To Deacon Francesco Babbi, Deacon Tommaso Badiani, Deacon Stefano Peruzzo, Deacon Simone Valentini, and Deacon Stefano Zamagni
To Dennis Bensiek, Filippo Pellini, and Gabriele Saccani

Dear friends,

On the day in which you will be forever seized by Christ our Lord and taken into His person with every fiber of your being, by the grace of priestly or diaconal ordination, I share in your joy and would like to express my gratitude and that of the entire movement, which I also extend to your Superiors, confreres, family members and friends.

In such a delicate moment for the life of the world, the Church and of our movement, your “yes” places before our eyes the mysterious and irreducible power of God’s method, which illustrates His Lordship over history in a discrete, subtle way, by identifying Himself with a particular in time and space to transform it into a witness of His Presence, which generates a new and attractive humanity.

Each of your histories has been forever marked by the encounter with the charism of Fr. Giussani and in the encounter with the life of the movement. My hope and heartfelt prayer is that, in belonging to the Fraternity of St. Charles, in the circumstances of the mission that will be entrusted to you, you may know how to live faith with simplicity and creative intelligence; in other words, with “heartfelt obedience to that form of teaching” to which Christ has “entrusted” you. For each of us, this form is the historical reality of Fr. Giussani’s charism, not merely as a spiritual point of reference that reaches us from the past, but as a spark of life that reaches us today through the guided journey of the movement within and for that holy people of God which is the Church, through the various trials the Lord permits for the sake of our growth and maturity.

Entrusting your new beginning under the protection of Our Lady and of St. Joseph, I ask you to remember me and all our friends in Communion and Liberation as you offer your first Masses.