The beauty of faith: Conversations about believing, today

By Emiliano Tognetti

Faith is not a refuge for people without courage, but the expansion of life. (Pope Francis)
If, in the past, Christianity was part of the national heritage, today faith is lived with confidentiality and not a few misunderstandings. To believe today is to live an encounter that does not leave indifferent. When accepted, faith changes life to the point of holiness.
The author of this book listened to people who live faith in a different way: from prominent figures to committed young people. He ideally questions all the people of God. And in dialogue he has discovered that believing is still beautiful today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graphe.it edizioni
• Release date: Jun 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9788893721349

Book preview

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Introduction

When I saw the preliminary version of the book, my first thought was Did I really do it? Well, yes! If you read these lines, it is because you had the idea to open a book… that talks about Faith!

As if the world wasn’t so full of books, another book about Faith? A topic so boring and far from young people and the problems of everyday life! And then the really beautiful Faith? When ever!

Okay, we’re done with the rhetorical questions. The book is about Faith, and is told by people who have encountered Faith in their lives, not in the abstract sense, but in a strong embrace. And I’m talking about it, I’m just talking about it.

I do it with passion, joy and wisdom! We had a dialogue, the way one can talk, with questions and answers, with young and less young people, women and men, who are not pious, but who were fascinated by a proposal always new and old, like man.

Before creation, Faith did not exist, God did not need it (He already believes in Him in a perfect way!) God invented Faith for us, to help us enter into a relationship with Him.

And here (as in many other ways), Jesus was Master, every day, always! Then we have the task of answering with a Yes or a No, we are free to choose on this topic.

Whoever has met the Faith, and wants to confess it, is free to do so! In fact, this is not a book of proselytism (understood as a forced conversion to a religion), it does not convert us by force, but it focuses on Love, if we agree to meet it..

Today, the world, with so many statistics, tells us that people in the third millennium, especially in Europe, are losing their faith. The churches are emptying and maybe, partially, so it is. But the Faith is not lost, because something that is not really known cannot be lost.

Just as we cannot lose a person we have not truly loved, so the Faith cannot be lost if we have not known Him! This book is a little help to help anyone, freely, to understand that life can be beautiful and can be changed for the better, if it is received with Truth and away from so many commonplaces.

The people you read about are not black garments or bigoted believers, but people like us, who have simply decided, freely, to accept that yes which from Jesus is then addressed to each of us.

They have found their way, for each has one’s own way to Heaven: some is in the service of God, some in the service of the family, but for all, one thing is true: they have become Beautiful in the eyes of God! and thus, at any age, in any time and place, we too can become beautiful and Saints, because the Saints are nothing but those who have lived, with all the difficulties of the case, in this life, The Beauty of Faith!

Saints: accomplished men and women

Léon Bloy spoke about the sadness of not being holy. For Paolo Curtaz, this is a key point in his discourse on holiness.

For the Aosta Valley writer and theologian, in fact, holiness represents the flowering of humanity and being holy is, in a sense, synonymous with fully shaped women and men.

During the interview, I addressed various points: from the beauty to the authority of Jesus, the love of the couple formed by Mary and Joseph, but also of today’s families, to the preservation of creation until death, which, in a sense, is our life partner.

Curtaz offers interesting views. When we read the gospel, he urges us not to stop distinguishing between good and evil, because Jesus cares more about our conversion than our moral judgment.

It is rather preferable to improve our level of awareness which, in today’s world, can lead us to an openness and care for thy Neighbour and the planet in which holiness is expressed. The Church, especially the Church in the West, should work in this direction as well. Only in this way will the new generations be able to do new and great things. The scientist’s invitation is to live in the present, despite the difficulties, because we must not weep for the things of the past, but go on with Him. And that seems to me to be a good thing.

The theologian and writer Paolo Curtaz (Aosta 1965) is the author of numerous books on spirituality, commentaries on scriptures, essays on faith, texts for couples and children’s books, many of which translated into various languages. He is considered one of the spiritual voices capable of identifying questions of interest for us today, and in his study he combines meditation on the Word with the sharing of life with thousands of people, believers or unbelievers, whom he meets each year during conferences, pilgrimages and online activities.

Interview with Paolo Curtaz, theologian and writer

This book is called The Beauty of Faith, so the first question can only be: Is Jesus beautiful? In many stages, He seems to have an irresistible force of attraction and this is the beauty of love. Can we understand His beauty today? If so, how?

It is interesting. You rightly invoke His beauty which, in various texts - especially in the Gospel of Mark - becomes an influence.

People are fascinated by the fact that he is influential and not authoritarian, and even Mark, who harbours some resentment, says not like the scribes (M3: 22), because they confused authority with influence. In what sense was Jesus attractive to the point where someone would get up and follow Him (Matt. 9: 9)? Probably because Jesus lived what He preached and preached what He lived.

Even today we are attracted to authentic and important people, to witnesses; therefore, His beauty consists, above all, in the inner fire with which He seeks the presence of God.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus is alive here and now: therefore, we can have access to Him through an inner life journey, through spirituality, and especially through meditation on the Word, through prayer, in the service of our brethren and sisters. There are moments of grace, which do not depend on us, in which we have this almost direct connection with the presence of the Lord, as if here and now, and this is confessed by hundreds of thousands of pages of stories of normal people or mystics who have experienced interior imprinting, which is in fact the very purpose of our faith: to see the face of God through Jesus.

As you have already anticipated, all people who meet Jesus, whether good or bad, do not remain indifferent; I hate or love Jesus, but I can’t take my eyes off Him. An example of this is Mary Magdalene, who, from a life of sin, moves to a life full of courage and faith in Jesus. Can today’s people living a sinful life follow Magdalene’s example? What suggestions and advice can this disciple who was enlightened by the Master offer us today?

I don’t think Magdalene is the right person to invoke for answering this question. In the sense that Mary Magdalene is in fact a certain synthesis of three different persons, and in the Gospels there is confusion: there is Mary, Martha’s sister, then the famous sinner in chapter 10 apud Luke, who is the prostitute of the village, and finally Mary of Magdala, who is probably one of the three women who followed Jesus, along with Peter, James and John. Generally, the prayer book highlights this person who has been briefly described: but that doesn’t mean we have to erase all the paintings of the crucifixion with the repentant Magdalene!

I listened to your question and was a little puzzled, in the sense that it seems to me that this distinction between good and evil does not actually exist in the Gospels. Even Jesus asks, Why do you tell me I am good? (Lk 18.19). Jesus goes further, we could say that He is oriented towards conversion, towards the recognition of the face