Despite very little publicity, 'Disarming Beauty' has become an editorial success. Its author presides over the movement Communion and Liberation, and approaches the profound crisis that affects our time in a new way.
JULIíN CARRí?N
President, Communion and Liberation
'We see it in relationships with friends, in relationships at home with children, in relationships with colleagues... that it is difficult to agree on even the most elementary things. This means that the nature of the crisis reaches such a deep level that it affects everyone's life.'
The merit of the book is that it approaches issues such as freedom, reason, realism and truth in an exciting way. Above all, it proposes ways out of the crisis.
The main way he proposes consists of a real encounter with Jesus Christ, who he suggests is the force of disarming beauty.
JULIíN CARRí?N
President, Communion and Liberation
'To me a religion reduced to a rite only once a week... what interest would it have? Only a little. If it has nothing to do with everything that happens in life, it would not have any interest...Fr. Giussani has communicated Christianity to us by showing that one lives much better, one responds much better to the challenges of life, to the dramas of living and to the beautiful things that happen in life when one has encountered Christ.'
Luigi Giussani was one of the most important Italian priests of the last century. In his classes in a Milan institute and later in the university, he understood that young people lost the faith because it was presented to them in the wrong way. In this quest for what he called an 'educational method' the movement Communion and Liberation was born.
JULIíN CARRí?N
President, Communion and Liberation
'If what we find in front of us is a Christianity reduced simply to a list of 'things to do,' or to a series of rites that one does not understand anymore, or simply to a set of truths that are totally foreign to every day life, then I understand that this religion has no interest. However, at the beginning this was not like this. When Jesus began to preach in front of the Palestinian men two thousand years ago, His presence was attractive. Even the people far from religion were interested in Him.'
The key is 'to present faith as disarming beauty.' Julián Carrón says that just as the mountains do not need additions to show all their beauty, faith stripped of all kinds of power will be more luminous and attractive.
It is exciting work reminding people not to lose hope in this era of change, and most especially to help spearhead the solution.
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