Conclusions

HIS MOST REV. EXCELLENCY MONSIGNOR ANTONIO CILIBERTI
Archbishop of Catanzaro-Squillace
(Rome, Auditorium Conciliazione, 24 November 2010, 5.30 p.m.)

Dear friends,
I greet you with great affection in the Lord, and tell you right now my immeasurable joy to be with you in this fifth national convention of the estimable Apostolic Movement.
My greeting is for all of you, it is for the members of this association, but on your behalf, collecting the goodness of your feelings, this greeting goes to all those who, tonight, honour us with their lovable presence, high expressions of institutions; to those who are engaged in cultural and social life, the police; and, in a particular way, to the most reverend brothers and dear priests for whom I reiterate my wholehearted willingness to raise a fervent prayer to the Lord so that on the exemplarity of Jesus they more and more make the resolution to be good shepherds of his church.
But of course, to these feelings I must dutifully combine our community gratitude to the Holy Father who, this morning, welcomed us with enthusiasm in joy and addressed us a special thought; but again our gratitude goes to His Excellency Monsignor Toso that has illuminated us with the richness of his presentation and the goodness of his useful reflections.
But again our reverent, gratitude goes to Mrs. Maria, a docile instrument in the hands of God, through whom the Lord calls many make again to intensely make that Christian experience in order to direct their own lives towards the road that leads to salvation and to a suggestive and sublime name: Jesus Christ.
In the light of Caritas in Veritate, in complete synchrony with the deep reflections of monsignor Toso, I want to reiterate a few things that I think are useful to us, and not only us, but also to the whole society whose children we are.
Today, the men of our time and in a particular way, the youth of the so-called modernity feel certain irrepressible needs and make them present, sometimes implicitly and often explicitly as well; and that constitute the indigence, that is to say the needs of the present society of which the Church, with a mother’s heart, takes consciousness in order to be able, according to the specific characteristics of her mission, to give a contribution to meet this indigence, these needs of humanity, according to an ineffable design that answers to the wisdom and heart of God the Father.
So, briefly, what aspects does today the so-called modernity, in which young people are particularly inserted, present? The synthesis of this identity could be caught in putting into effect those needs that are proper of the reason and will of a man which, naturally, all along, might not seek the truth which is the object of his reason; and the good which is the object of his will.
Through a constant, hard process of maturation, our society, in the times of its modernity, has updated many of the potentialities that are proper to reason, both for what concerns the search of the truth, and for what regards the search of the goods that are the object of the will.
For the first aspect, today, we well know that, worldwide and in the context of our local history, the maturity of the peoples looks carefully at the diversity, discovering in it a richness and doing its best, right in the name of this increasing degree of cultural maturation; to combine the diversity in being operative in the service of man; it has thus identified some tracks that are absolutely clear, at least with regard to the theoretical view; and that reside in two great principles, today acquired in the cultural maturity of peoples, namely subsidiarity and solidarity; translated in terms of extreme simplicity, these two principles mean that none of us is sufficient to himself, but we need each other. Today, there could not be a man who can lay claim on citizenship in this new society if he did not recognize his limitations and the need for help from others; if we are not sufficient for ourselves and we need each other, here is, then, we must work in the dimension of solidarity, which means all for one and one for all.
But toward what point, precisely does this combination lead to in our constant operating state within modern civilization? The point is unavoidable and it is man in his dignity and commitment the one to build the common good.
The Holy Father, in his admirable encyclical, strongly reiterates this truth. No man would have the right to propose his presence in a highly-civilized society if he did not recognize his indispensable duty in order to give full meaning to his life to work to enhance his dignity of man and to build, with others, the good of all.
In short, this could be considered the characterizing feature of a sound modernity in which our humanity has, gradually, been increasing to concretize the wealth of the potentialities that are proper to its reason, but right at this point, the man of modernity despite these achievements, feels the limits that are unsurpassable for his own identity, for he finds himself, despite all, before a thousand difficulties concerning which he does not have the power to overcome and resolve them; then, he feels an indigence, the need of an aid that he does not find in himself; today, this dimension characterizes the aspiration of our humanity, as I was saying, sometimes explicitly, and more extensively in an implied way.
