Memorial Mass for the Servant of God Monsignor Luigi Giussani
February 21, 2022
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption
On Saturday we read the passage immediately before today’s Gospel, in which Jesus is transfigured, his glory shone through atop Mount Tabor. When we think of the Transfiguration an image that often comes to mind is the painting by Raphael. This painting shows us not only the glory of Saturday’s gospel but the chaos of today’s gospel. Coming down the mountain, Jesus meets the disciples who are confronted with a challenging case, a boy afflicted with a demon, a particularly powerful demon that has tortured him since childhood. His father asked the disciples to drive out this demon, but they were not able. In his need, in his desperation he turns to Jesus, he cries out “if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us”
Jesus responds, “If you can?” “‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.” And what is faith? Acknowledging a presence, knowing a person, namely Jesus. It is as if he says if only you knew me you would know what I can do.
The response from the father, “I believe” I see you; I see something in you, something unlike I’ve ever seen. “Help my unbelief” help me to see what I do not see, to recognize what I do not recognize. And the result? The boy is healed and, just as it was atop Mount Tabor in the transfiguration, the glory of Christ is revealed and revealed in the flesh, revealed in experience.
Today we honor the life of the Servant of God, Monsignor Luigi Giussani, a man who gave his life for the work of another, gave his life to witness to the glory of Christ in the flesh, a man who spent his life helping others to come to know this one whom he knew, the one whose presence heals, the one who fully corresponded to the needs of the human heart.
And what a gift he was and is to the Church. What a treasure this truly wise man has given to the church. Even if this wisdom is, at times, hard to understand. As I once told Fr. Tyler, “I like Giussani, but I don’t always understand what he is saying.”
What made him truly wise is that he would be the first to acknowledge that what he gave didn’t come from him, that he passed on something he first received, the wisdom that comes from above as he heard in our first reading. And that wisdom as we heard bares fruit. So too the wisdom, the spirit given gift, the charism given to Fr. Giussani has borne fruit and helped to build up the Church, the presence of Christ in history.
In this centennial year of his birth, we thank God for this good and faithful priest, for his openness to the work of the spirit, for the ways he gave to others what he first revived, for the ways he showed the relevance of faith to the needs of the human heart, and the way he helped men and women in our time to know him who has the power to save, Jesus Christ.