The Breath of the Spirit

Sixty years ago on December 8, the first session of the Second Vatican Council closed. An event that shocked not only the Church, but the whole world, because it was a resonance of the whole gestation of new times that began with the end of the Second World War. Shortly after the close of the Council, which - let's face it - has not yet finished being digested in the Church, the revolution of '68 broke out, followed in Italy by the tragic years of lead. The whole world came out changed.
And me too. I understood that to follow Christ one must love and live the life of the Church.

The Church, prepared by now by long years of research and tenacious resistance, has tried to read and understand each other in the light of the new culture, of the ferments that were already shaking the peoples trapped in the cold war; she needed to rethink herself. Without denying the path of the past, the pastors have long wondered how to read the evangelizing mandate of Jesus Christ in the present time.
The last major document wants to affirm what the position of Christians should be in the face of a world that presents a new face.
This document, the Constitution Gaudium et spes, begins with these words: "The joys and hopes, the sadnesses and anguishes of today's people, especially the poor and all those who suffer, are also the joys and hopes, the sadness and anguish of Christ's disciples, and there is nothing genuinely human that does not find an echo in their hearts".

It is certainly a message of hope: the two initial words give it its colour. But it is not a naive look, as if the shepherds' eyes were only dazzled by the economic, demographic and scientific boom of those years. The Church is attentive, she empathizes and rejoices, but she stands by the sadness and anguish of men and notes that she has marked a particular turning point in pastoral care and also in theology, especially of the poor and the suffering.
Everything that is genuinely human interests the Church, it is part of the Church and she bears its weight before God and undertakes to work so that the progress of humanity is ever more true, more human, more according to the will of the Creator.

There has been talk of the Church of the poor and, perhaps, a not entirely correct accent has been given to this sentence: the Church belongs to the poor for various reasons and first of all because one belongs to the Church to the extent that one recognizes one's own poverty and we open ourselves to the Savior. But also because Mother Church's task is to be particularly attentive to her most suffering, most abandoned, most discarded children. This is nothing new: all the Fathers of the Church, following the Scriptures, spoke of it and Saint Benedict in his Rule says that the poor must be welcomed with particular attention, while John Climacus says that monasteries are the hospitals of souls: poverty , therefore, both economic and social, and psychological, physical and spiritual.
If, therefore, there has been an optimistic look at history, it has not been a deluded look, but a positive one because the presence of the Savior and the work of the Spirit are recognized and the whole Church is asked to cooperate in both earthly and destiny redemption eternal of men.

My generation has been violently marked by this breath of the Spirit: a faith lived out of habit has been swept away and the churches have emptied themselves, but those who had the desire for Jesus in their hearts have been strengthened and a way of being Christian has arisen much more alive and courageous. Many new things were born, some short-lived, others more lasting, but everything contributed to trying to live with a more lively and witnessed faith. My life, my way of thinking and believing have taken a much more beautiful path.

Cesare Falletti
NP January 2023