miniZibaldone

Maria Immaculata by Carlo Maratta Towards the end of the novel [ The Diary of the Country Priest by Georges Bernanos] (and of the priest ’ s life), the connection is made with childhood, with youthfulness. The country priest had been obsessed with his apparent failure to bring about spiritual results in his ministry. The meeting with the countess had been the first time, a meeting centered on a discussion for which he had not prepared intellectually. He had entered into it with all the innocence of his youth. Thinking back on this, he writes:  “ And I know now that youth is a gift from God, and like all his gifts, carries no regret....There was no old man in me....This awareness is sweet. For the first time in years—perhaps for the first time ever—I seem to stand before my youth and look upon it without mistrust....And my youth looks back at me, forgives me. Disheartened by the sheer clumsiness in me which always kept me back, I demanded of my youth what youth alone can't give, an...

The Root of Forgiveness In secular society, forgiveness, like hope, is doomed to fail without a foundation in Christ, the origin of the love which is the only truth that can uphold such an ideal by lorenzo albacete Recently, I was watching the movie  Gladiator  with Russell Crowe on the movie classic channel, and I was struck by how the highest ideals were pursued by the most shocking cruelty without anyone noticing the incompatibility between the two. I thought how this was the dominant culture when the first Christians arrived in Rome and the great cities of the Empire. These first Christians did not seek protection from this culture. Instead, by engaging with it at all of its levels, they humanized it, inserting into it their experience of the dignity of the person, the greatness of reason, and the possibility of mercy and forgiveness. This happened not as the result of political strategies, but as a fruit of their efforts to respond to their encounter with Christ...

“A man had two sons…” begins the parable of the Prodigal Son. As Peguy wrote, this parable speaks so powerfully to believers and unbelievers alike because it touches the human heart at the very point where the mystery behind our existence is encountered, “a unique point, a secret point, a mysterious point, ‘a’ point of correspondence” that recognizes in the parable the fulfillment of its most daring desires, a “point of sorrow, a point of desolation, a point of hope, a point of pain, a point of restlessness, a scarred point.” The message of this parable grasps us in the heart like the teeth marks of an old faithful dog that will never go away no matter how badly we treat it. No other word of God reaches farther than this parable, so that it accompanies us the farthest we can stray from goodness, staying with us no matter how far we wander, no matter how shamelessly we behave. This parable does not know what shame is. It will never leave us in peace, and for this we are secretly grat...

Simple take by two Latin Americans about politics and the importance of dialogue and identity. Different context, the same reality Dialogue with the world around us (Pope Francis)   We do well to recall the words of the Second Vatican Council: “The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well” ( Gaudium et Spes , 1). Here we find the basis for our dialogue with the contemporary world. Responding to the existential issues of people today, especially the young, listening to the language they speak, can lead to a fruitful change , which must take place with the help of the Gospel, the magisterium, and the Church’s social doctrine. The scenarios and the areopagi involved are quite varied. For example, a single city can contain various collective imaginations which create “different cities”. If we remain within the parameters of o...