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FR. ALBERIONE AND THE PAULINE FAMILY
Fr. Giuliano Saredi, ssp
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Don Giacomo Alberione
ALLE PIE DISCEPOLE DEL DIVIN MAESTRO, 1963
LA FAMIGLIA PAOLINA
n.
162 - n.
163 - n.
168
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Video:
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27 Aprile 2003: La beatificazione in Piazza S. Pietro
Omelia del Santo Padre Giovanni Paolo II
Dal DVD: A. Monge, "Giacomo fa' luce!"
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Versione .wmv
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Testo: |
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Don Giacomo Alberione
Il corpo mistico della Congregazione
UT PERFECTUS SIT HOMO DEI, I, n. 281
ITA -
ESP -
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Don Giacomo Alberione
Ritratto morale del Paolino
UT PERFECTUS SIT HOMO DEI, III, n. 58
ITA -
ESP -
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Don Giacomo Alberione,
ANIMA E CORPO PER IL VANGELO, pag. 61ss
Mentalità paolina
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Don Giacomo Alberione
“Vita mutatur, non tollitur”
SAN PAOLO, Febbraio 1947 |
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FR. ALBERIONE AND THE
PAULINE FAMILY
FR. Giuliano
Saredi, ssp
The phrase of the
title is taken from a meditation given by Fr. Alberione to the Pious
Disciples of the Divine Master on Ascension Day of 1963 (23 May).
The thought of Paradise serves as introduction to the meditation
that in fact veers to the Pauline Family. The invitation is to
understand it in its totality, because “the whole Pauline Family is
not yet understood, its individual parts and the mission that it has
in the world”. From here start the brief considerations that follow.
“Union of spirit.
This is the substantial part”
Fr. Alberione
never tired of repeating to his spiritual sons and daughters that
union of spirit is the substantial part of the Pauline Family and
consists of a single spirituality: “To live the Gospel in its
globality; to live in the Divine Master inasmuch as He is Truth, Way
and Life; to live him as his disciple Saint Paul understood him”.
This is the spirit that identifies and unites everybody,
although the Pauline institutions are multiple and their activitieas
are different.
Is this spirit
alive in us today? Should we not perhaps take possession again
of Jesus, as he himself defined his person: Way, Truth and
Life (Jn 14, 6), that is, the complete Christ, not dissected;
the soul of our spiritual/community life (Christ thinks, lives and
acts in me/in us), the content of our apostolate (dogma, morals,
cult), the answer to the entirety of man (mind, will, heart)?
The question has
its own meaning, if we think that already in the seminar “At the
center is Jesus Christ Way and Truth and Life” (September 1984)
there was talk of “removal” of the idea of Way, Truth and Life and
of the “danger” of such removal for the Alberionian charism,
confirming afterwards – in the Meeting of the General Governments of
the Pauline Family that followed in April 1985 – that “the
expression Jesus Christ Way and Truth and Life should
be read in priority form with respect to the titles of
Master/Pastor”.
To one who has
some familiarity with the texts of the Founder, it is not hard to
pick their constant orientation on the matter: a single
spirituality: “the spirit of the Pauline Family consists in
devotion to Jesus Christ Way, Truth and Life”; varying
apostolates: “the various institutes have their own apostolate
and the title that is added is a title that indicates their
apostolate”.
“Members of a
mystical body, conformed to the mystical body that is the Church”
In his meditation
to the Pious Disciples, mentioned above, Fr. Alberione said that
“the Pauline Family mirrors the Church in its members, in its
activities, in its apostolate, in its mission”. On another occasion,
he adds that it is made up of several institutes, each one with its
own apostolate, because “the apostolates in the thought and
inspiration of God must be the most urgent apostolates during our
times”.
Wanting to enter a
little into the sense of these affirmations, seemingly enlightening
is the text of another meditation that the Primo Maestro gave to the
Paulines in April 1960 and that can be read in Ut perfectus sit
homo Dei (III, 58-61). Although addressed to the Society of St.
Paul members, this inspired page – in which the inspiration of Saint
Paul is palpable, – is good as bottom line and orientation for all
the Pauline institutes. From the text, that cannot be summed up in a
few words due to its conceptual density, shines out “the tireless
Apostle who, “having been made all for all”, was always,
everywhere, with all, and with all means… to renew the world in a
new light: Jesus Christ”, to whom the Pauline Family is called to
give continuity, actuality, presence; Saint Paul living in a
social body, characterized by dynamism, adaptability and
versatility for the Gospel. Men and women of the frontier, above all
in moments that are difficult for the Church, and capable of staying
in the shadows at the right moment to attend to prayer and study.
Men and women with apostolic imagination, who have no other goal
than the greatest good of all, heedless of discomforts, sufferings,
humiliations; who do not ask for themselves honors and recognitions,
believing in eternal reward.
The individual
institutions (one represents all before the Tabernacle, one spreads
the doctrine of Jesus, another approaches souls), moved by a single
spirit (to live Jesus Christ and to serve the Church), give form to
that mosaic that is the mystical body of the Pauline Family,
“a well interconnected and connected body, through nthe
collaboration of each ligament, according to the energy proper of
each member”, that from Christ “receives power to grow in a way that
builds itself up in charity” (Eph 4,16). In that manner the Pauline
Family understands and builds itself up, serves and builds the
Church with the variety of its gifts.
“The love of
Christ has gathered us in one”
Without love, all
the charisms lose their meaning and value; thanks to love, on the
other hand, all concur in building up the myatical Body of Christ.
Love, that will never end, is the vital and creating force of the
communion of saints, because God is love and is the cause of the
exchange of spiritual goods that is establised between the Church of
heaven and that of earth. Therefore, the Pauline Family in
pilgrimage here below nurtures the certainty of being supported by
the Pauline Family in heaven purified of every sinful
imperfection and rich with the power of God. “The soul continues in
the beyond its life, affection, prayer, apostolate with much greater
perfection than down here”, writes Fr. Alberione.
The same love of
Christ that has gathered us in unity does not disappear with death.
Although we live in different conditions, we remain as brothers and
sisters unified by the end: the glory of God and the peace of men.
With the passage to the “Pauline life in heaven”, the Family
recomposes in the communion of love and in the original beauty as
God wanted it. The one who is called to it turns his love,
transfigured in God, on his Family still making its journey, and on
his work in the “various mansions”, making himself with her and for
her, intercessor, apostle, and invisible presence. |