Archbishopric of Hà Nôi
Hà Nôi, Viet Nam

Through 30Giorni I know the situation of the world and of the Church

Hà Nôi, 20 July 2006

Mister Director,
I am Joseph Ngô Quang Kiêt, archbishop of the archdiocese of Hà Nôi, apostolic administrator of the diocese of Lang Són and Cao Bang, in Viet Nam. First of all, I thank you for having sent the magazine 30Jours dans l’Église et dans le monde to my diocese of Lang Són and Cao Bang. It is indeed good nourishment for this distant region. Thanks to this magazine, I know the situation of the world and of the Church. We can live in communion with all the local Churches.
But the archdiocese of Hà Nôi doesn’t yet receive this magazine. I request you courteously to send your fine magazine to this archdiocese.
I thank you for your generosity. God bless you so that your work may bring good fruits to the Church.

Sincerely
Joseph Ngô Quang Kiêt


MISSIONARIES OF THE CONSOLED
Pawaga, Tanzania

To sensitize retired men and women for possible missionary cooperation

Pawaga, 31 July 2006

I am Father Sergio. Well… I didn’t expect indeed to receive a script of yours directed to the missionaries. A gesture this that denotes your fineness of mind. Thank you. Mr. Senator, you motivate me to make you participate in my missionary life here in Pawaga, in the region of Iringa, in Tanzania. My experience is also that of all missionaries. Each has written it and will rewrite it again, even without the pretension of sending it to the newspapers. With the word of Jesus: it is the seed thrown on the ground. And in its time it will bear its fruit. It matters little if the result is not seen now. Today I have written to a very dear girl from Frosinone, involved in the cooperation and realization of projects for Africa. It is indeed pleasing that there are persons from our own Frosinone area who are near us and support our work.
Dear, the work is always great and age doesn’t allow us anymore to work as in the fresh times of youth. The Third and Fourth world have need of money but above all need cooperation side by side. We missionaries don’t have lay-brother missionaries involved in support work of the missionaries delegated to evangelization. Consequently, of necessity, we must deal more with the wounds of the body than with announcing the Good News.
Here’s the proposal. Why not try to sensitize the consciences of very many people, retired men and women, to express themselves still through effective cooperation?
You, dear, are an expert in these problems. And television doesn’t make us reflect seriously anymore. Perhaps we are moved, or at times curse these daily exoduses of “sea cart” clandestines that dump in our cities the “dispersed” in search of fortune and of work. It’s obvious that they do so, they watch television, there are no more secrets and they become indignant seeing so much succulent food, high fashion clothes, etc.
I thank you greatly for your sensibility in regard to the missionaries. Also in the name of my confrere Father Silvestro Bettinsoli with whom I work here on mission. The prayer (and a little perspiration) is for you and your worthwhile collaborators of the very handsome magazine 30Giorni. Thank you.
Most affectionately,

Father Sergio Antonucci IMC


SALESIAN MISSIONARIES
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

On the side of the least ones

Addis Ababa, 28 August 2006

Dear Senator Giulio Andreotti,
I have just received two numbers of the magazine 30Giorni. For which I thank you so much. Who writes is a Salesian missionary layman from Lombardy who is testifying the evangelical message in Addis Ababa in the Salesian mission of Makanissa.
As a Salesian I am trying to bring the Gospel to the children and the young people through the preventive system of Don Bosco. As the person in charge of the Oratory I try to assure that the boys find a place to grow and pass their free time in safety and serenity. And as a teacher I try to help the young people discover the beauty of honest work. But the thing that I care most about is to insure that three hundred children don’t end up by finishing on the street. For now they are three hundred, but the number could increase.
This comes from my Oratorian heart to be on the side of the least, the poorest and the needy. They live in the mission and return to their families (who has one) in the evening. They receive everything for their growth from us: school, work, joy and especially fatherly goodness and maternal tenderness. I am not alone in doing this. With me there are some voluntary workers. I have little time to devote to reading but I assure you that your magazine will have a place in my life also because it opens a window on the Church of the whole world.
I thank you again and with all my heart for this gift. Let’s feel ourselves more than ever friends, and remember each other in thoughts and prayers.

