From: LUMEN FIDEI, First Encyclical of Pope Francis

39. It is impossible to believe on our own. Faith is not simply an individual decision which takes place in the depths of the believer’s heart, nor a completely private relationship between the "I" of the believer and the divine "Thou", between an autonomous subject and God. By its very nature, faith is open to the "We" of the Church; it always takes place within her communion. We are reminded of this by the dialogical format of the creed used in the baptismal liturgy. Our belief is expressed in response to an invitation, to a word which must be heard and which is not my own; it exists as part of a dialogue and cannot be merely a profession originating in an individual.

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Generating Traces, Chapter 3: A New People in History for the Human Glory of Christ

Pages 86-89 from Chapter Three, Generating Traces in the History of the World, New Traces of the Christian Experience, by Fr. Luigi Giussani.

1  A NEW PROTAGONIST IN HISTORY

The companionship of those whom Christ has assimilated to Himself in the church, His Body, lives and reveals itself as a new people, the People of God. First, let us see what the characteristics of a people are, and then how this particular people, the People of God, are revealed in the history of mankind.

The existence of a people requires a bond between persons created by an event that is perceived as decisive for its historical meaning, for their destiny, and for that of the world. An event gives rise to a people by pointing out a stable bond of belonging between persons who were unrelated up to that moment, just as the event of a child completes the beginning of a family. Let us take an example.

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Giussani and Testori Conversation

Father Giussani: If abstraction is to blame, then it is only the concrete that can threaten the supremacy of abstraction. The concrete is a presence that is different. A different presence expresses itself in words; in words, however, that show a glimpse of continuity. Not words that “define,” in the way this world “defines everything,” that is to say puts everything in the grave, turns everything to a dead body. They must, therefore, be words that express a lively content, namely a presence. I am not able to find another indicator of hope than the fact that these persons who are a presence get multiplied. It is an inevitable sympathy or, and now I am about to say a brutal thing, a new “unionism” between these persons, just as it is expressed in the term we often use: recognition. Beyond this, the path is poor and the human is banished. It is as if the beggars of a city would have to fight the power that commands the city.

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In Faith, Man and People

We publish here a passage from Fr. Giussani’s book, Dall’utopia alla presenza (1975-1978) [From Utopia to the Presence (1975-1978)], the first of a new series entitled “L’Equipe.” In it are collected Fr. Giussani’s lessons and discussions with the responsibles of Communion and Liberation at the universities (CLU). It was presented at the end of the Rimini Meeting, on August 26, 2006.

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