himself to a particular only if that particular opens itself to him as the realization of a universal. Only the great, only the total, only the synthetic pulls man from the humiliation of analysis and of the particular. If one has within himself this sense of the world, then he can stay inside of a cage for all of this life with the great serenity of a cloistered nun.”
