THE FACE OF LOVE
From your heart to the edge of the world
Soiree for the 30th anniversary of the MEC
How can we celebrate 30 years of life in our Movement?
Voices, experiences, words and faces immediately come to mind: a tale that tonight becomes music, imagery and poetry. A journey to represent and share with each other the depth of a history of communion and catechesis, that charmed us in the spirit of Carmelite spirituality and that educated us in the mysteries of the Heart.
In recent years, we were helped in understanding what the human heart is made of fragile, insatiable and eager for full happiness. And at the bottom of this abyss we found ourselves mysteriously inhabited by God. We experienced just how much the heart of Christ alone corresponds to and fulfills our hunger for the infinite. We have contemplated the heart of the Trinity which generates us daily and which loves us eternally.
Finally, we realized that reaching the Heart of the Church means bringing into the world the humanity of Christ that lives inside us, to authentically meet every heart.
Therefore, we will now try to tell you this beauty that allowed every relationship, every educational deed, every Christian work and every missionary act to come to life, while building this home of ours: the MEC, that, as our children will help us understand, cherishes every single one of our hearts.
It all happened when we fell in love with the Church
Voice from Father Antonio
Carmelite charisma retains as its primary nature the “going towards the depths of the heart” (jointly: the heart of God-Trinity, the heart of Christ, the heart of the Church, the heart of the human being), imitating the Virgin Mary in knowing how to cherish everything inside one’s heart, through the intense grooming of “a life that is prayer and a prayer that is life”.
MEC’s own carmelite charisma is keen in adding that this search for “maximum depth”- exactly because offered to every christian, in every stage of their life – has to overstep into the missionarian “maximum extension”, going towards the heart of every person, of every different reality and of every life condition, up until “the world’s heart”, finding in it Christ Himself.
THE HUMAN HEART
«The human heart is not satisfied with anything less than the Infinite»
What do you ask, then, and seek, my soul? Yours is all of this, and all is for you. Do not engage yourself in anything less or pay heed to the crumbs that fall from your Father’s table. Go forth and exult in your Glory! Hide yourself in it and rejoice, and you will obtain the supplications of your heart.
(St. John of the Cross)
The Moon – Pixar
Kurt Cobain – Brunori Sas
Living is like flying,
you can only manage it by resting on light things
In any case, you can’t ignore
that voice saying that
beyond the stars there is a better place
One day, you suddenly feel like
going to see, to find out whether it’s true
that you are more than an empty box
or the last wheel in the biggest cart ever
Go ask Kurt Cobain,
how it feels to stay on a pedestal
without falling,
go ask Marylin
how deceiving look are
and how lonesome one can be,
and not feeling anything anymore
and not feeling anything anymore
and not having anything
to say anymore.
Living is like swimming,
you can only manage it by floating on the surface of the sea
In any case, you cannot shut up
that voice saying that on the bottom of that sea
there is a better world.
And that very day you suddenly feel like
going to see, going to find out whether it’s true
that the ultimate meaning of all things
can only be found by looking deep inside you
Go ask Kurt Cobain,
how it feels to stay on a pedestal
without falling,
go ask Marylin
how deceiving look are
and how lonesome one can be,
and not feeling anything anymore
and not feeling anything anymore
and not having anything
to say anymore.
Living is like dreaming,
you can only manage it by turning the lights off
and going to sleep.
Elogio della fragilità (Praise of fragility) – Carlo Betocchi
My heart is weak tonight
like the sun that slowly rises
the roofs, and deep are my faults;
ouch! man, as always sets.
As always, as he sets,
the ineffable horizon remains
and exterminated fate, to anyone,
of existence, exterminated!
What we leave behind
crawls towards the dark,
what awaits us is incomprehensible
including the passing moment.
I am: here I am! I am,
only in this weak hour,
what decides: I am
the dividing line
the past from the future.
Eternal moment of being
that you settle in the moment,
you are my grace, decide.
Tu non mi basti mai (You are never enough for me) – Lucio Dalla
I’d want to be the dress you’ll wear
The lipstick you’ll use
I’d want to dream you as I never have
I meet you in the street and I get sad
Because then I think that you’ll leave
I’d want to be the water of the shower you have
The sheets of the bed where you’ll sleep
The saturday night’s hamburger that you’ll eat, that you’ll eat
I’d want to be the engine of your car
So that you’ll suddenly turn me on
You, I can never have enough of you
I really can never have enough of you
You, you my sweet land
Where I’ve never been
I have to talk to you as I never do
I want to dream you as I never do
I want to be the ring you’ll wear
The beach where you’ll walk
The mirror that looks at you if you’ll look at it, you’ll look at it
I’d want to be the bird that you’ll caress
And away from your hands I’d never fly
I’d want to be the tomb when you’ll die
And where you’ll live
The sky under which you’ll sleep
So that we’ll never part from each other
Not even if I’ll die and you know it
You, I can never have enough of you
I really can never have enough of you
I, I, I try you know
Don’t ever forget me
THE HEART OF CHRIST
«Mine is Christ and everything for me»
Whoever has Christ Jesus as a friend and follows such a magnanimous captain as he can certainly bear everything; Indeed, Jesus helps and strengthens, never fails and sincerely loves. In fact, I have always recognized and still clearly see that we cannot please God and receive great graces from him, if not for the hands of the most sacred Humanity of Christ, in which he said he was pleased.
