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The Destiny of the Genealogy

  • MONSIGNOR LUIGI GIUSSANI

Within the following flight of fancy is the story of what happened in history and is still happening now.


Christ Let us picture the world as an immense plain where numerous groups of human beings, under the direction of engineers and architects, are busy working on disparate projects to build bridges with thousands of arches serving as links between earth and heaven, between the ephemeral place of their existence and the "star" of destiny.  With its infinite number of building sites, the plain is a hive of activity.

At a certain point a man arrives on the scene, and his gaze embraces the whole frenzied workplace.  Suddenly he shouts: "Stop!"  Those closest to him cease working, and then gradually the others follow until they are all watching him.  And he tells them: "You are great and noble.  You are making a sublime effort, but it is an unhappy one because you will never manage to build a road linking your world with the ultimate mystery.  Abandon your projects, lay down your tools.  Destiny has taken pity on you.  Follow me and I will build the bridge, for I am destiny."

Now let us try to imagine the reaction of all of those people to such a declaration.  First the architects, then the work foremen, then the best of the artisans would find themselves telling their laborers instinctively: "Don't stop working.  Keep going.  Can't you see this man is crazy?"  And they would echo: "Of course, he must be crazy."  Resuming their work on their bosses' orders, others might say: "You can see he's crazy."  There would be just a few who would not take their eyes off this man, for they have been profoundly moved.  They would not obey their bosses as the masses had done, but would approach and follow him.

Within this flight of fancy is the story of what happened in history and is still happening now.

This is Meaghen Gonzalez, Editor of CERC. I hope you appreciated this piece. We curate these articles especially for believers like you.

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Acknowledgement

Monsignor Luigi Giussani. "The Destiny of the Genealogy." excerpt from At the Origin of the Christian Claim (Montreal, PQ: McGill University Press, 1998).

This excerpt appeared in Magnificat in December 2014.

The Author

guissaniguissani1Servant of God Monsignor Luigi Giussani (1922-2005), as a result of his encounters with young people, began a method of communicating the Christian faith, starting from the fundamental needs of human experience. He founded the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation in 1954. His books include Generating Traces in the History of the World: New Traces of the Christian Experience The Risk of Education: Discovering Our Ultimate Destiny, At the Origin of the Christian Claim, Is It Possible To Live This Way? Volume 1: Faith, Is It Possible To Live This Way? Volume 2: Hope, Is It Possible To Live This Way? Volume 3: Charity, The Religious Sense, The Journey to Truth is an Experience, and Why the Church?

Copyright © 1998 McGill University Press

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