Luigi Giussani
was
born in 1922 in Desio, a small town near Milan. His mother, Angela,
gave him his earliest daily introduction to the faith. His father,
Beniamino, a member of an artistically talented family, a carver
and restorer of wood, spurred the young Luigi always to ask why,
to seek the reason for things. Fr Giussani has often recalled episodes
from his family life, signs of an atmosphere of great respect for
persons and of an active education to keep alive the true dimensions
of the heart and reason. An example is an episode when, still a
young child, he and his mother were walking in the pale light of
dawn to morning Mass, and his mother suddenly exclaimed softly at
the sight of the last star fading in the growing morning light,
“How beautiful the world is, and how great is God!”
Or the great love of his father, a Socialist anarchist, for music,
a passion that led him not only to try to lessen the impact of difficult
moments in the family by singing famous arias, but also to prefer
to the few comforts affordable in a modest economic situation the
habit of inviting musicians home with him on Sunday afternoon so
as to hear music played live.
At a very young age Luigi Giussani entered the diocesan seminary
of Milan, continuing his studies and finally completing them at
the theological school of Venegono under the guidance of masters
like Gaetano Corti, Giovanni Colombo, Carlo Colombo, and Carlo
Figini. Besides the cultural training it offered, and his relationships
of true esteem and great humanity with some of his masters, Venegono
represented for Fr Giussani a very important environment for the
experience of the companionship of some “colleagues,”
like Enrico Manfredini—the future archbishop of Bologna—in
the common discovery of the value of vocation, a value that is
enacted in the world and for the world.
These were years of intense study and great discoveries, such
as reading Leopardi, Fr Giussani recounts, as an accompaniment
to meditation after the Eucharist. The conviction grew in him
in those years that the zenith of all human genius (however expressed)
is the prophecy, even if unaware, of the coming of Christ. Thus
he happened to read Leopardi’s hymn Alla sua donna [To his
Woman] as a sort of introduction to the prologue to the Gospel
of St John, and to recognize in Beethoven and Donizetti vivid
expressions of the eternal religious sense of man.
From that moment, reference to the fact that truth is recognized
by the beauty in which it manifests itself would always be part
of the Movement’s educational method. One can see in the
history of CL a privileged place given to aesthetics, in the most
profound, Thomist sense of the term, compared to an insistence
on an ethical referent. From the time of his years in the seminary
and as a theology student, Fr Giussani learned that both the aesthetic
and ethical sense arise from a correct and impassioned clarity
concerning ontology, and that a lively aesthetic sense is the
first sign of this, as evidenced by the healthiest Catholic as
well as the Orthodox tradition.
Observance of discipline and order in seminary life became united
with the strength of a temperament that, in his dialogue with
his superiors and the initiatives of his companions, stood out
for its vivacity and keenness. For example, Giussani promoted
together with some fellow students an internal newsletter, called
Studium Christi, with the intention of making of it a kind of
organ for a study group dedicated to discovering the centrality
of Christ in every subject they studied.
After ordination, Fr Giussani devoted himself to teaching at the
seminary in Venegono. In those years he specialized in the study
of Eastern theology (especially the Slavophiles), American Protestant
theology, and a deeper understanding of the rational reasons for
adherence to faith and the Church.
In the middle of the 1950s, he left seminary teaching for high
schools. For ten years, from 1954 to 1964, he taught at the Berchet
classical high school in Milan. In those same years he began a
work of study and writing articles for journals aimed at drawing
attention both inside and outside the Church to the problem of
education. Among other activities, he wrote the entry on “Education”
for the Enciclopedia cattolica.
These were the years of the birth and dissemination of GS (Gioventù
Studentesca, Student Youth). From 1964 to 1990 he occupied the
chair of Introductory Theology at the Università Cattolica
del Sacro Cuore in Milan. On more than one occasion he was sent
by his superiors to the United States for periods of study. In
particular, in 1966 he spent some months in the States to pursue
his study of American Protestant theology, resulting in the publication
of an academic study, one of the few publications on the subject,
entitled Grandi linee della teologia protestante americana. Profilo
storico dalle origini agli anni ’50 [An Outline of American
Protestant Theology. An Historic Profile from the Origins to the
‘50s].
In 1983 he was named Monsignor by Pope John Paul II, with the
title of Honorary Prelate to His Holiness. From 1993, he was director
of the successful series “I libri dello spirito cristiano”
(“Books of the Christian Spirit”), published by the
leading Italian publisher, Rizzoli RCS. From 1997, he directed
the series of musical recordings, “Spirto Gentil,”
issued in collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon, which has met
with significant success, as witnessed by sales figures and numerous
reviews in music magazines.
In 1995 he was awarded the International Catholic Culture Prize.
He is the author of numerous essays, translated into various languages:
English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Polish, Portuguese,
Slovak, Slovenian, Hungarian, Greek, and Albanian, which have
provided the basis for the formation of hundreds of thousands
of young people and adults.
Monsignor Giussani died on the 22nd February 2005 at the age of
82. His funeral in the Duomo Cathedral of Milan was attended by
over 40,000 people.
Ireland
