ST. JOHN CALABRIA VISITS US WITH HIS LETTER
This page is very delicate, because both the paper and the ink used can be ruined by humidity ... But he chose to go around the world to get into your hands, because the message he carries is too important!
The original recipient was a student of the House of Formation, who had written a letter to Father John Calabria, as was customary to do, and it is nice to see how this small confidence triggers a wave of enthusiasm on the part of St. John Calabria towards that poor student who responds to the name of Giuseppe Bistaffa. Those who know a little about the history of our Religious Family know that Don Giuseppe Bistaffa will become the successor of St. John Calabria as the third Housekeeper of the Opera.
But what does it say to him that is so special? That "small" exhortation so often repeated, but here enthusiastically written in his own hand by St. John Calabria twice consecutively: "Make yourself holy, be holy, dear Bistaffa".
Let's try to put our name instead of Bistaffa's? Certainly St, John Calabria would also say to you and me the same thing...
The original recipient was a student of the House of Formation, who had written a letter to Father John Calabria, as was customary to do, and it is nice to see how this small confidence triggers a wave of enthusiasm on the part of St. John Calabria towards that poor student who responds to the name of Giuseppe Bistaffa. Those who know a little about the history of our Religious Family know that Don Giuseppe Bistaffa will become the successor of St. John Calabria as the third Housekeeper of the Opera.
But what does it say to him that is so special? That "small" exhortation so often repeated, but here enthusiastically written in his own hand by St. John Calabria twice consecutively: "Make yourself holy, be holy, dear Bistaffa".
Let's try to put our name instead of Bistaffa's? Certainly St, John Calabria would also say to you and me the same thing...
ST. JOHN CALABRIA SPEAKS TO US WITH HIS LETTER
St. John Calabria liked to write! Because he was not content to reach the people around him but, with his message, he wanted to reach everyone as much as possible! Friends and benefactors, civil and ecclesiastical authorities, known people and distant people. When he had something important to share, nothing could stop him, not even not knowing the language! For example, to the English writer Clive Staples Lewis, professor of Oxford (that of "The letters of Berlicche" and "The Chronicles of Narnia", just to be clear), not knowing English he wrote in Latin, and so they were able to communicate ...
For St. John Calabria sharing intuitions and desires for the Kingdom of God was the way to involve the other in his dreams, and at the same time almost "detach" himself from his intuition, entrusting it to a process of external discernment from himself (the spiritual Father, for example, or the Abbot Caronti, or other eminent personalities with whom he had frequent correspondence) just to verify the goodness of his own thought
and intuition and to understand if it was according to God's will.
St. John Calabria left us so many letters, a real mine of precious fragments of his thought. Thanks to his many writings we can say today that the message that was most important to him to remind everyone was to respond to God's love always! Not missing that answer was the way to "become saints". An overwhelming invitation, that call to holiness that thus became the engine of every choice and nourished desires and made every sacrifice small. But is holiness for us a beautiful desire for past times or can it still be what moves us, propulsion and cause of our doing?
For St. John Calabria sharing intuitions and desires for the Kingdom of God was the way to involve the other in his dreams, and at the same time almost "detach" himself from his intuition, entrusting it to a process of external discernment from himself (the spiritual Father, for example, or the Abbot Caronti, or other eminent personalities with whom he had frequent correspondence) just to verify the goodness of his own thought
and intuition and to understand if it was according to God's will.
St. John Calabria left us so many letters, a real mine of precious fragments of his thought. Thanks to his many writings we can say today that the message that was most important to him to remind everyone was to respond to God's love always! Not missing that answer was the way to "become saints". An overwhelming invitation, that call to holiness that thus became the engine of every choice and nourished desires and made every sacrifice small. But is holiness for us a beautiful desire for past times or can it still be what moves us, propulsion and cause of our doing?