DOMINICANS OF THE “SANTA ANA” CONVENT
Murcia, Spain

We wish to greet all the contemplative communities, with which we feel united through this bond of communion that your magazine represents

Murcia, Wednesday 19 July 2006

Dear Senator Mr. Giulio Andreotti,
May God bless you and all those who work at 30Días [30Days in the Spanish edition]. It’s been a most pleasant surprise for us to receive your magazine gratis. We have felt fortunate and very thankful to the Lord. It’s really interesting and very topical. We had heard of it, but we didn’t know that you were sending it to the convents.
We are a community of Dominicans, belonging to the Order of the Preachers, or the Dominican Family, as is usually said now. Our fundamental mission in the Church and in the world is to pray that «the seed gives fruit and doesn’t return empty to God», so that each day from now on we will keep you carefully in our praise and intercession. On the other hand, we are willing to collaborate in so far as we are asked and is within our ability.
We wish to greet all the contemplative communities, with which we feel united through this bond of communion that your magazine represents for all of us, and remind you of next year’s celebrations of what will be for us our Jubilee Year because we celebrate, God willing, the VIII centenary of the foundation of the nuns of the Order of Preachers, which happened way back in 1206. Thus we will begin the Jubilee Year on the first Sunday of Advent and conclude it on Epiphany Sunday of 2008. It is necessary to pray the Lord that this year is fruitful for all of us and that our presence which reflects the Lord Jesus in the midst of the world be increased by new vocations.
Dear Mr. Andreotti, count on our prayer, our gratitude and we beseech you to pray for us that we be faithful. Here we allow ourselves to ask if it is possible for you to send us the issues of the magazine in which our dear Pope Benedict XVI’s life is written about, it is a part that we liked greatly. Thank you in anticipation.
Cordially receive our most fraternal embrace in the Lord.

Sister Teresa de Paco López, Prioress.



TRAPPISTS OF THE “SANTA MARÍA DE LA ESPERANZA” CONVENT
Esmeraldas, Ecuador

That our simple prayer may be of support to the great work of your magazine

Esmeraldas, Tuesday 1 August 2006

Dear Mr. Andreotti, peace.
With great joy we have received your letter in which you offer us free subscription to the magazine 30Días en la Iglesia y en el mundo [30Days in the Spanish edition]. Our foundresses, coming from the convent of Santa María de la Caridad of Tulebras, already knew 30Días and because of this we have received your precious gift with great enthusiasm and gratitude. Your publication enriches our cloistered life, given that it allows us to be better informed about what happens outside the cloister. We share your conviction about the necessity of the contemplative life in a world that gives precedence only to practical things and we ask your prayer to persevere in this silent vocation inside the Church.
That our simple prayer may be of support to the great work of your magazine.
Fraternally,

the Trappist nuns of Esmeraldas


CARMELITES Of THE GOONELLABAH CONVENT
Lismore, Australia

The little red book is a compendium of the Church’s teaching

Lismore, Friday 1 September 2006

Dear Giulio Andreotti,
Thank you with sincere thanks for your great generosity sending 30Days in the Church and in the World [30Giorni in the English edition] to us free of charge.
We assure you of our prayers and gratitude, and thank God for this new window into the life of the Church and in the world at this present time.
We thank you for the gift of the little red book of prayers [Who prays is saved, the English edition of Chi prega si salva]. The little book is a compendium of the Church’s teachings.
Would you have any spare copies available, could you let us know the price of these little books that we would like to give them to those to whom they would be so helpful? We will need to know the price to know if we can buy them.
May God bless and reward you with eternal life.
In Jesus and Mary,

Sister Johanne of the Cross OCD,
Prioress, and Community


BENEDICTINES OF THE “NOTRE DAME” ABBEY
Argentan, France

We thank you from the heart for the affectionate thought of having given us 30Giorni as a gift

Argentan, Saturday 2 September 2006

Mister Senator,
Together with all our sister nuns in the various convents of the world, whose letters we read with joy, we thank you warmly for the free dispatch of your magazine 30Jours [30Days in the French edition]. The different articles on the life of the Church in the world help our prayer and we have appreciated those on the young years of our Pope Benedict XVI in Germany in a special manner.
We are contemplative cloistered Benedictines and our abbey - one of the most ancient in France – was founded at the end of the 4th century in Almenesche, a small village in Normandy. Destroyed by the invasions of the Normans, restored toward 1060, it was transferred by order of Luigi XV to the town of Argentan in 1736. In the convent, reconstructed after the battle of Normandy in 1944, we continue the long tradition of the choral office in Latin and in Gregorian. We earn our living from silk-screen printing laboratories, calligraphy, icons on wood, sewing needlepoint lace to which we have exclusive rights. For many years we have recorded disks of Gregorian Chant. We live as much as possible from the products of a small plot of land. We pray particularly for the Holy Father whom we love greatly and whose teaching, so luminous and strong for the Church in the world and for ecumenism, we admire. You have wonderfully optimized all these intentions in your lovely magazine that we appreciate greatly.
May the Lord help you in your apostolate and in your comprehension of the life of cloistered nuns. We pray for all the équipe of the magazine. With all our thanks, we pray you believe, Mr. Senator, in our religious sentiments.