With regard to the other aspect, namely the actualization of the commitment of the will of man in search of an advanced technology in order to be able to procure those consumer goods in which modern society thinks to find the constitutive object of its bliss; we have and are verifying that the men of our time are excessively affected by this unquenchable desire, by this irrepressible need.
Who among us does not go looking for these deciduous and contingent things? But in the end, after having owned and consumed them, what does the man of the so-called modernity sense? The deep dissatisfaction of his spirit that cannot be satisfied by perishable and contingent things of down here, but that feels irrepressible the need of transcending these limits, longing toward absolute values.
These two conditions, both as regards the theoretical dimension, and as regards the practical dimension, combine upwards expectations, aspirations and orientations on the part of humanity; right here is grafted, in an admirable manner, the action of the Church, not due to her credit but through an ineffable design of God; for God, the personification of the absolute simplicity of the truth, has radiated the splendour of his divine light by revealing himself; and the splendour of the divine light falls from above on the limits that are proper of our worn humanity and allows the reason of man to be able to concretize itself in fullness; well far from any coercion, well far from any obfuscation!
Man, using the potentiality that are proper to his reason, illumined by the light of revelation; can really in harmonious fullness, realize himself, and even transcend the limitations that are typical of his humanity in order to contemplate the absolute values contained in the goodness of revelation.
As for the other aspect, the desire for utmost happiness that, in an irrepressible way, answers to an indigence of the soul of man, it must find an object that, in its extreme simplicity, can combine attributes that are constitutive of the utmost bliss: the absolute, the eternal and the immutable. Absolute is what in order to be, does not need anything else or of others, but has in itself the reasons for its existence. How can be the constitutive object of genuine happiness for man, that which in order to be, would need to rely on others?
It must be something eternal, because what has an end in time, due to its own finitude, would be cause for disturbance and certainly not of genuine bliss; it must be immutable for what it has in itself, because the experience of mutability and not of stability is a perennial source of disturbance, and not certainly of bliss.
Dear friends, who is the absolute eternal and the unchanging? Only God that in his simplicity personifies the richness of these transcendent values; therefore, only God can be the subject of bliss for man. The great Augustine cried it out: Lord, you made us for yourself and our hearts will always be restless until they rest in you.
Transcendent truth, absolute goodness are the deposit that the Church, not of her own merit but for the ineffable design of God, has within herself. Then, today, the Church to this task that cannot be postponed to meet man who has an insuppressible need of these values, poses again the simplicity of her mission, the truth and goodness personified in Christ: God who became our brother, supreme truth and the supreme good.
It is not impossible to man to establish this inseparable rapport of personal relationship with Christ and, then, catch in him the gratification of the indigence of his reason and the fulfillment of the desires of infinite that are insuppressibly present in the reality of his spirit.
Establishing with Christ, the Incarnate Word, a personal community relation, establishing with Christ a genuine and common union relationship means concretizing, fully, the personal dignity as a man and as a Christian in the core of the Church.
The Apostolic Movement, solicited by the Spirit of God, has right this task: first of all, that of reminding to those men who have forgotten their wealth, these values that have always been present in the church and that the church, with the heart of a mother, radiates through the effective witness of her mission; then, the of proclaiming Christ as the only true good for all of humanity, and in a particular way, for young people.
Dearest, this announcement must not only be done with the power of words, but even more with the witness of life, for we know well that testimony is the strength not only able to talk to man’s intelligence, but more yet to move the heart toward that indispensable adherence to the truth which this way becomes life.
It is your task, the task of the Apostolic Movement: be really witnesses in order to be able to reproduce the amiable face of the Church and, more importantly, the lovable face of Christ present in the Church, proposing it with your testimony as a comprehensive answer to all the problems of’ man and even more so as the only Saviour of the world, yesterday, today and forever.
In the spirit of these truths I wish you, indeed, that every day you can grow and mature in your faith strong in which to strongly draw the task of your mission in the world. Best wishes!