(St. Teresa of Avila)
L’anima vola (The soul flies) – Elisa | The dance of the soul seeking Christ
The soul flies
It just needs some fresh air
If you look into my eyes
Search for my heart
Don’t get lost in its reflections
Don’t buy me anything
I am gonna smile if you’ll notice me in the crowd
Yes, it is important that
I’ll be for you in any case and anywhere
The one you have known forever
A kiss is like the wind
When it slowly blows and yet it moves everything
And a strong soul that can be on its own
When it looks for you it is just because it still wants you
And if it looks for you it is just because
The soul dares
It gets lost
And then finds itself again
And look how it dances
Whenever it knows you are there watching
Don’t bring me anything
As long as I’ll know i can stop an instant with you
If I can make it
Then I’ll be able to recognize you through a thousand storms
A kiss is like the wind
When it slowly blows and yet it moves everything
A strong soul who is not afraid
When it looks for you it is just because it still wants you
When it looks for you it is just because it still wants you
And if it looks for you it is just because…
The soul flies
Doesn’t get lost
The soul flies
Doesn’t hide
The soul flies
What does it need?
The soul flies
Doesn’t fade away
Mio fiume anche tu (You too my river) – Giuseppe Ungaretti
Now that in the graves
Man tears himself apart
With twisted fantasies
And shameless hands
And pity contracts into a scream from stone;
Now that innocence
Groaning, demands at least an echo
Even from the hardened heart;
Now I see clearly in the dark night.
Now I see clearly in the dark night, I learn,
I know that Hell has come to Earth
To such a degree that
Man, lunatic, dodges
The purity of Your passion.
The burden of pain,
That man spreads across the earth,
Plagues Your heart;
Your heart is the zealous seat
Of a love not vain.
Christ, thoughtful and moving
An incarnate star among the darkness of humanity,
Brother who ceaselessly
Sacrifices graciously
To rebuild man.
Saint, Saint, how you suffer
Teacher and brother and God, how you know us, the weak
Saint, Saint, how you suffer
To free the dead from death
And support those of us who live in misery.
I cry no more from tears that are only mine,
Here, I call You, Saint,
Saint, Saint, how you suffer.
Love rescue me – U2
THE HEART OF THE TRINITY
«Whoever possesses God lacks nothing, God alone is enough»
Give thought to the fact that your soul is the temple of God. Every instant of the day and night, the three Divine Persons reside in you. Once you are aware of this, it is a most delightful intimacy; you are never alone again.
(St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)
The Tree of Life – Film adaptation by Terrence Malick
Trinitarian romances – Text adaptation by St. John of the Cross (from the show I am the Love, Lignano 2012)
I will be the man‘s Father,
You will be the man’s Son:
in the Spirit we will love,
always together towards the sky.
I will be Father completely,
he can love me and he can have me:
he can send me far away, too.
But we will go on looking for his love:
if we are free, if we are alive,
as the son that is loved.
In the peace and in the pain
we will go on looking for him.
We won’t lose anybody:
no sons, no smiles and no tears.
All words will be a gift:
every flower and every blowing,
from the abysses to the mountains,
above the skies and in the deserts,
from the corals to the butterflies:
we will be as a hug.
A strong and tight hug in the silence
and inside the heart,
never too far, never forgotten.
Voiceover
How would humanity look like if we understood that every I is generated by a multitude of Yous that come across life?
When my I encounters God’s You, I truly understand where I come from, where my own self is originated from, who were all the Yous previously met, what they were telling, where they were leading to.
I am one of God’s heartbeats and God’s happy with me, first of all and regardless of everything: He’s happy as the Father that made me, as the Son that became my companion and that redeemed me, as the Holy Ghost that shines in my heart and in my mind.
Terra degli uomini (Land of men) – Jovanotti
And at times the strong men become worn out
They forget every lesson
You know what I mean if I say
That there’s a solution for everything
And all of the lights turn on
Billions of pixels ignite
They move to the rhythm of a beat
A beat, a beat
And there’s a pulse beneath my feet
And there’s the sky above my head
And I live right in the middle
In the land of men
Where the music plays
And technology governs
And I like plastic
Practice is experimented and
And a tear is formed
Where the music plays
And the future unravels
And love is made
And love is made
It’s always the best ones that leave
They leave us without instructions
To reprogram the traffic lights
Looking for holy reasons
And there’s always a great sun to surprise us
In the indifference of the referees
Who stay to read the monitors
With impassive faces
And there’s a chasm beneath my feet
And I have angels above my head
And here we’re right in the middle
In the land of men
Where the music plays
Friendship is generated
Where everything is possible
Where a dream is populated
The guitar is electrified
And resonates the harmonics
Where the willows laugh
Where the comics weep
And the force is amplified
And blood is mixed
And love is a trap
Not always however
Sometimes it (love) frees you
And you feel like a fairy tale
And it seems that your whole life isn’t
Only rhetoric
But the purest substance
That nourishes cells
And it makes you want to live
Until the final moment
Where the music plays
In the land of men
Where you find a place for even those who
Smile at you from an angle
Until the final moment
Until the final moment
Until the final moment
THE HEART OF THE CHURCH
«Maximum depth for maximum extension»
I saw and realized that love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time and every place. In one word, that love is everlasting. Then, nearly ecstatic with the supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed: O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. […] In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things, as my desire finds its direction.
(St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus)
Sunday morning prayer (12 July 1942) – Etty Hillesum, Diary
Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, God, just one very small thing. I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold you responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.
A house is a home – Ben & Ellen Harper
Il filo del vestito (The thread of the dress) – Madeleine Delbrêl
In my community, Lord, help me to love, to be like the thread of a dress. It holds the various pieces together and no one sees it except the tailor who put it there. You, Lord, my tailor, tailor of the community, make me capable of being in the world by serving with humility, because if the thread shows, everything turned out badly. Make me love in this Church of yours, because it is love that holds the various pieces together.
Shine a light – Rolling Stones