The Abbess and the nuns

P.S. Could you send us, please, 50 copies of the booklet Qui prie sauve son âme [Who prays is saved in the French edition]? It is a marvelous tool of the apostolate that can touch the heart of many people.


DOMINICANS 0F THE “MADRE DE DIOS” CONVENT
Añatuya, Santiago del Estero, Argentina

Our silence and our prayer are a direct collaboration with your publication

Añatuya, Monday 24 July 2006

Dear Mr. Giulio Andreotti,
We thank you from the heart for the kindness that you have shown us by initiating the free dispatch of your monthly magazine, 30Días en la Iglesia y en el mundo [30Days in the Spanish edition].
In our mission that consists in the «seeking Him in silence, thinking of Him and invoking Him», we shall keep carefully in mind you and your intentions and needs. And we ask besides that you consider our silence and our prayer as a direct collaboration with your publication, «so that seated at the feet of Jesus and listening to his words», we can be truly fruitful.
May the Lord continue to bless your work and that of your collaborators and may Most Holy Mary grant her maternal encouragement for remaining faithful to the banner of Jesus Christ.
We will remember you in front of the Most Holy. Please receive our cordial greeting and gratitude,

Sister María Purificación de Jesús OP


THE POOR CLARES OF THE “SANTA CLARA” CONVENT
Líbano, Tolima, Colombia

Many congratulations on your important work for the universal Church

Líbano, Thursday 28 July 2006

Mr. Giulio Andreotti, peace and well-being!
Dear brother in Jesus Christ,
Please deign to accept the religious greeting of the Poor Clare nuns resident in this city of Líbano, in Colombia.
With great surprise we have received the pleasing free offer of your magazine, 30Días en la Iglesia y en el mundo [30Giorni in the Spanish edition], of which you kindly make us a gift, accompanied by your agreeable and cordial letter. We thank you greatly for your consideration. May God compensate you in this and in the next life for the precious gift. We are reading carefully in the community the contents of this important magazine and this, as contemplatives, is extremely useful to us in informing us about the news of the Holy Church.
Many congratulations, Mr. Giulio Andreotti, for your important work for the universal Church. We accompany you with our prayer and the sacrifice of each day and we ask you to deign to make us the gift of your fervent prayer according to our intentions. We suggest that you continue to work with courage and increasing enthusiasm in this work so pleasing to God and which does so much good to all. As daughters of our seraphic saints Francis and Clare of Assisi, whom you will know very well, they being Italian saints, we let you know that, according to our specific charism, we are full-time contemplatives. According to this charism, we make our ecclesial and missionary contribution through daily intercession, fraternal communion, liturgical praise, silence, penitence and humble monastic work for the Holy Church, for the world and concretely for every brother and sister living in the universe. We cultivate Franciscan joy with care, living joyously our total consecration to the Lord.
We would like to refer to the third letter of our Mother Saint Clare to Saint Agnes of Prague, a Poor Clare: «I consider you a cooperator of God himself and sustainer of the unsteady members of His Ineffable Body». This commitment is fundamental for us.
Affectionate sisters in Christ,

Sister Maria Nelly del Espíritu Santo OSC
Abbess, and community


CARMELITES OF THE MIRI CONVENT
Miri,Malaysia

We in the Carmel «hidden with Christ in God» can be of help only by silence and prayer

Miri, Tuesday 1 August 2006

Peace of Christ!
Dear Senator Giulio Andreotti,
It is with great joy and gratitude that we wish to send you our thanks for the free subscription of the 30Days magazine [30Giorni in the English edition]. We appreciate it very much as we wish to know only the truth in all we read. We also receive L’Osservatore Romano which is always a help for us, and now with your magazine we are very satisfied. May God reward you!
Be assured of our prayers and offerings for the success of your great work.
We in the Carmel «hidden with Christ in God» can be of help only by silence and prayer. Please dispense us from any other kind of witness.
Once again our grateful thanks.
United in prayer and in His love,
We remain, humbly and gratefully,

The Carmelites of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Sister Beatrice of Jesus O.C.D.


