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Our dignity

  • SERVANT OF GOD MONSIGNOR LUIGI GIUSSANI

When they're all together on that morning and Jesus had made breakfast for everybody — what care — and no one dared speak because they all knew it was the Lord.  


peter4He's near Simon and he says to him, very softly, without the others realizing, he says quietly, "Simon, do you love me more than these?"

This is the culmination of Christian morality: the beginning and the end of Christian morality.  He didn't tell him, "Simon, you betrayed me.  Simon, think how many mistakes you made.  Simon, how many betrayals!  Simon, just think that you can make the same mistake tomorrow and the day after. 

"Think about how fragile you are, what a coward you are in front of me."  No!  "Simon, do you love me more than these?"  He went to the depths of everything, to the bottom of everything; so this bottom of everything pulls everything along with it.  And Peter, who loved him, ended up dying like him.... 

Saint Thomas says, more or less, that man finds his dignity in the choice of what he values most in life and from which he expects the greatest satisfaction.

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

guissani Servant of God Monsignor Luigi Giussani. "Our dignity." excerpt from Is It Possible to Live This Way? (Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008): 77.

This excerpt appeared in Magnificat.

Reprinted with permission of McGill-Queen's University Press.

The Author

guissaniguissani1Monsignor 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 © 2008 McGill-Queen's University Press