EUROPE/ITALY - Holiness should not be the privilege of a few but rather a mass phenomenon involving all Christians. Frascati diocese opens process for the beatification of the Servant of God Igino Giordani: writer, journalist, politician, ecumenist and patrologist.

Friday, 4 June 2004

Rome (Fides Service) - On Sunday June 6, at St Peter’s Cathedral, Frascati, with the installation of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal, the diocesan process for the beatification of Igino Giordani will open. At 7pm Bishop Giuseppe Matarrese will preside the Mass followed by a brief address by Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolari, Movement of which Giordani is considered “cofounder”.
Igino Giordani - writer journalist, politician, ecumenist and patrologist - is one of the most representative figures of the 20th century who left a deep mark and opened prophetic prospective at the cultural, political, ecclesial and social level. Born in 1894 at Tivoli, after serving as an infantry officer during World War I he became a teacher. In the 1920’s his political activity began. On 2 June 1946 he was elected Member of Parliament and became one of the “constituent fathers” who laid the foundations for the Italian Republic. The period from 1946 to 1953 was rich in audacious and prophetic initiatives for peace among classes and nations. He published more than 100 works translated into several languages not to mention essays, pamphlets, more than 4,000 articles, letters and speeches. Amidst the suffering at a military hospital at the age of 22 he heard the first call to holiness reinforced by meditation on the writings of Saint Catherine of Siena. He became a Dominican Tertiary. The sound theological and spiritual grounding, which distinguished him, produced the fruit of fecund activity to imbue culture with Christianity and to offer spiritual formation for laity, clergy and religious. A precursor of ecumenical dialogue, he anticipates in the 1930s the lines of Vatican II. He studied, translated and explained the Fathers of Christianity in times in which they were almost forgotten.
In September 1948 he met Chiara Lubich: fascinated by the radical Gospel adherence of the "spirituality of communion" she announced and lived, he saw an opportunity for achieving a dream of the Church Fathers: to fling open the doors of monasteries so that holiness would not be the privilege of a few but rather a mass phenomena of all Christians. He joins the Focolari Movement and becomes one of the closest collaborators of Chiara Lubich who considers him a "cofounder". In the melting pot of the Focolare, Giordani undertakes a higher journey of the soul on the path of mysticism where spiritual trials, misunderstandings and humiliations of progressive marginalisation, physical pain, fade in the face of the daily experience of Christ’s presence. He obtained from Heaven extraordinary experiences of union with God and with Mary. His earthly journey concluded in the evening of April 18 1980. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 4/6/2004 - Righe 29; Parole 412)


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