CARMELITE CONVENT OF MONTREVILLE
Montreville Trail North, Minnesota, USA

God reward you too, for the very nice prayer book

Montreville, Thursday 7 September 2006

Dear Father,
Praised be Jesus Christ!
So sorry this has been delayed. May God reward your thoughtfulness and kindness in sharing 30Days [30Giorni in the English edition] with all the cloistered communities. We are grateful.
Be assured of our prayers for you and your apostolate.
Your grateful sisters in Jesus and Mary,

The Carmelite nuns

God reward you too, for the very nice prayer book [Who prays is saved, Chi prega si salva in the English edition].

ARCHDIOCESE OF KARACHI
Karachi, Pakistan

From Pakistan, a Muslim country

Karachi, Monday, 21 August 2006

Dear Mr. Andreotti,
Thanks and Appreciation
Thank you for sending 30Days [30Giorni in the English edition] over the years. I appreciate your great work for the Church.
I have just received No. 6/7 - 2006. I was much impressed by the Article/Interview John Paul and Nikodim and also by Cardinal Albino Luciani’s homily on 9 August 1978.
Thank you also for the booklet Who prays is saved [Chi prega si salva in the English edition]. I believe it is important to publish basic Truths and Prayers of the Catholic Church for the people. The Western Society is fast slipping into paganism and which surely affects us in the East. We must save the people at all costs.
Thank you very much once again for the periodical 30Days and the booklet.
With every Blessing,

Yours sincerely in Christ,

Evarist Pinto,
Archbishop of Karachi, Pakistan


SALESIAN MISSIONARIES
Bethlehem, Palestine

Thank you for the very lovely gift

Bethlehem, Thursday 10 August 2006

Dear Direction and Administration of 30Giorni,
A greeting from Bethlehem and an appreciative memento of the Cave.
I thank you for the very lovely gift of your magazine. It will be of help to us. We will try to keep in touch with some news about our presence in the Holy Land and in the Middle East. United in the Risen One,

Father Giovanni Cacumi,
Provincial Vicar of the Middle East Salesians


SALESIAN MISSIONARIES OF THE CHURCH OF “NOSSA SENHORA DAS DORES”
Ká-Ho, Coloane, Macao, China

Thanks to the Chinese Government

Coloane, Saturday 12 August 2006

Dear Mr. Senator Giulio Andreotti,
I hope you are in good health along with your dear ones. This is one of the many graces that the Lord is accustomed to grant to the generous benefactors and the deserving benefactresses of this our mission in South China.
The many people we assist by means of your generous help are a great deal better. What a difference from the ’eighties, when we began to take care not only of the Coloane center, the village of Our Lady of Sorrows, but also of the many centers, more than forty, in South China. Coloane has been transformed into a house of reception for many poor elderly men who are in absolute need. There will be dozens more. Never cease in the works of the Lord for the good of our brothers and sisters. «The poor will be always with you… », but also and especially Him, always. We in different villages of China have nuns who take care of our patients. Along with the health and material assistance the spiritual part is not lacking, the most important, the care of their souls. In China we have many other centers. Now, thanks to the largesse of the government, there are priests, nuns and Christians who are trying to have contact with these centers and also the government has become involved.
In the various centers we have nuclei of Catholics: people who have come little by little to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, of His Passion. Everything possible is done so that they have the mass. The day of the mass for them is a feastday, they desire it. In other centers, especially where there are the nuns, there is a little church. It is there that the Christians gather in the evening to pray and on Sunday for some meetings. They feel and are a family. A family of God. These simple souls don’t know much theology, but they know that of Love well.
Yet once again, thank you for your help, Senator. I have received your magazine 30Giorni with gratitude and this afternoon spent two hours reading it: nothing to lose, all to gain… also this time spiritually beneficent, sacred, consoling because of the beautiful news about the Church, the missions, the brothers and sisters throughout the world.
In the sufferings of life we can raise our eyes often to Heaven. It is there that we have a Father who loves us tenderly, a Mother who always thinks of us, a home that awaits us. Be assured of our prayer, of a remembrance in the Holy Mass.

