To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another by Luigi Giussani

Abstract

Reviewed by: To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another by Luigi Giussani Andrew Ochs Giussani, Luigi. To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another. Edited by Julián Carrón. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2022. 142 pages. $19.95. Paperback. ISBN: 9780228011651. Servant of God Luigi Giussani (1922–2005) is best known as the founder of the lay movement Communion and Liberation. A priest of the Archdiocese of Milan, Msgr. Giussani spent his first years after ordination as a seminary professor, but in the 1950s requested to begin ministering in high schools. It was there that he began his work of helping young people test the hypothesis that Christianity is not just an abstract set of principles, but the answer to the deepest longings of the human heart. Out of this testing of the Christian proposal eventually grew the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, which the Pontifical Council for Laity approved as an International Association of the Faithful in 1982. To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another is a compilation of writings Fr. Giussani prepared for the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation’s annual Spiritual Exercises (the “Fraternity Exercises”) towards the end of his life from 1997 to 2004. 1997, 1998, and 1999 were the final years Giussani preached the entirety of the Fraternity Exercises. The transcripts of his talks from these years (approximately 30 pages for each year) constitute the bulk of this book. As Giussani’s health continued to fail in the following years, his contributions to the Fraternity Exercises became shorter. Some of these are included in the “Speeches and Greetings” section at the end of To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another. [End Page 96] The writings in this book were compiled and edited by Fr. Julián Carrón, who succeeded Giussani as President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation from 2005 to 2021. While the book is certainly of interest to members of the Communion and Liberation movement, it has much to offer the broader Church, especially those called to the ministries of evangelization and catechesis. Giussani’s charism for helping people encounter the “event” of Christ will both challenge and encourage those charged with preaching the Gospel in the secularized culture of the West. Giussani’s masterful command of Scripture and the Christian theological and spiritual tradition shines forth in this volume, as does his grasp of modern philosophies’ impact on contemporary culture. Readers of To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another will experience Giussani integrating all of these disciplines together in the last years of his life to help the members of the Fraternity—and indeed, the Church as a whole—once again recognize the presence of Christ in their lives as an event. In doing so, he also challenges the Church to rethink the way she preaches the Gospel and enters into dialogue with society. For example, in the 1997 Fraternity Exercises he does this through an extended reflection on ethics and ontology. Modern society, including the Church, tends to lead with the former. Giussani makes the case that we must rediscover the importance of the centrality of the latter. Another place Giussani does this is in the 1999 Fraternity Exercises, where he frames man’s existence in the context of “belonging.” Starting from the human experiences articulated in the Psalms, Giussani offers penetrating insights into the needs of the human heart and how God works in salvation history to make our belonging to Him possible, culminating of course in the person of Christ and His continuing presence in the Church. Throughout the works included in To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another, Giussani continually returns to baptism as the defining moment in a person’s life. To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another has many strengths, including Julián Carrón’s editorial comments in the preface and before each of the works in the volume. He provides valuable historical context, and gives readers a new opportunity to experience Giussani towards the end of his life and ministry. The urgency with which Giussani wrote and spoke during...