In Christ Jesus,
Don Gaetano Nicosia


PIME MISSIONARIES
Leprosy Health Centre, Nalgonda, India

I have been here for forty years

Nalgonda, Wednesday 16 August 2006

Dear and esteemed Giulio Andreotti,
Peace and goodness!
I have received your magazine 30Giorni! I have read it with pleasure. I thank you very much on behalf of us missionaries who are distant and live in other parts of the world. I founded this leprosy centre and registered it with the government of A. P. (Andhra Pradesh, which is the country of the inhabitants of Andhra). I attach these two dépliants so that you understand the reason for my living here for a good forty years! I have always been attracted in my life by the innocence of children and the suffering of lepers: the two highroads that lead man to God. I wish you every good in the Lord! So long!
Enclosed: two dépliants; a letter of mine from 15 August; a painting on silk; a painted leaf. Continue to send it to me, it keeps me up with Italian life!

Father Luigi Pezzoni


 

In one of the many letters received by the editor from cloistered convents the proposal was made of «reserving a “little corner” of spirituality in the magazine». Accepting the suggestion gratefully, we decided to offer as spiritual reading, starting with this number, the more important documents of the magisterium of the Church on grace.
Why this choice? Because, Saint Thomas says, «quod est potissimum in lege novi testamenti… est gratia Spiritus Sancti» (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 106 a. 1). Because nothing characterizes Christianity more than the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is always a good thing to start from essentials. Finding them even in the succinctness of dogmatic definitions that, far from the aridity of which they are accused, are instead water meadows that can make Christian life burgeon precisely because they humbly safeguard the mystery and workings of grace.
But there is then a current relevance that prompts us to start from what the Church teaches on grace. In fact today the faith and the life of the faithful is endangered not by denial (that nobody dreams of doing) but by the denaturing of the concept of grace, to which instead many people are inclined in two different ways.
First of all by considering grace as an a priori. Goulven Madec, one of the most insightful of living commentators on Saint Augustine, says: «For Pelagianism grace is a gift that mankind has at its disposal as a possession that is supposed to have already been given from beforehand…. Originally for Pelagius mankind was always already in a dynamic of grace» Goulven Madec, (La Patrie et la voie, Le Christ dans la pensée et la vie de saint Augustin, Desclée, Paris 1989, p. 265). [The homeland and the way. Christ in the life and thought of Saint Augustine]. How not to see that this Pelagian conception of grace has become dominant in these recent decades in so much theology and in so much preaching? Thus prayer is no longer true asking, but, according to an unexcelled expression of Augustine’s, it becomes «one in a manner of speaking » (De dono perseverantiae 23, 63) because in any case grace is supposed to always be given beforehand.
Secondly by not recognizing, with simplicity, that the efficacy and visibility of grace are good works. In other words, that humble obedience to the ten commandments and the humble practice of the sacrament of confession is sure criterion of discernment of the life of grace. Here again, how not to detect «the horrendous and hidden poison», to use an expression of Augustine’s (Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum, II 146), of those who claim that grace springs from sin almost as if produced by a dialectic? So true is it that Hegel (1770-1831) speaks «of the origin of evil in God and from God» and in the gnostic movements such as Frankism (Jacob Frank, 1726-1791) there is no longer difference between good and evil, between bad desires and actions and good works.
Before publishing the dogmatic declarations of early councils, given that The Creed of the People of God by Pope Paul VI reproposes the essentials of the doctrine of the faith, we start by publishing the passages of The Creed of the People of God in which grace is mentioned. The profession of faith pronounced by Paul VI on 30 June 1968, on the nineteen-hundred anniversary of the martyrdom of the apostles Peter and Paul, is certainly one of the simplest and finest expressions with which a Pope has repeated to Jesus: «Lord, you know all, you know that I love you» (John 21, 17).


From The Creed of the People of God by Pope Paul VI

We are called to share in God’s eternal life by His grace

We believe that this only God is absolutely one in His infinitely holy essence as also in all His perfections, in His omnipotence, His infinite knowledge, His providence, His will and His love. He is He who is, as He revealed to Moses; (cf. Ex 3, 14); and He is love, as the apostle John teaches us:(cf. 1John 4, 8): so that these two names, Being and Love, express ineffably the same Divine Reality of Him who has wished to make Himself known to us, and who, "dwelling in light inaccessible," (cf. 1Tm 6, 16), is in Himself above every name, above every thing and above every created intellect. God alone can give us right and full knowledge of this reality by revealing Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in whose eternal life we are by grace called to share, here below in the obscurity of faith and after death in eternal light. The mutual bonds which eternally constitute the Three Persons, who are each one and the same Divine Being, are the blessed inmost life of God thrice holy, infinitely beyond all that we can conceive in human measure.(7) We give thanks, however, to the Divine Goodness that very many believers can testify with us before men to the unity of God, even though they know not the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.