Donato Galetta SDB


COMBONIAN MISSIONARIES
Nampula, Mozambique

I pray the Lord for this gift that you make to missionaries

Nampula, 7 September 2006

Dear Giulio (VII),
I treat you confidentially because I am only eight years younger than you.
I would like to receive your monthly magazine 30Giorni. I have read some numbers and I see that it would be very useful and delightful for me. I am 55 years ordained, of which 37 in Mozambique and 18 in Portugal: teaching in the Combonian seminaries. Here, along with the ministry, I have devoted myself (and continue still) to the biblical and liturgical editions in our local language, Macùa: around 7 million people speak it in different variations. If you can, send me also the book 1948 to relive that magnificent year. I thank you greatly and I pray the Lord who rewards you and your collaborators for this gift that you make to missionaries.
A fraternal greeting,

Father Gino Centis MCCI


SALESIAN MISSIONARIES OF THE “DON BOSCO YOUTH TRAINING CENTRE”
Iringa, Tanzania

Your magazine is an excellent example also for our young typographers

Iringa, 8 November 2006

Dear Senator Giulio Andreotti,
I hope you are in excellent health. I thank you for your letter and for the three numbers of the magazine 30Giorni that I have received until now (since June 2006). I have read them with interest. May God bless you and reward your generosity.
I find myself in a Salesian mission in Tanzania, to be precise in Iringa. I look after a professional school, and specifically the typographic sector. Your magazine is very well paginated and well printed. An excellent example also for our young people who learn this art. We have other sectors such as photo-mechanics, carpentry, welding, masonry, electricity and tailoring. In all we have two hundred young people. We also follow after school the Oratory in the Salesian style.
We try each day to take up our cross and follow that Jesus who invited us to follow Him. When we are tired, looking to Him, we try to take up our path again trying to smile at life with love. The difficulties there will always be, but with Him all is possible.
United in prayer, a cordial greeting,

Virgilio Radici SDB

Clarisse of Valleyfield Convent
Beauharnois, Québec, Canada

God grant you joy and peace and crown you with His grace
Beauharnois, 29 November 2006

Mister Giulio Andreotti, Director of 30Giorni,
We have been pleasantly surprized to receive a complimentary subscription to your fine magazine 30Jours dans l’Église et dans le monde. We are struck, on the one part hand, by your generosity, and on the other, by the quality of your magazine.
You have great respect for the value of the monastic vocation and the effectiveness of its social role. We appreciate this.
The collection of articles is very interesting. The way in which what is current (or also history) is shown us, particularly by those who live it, offers a more human aspect for observing it. The subjects treated add further motives of prayer and thus stimulate our mission.
Naturally we appreciate the spiritual articles in a particular way: I think at this moment of the marvelous article by Don Giacomo Tantardini on the talk about the topicality of Saint Augustine that begins with this phrase of such vast import: «It was in fact more important to teach one’s own friends humility than to challenge enemies with the truth» (Saint Augustine, Sermo 284) [cf. Colloques sur l’actualité de saint Augustin in 30Jours, n. 6/ 7, 2006, pp. 50-63]. It is an article that deeply nurtures our Christian and contemplative life. In moments as difficult as the world is going through today, lacerated everywhere by so much war and violence, by hunger and thirst for justice and truth, this article offers a somewhat forgotten path, that of the humility of Christ victor over hatred. Thanks to Don Giacomo Tantardini.
Mr. Director, you ask us to help you with prayer. We will do so with a very special joy, for you, for all the staff of the magazine and its different collaborators as also for all its readership.
As for your second request, that of collaboration to make better known the reality of the cloistered convents, we are still reflecting about the way in which we could respond.
God grant you joy and peace and crown you with His grace and support in all your works. Was it not perhaps He who said: «Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, I say to you in truth that he will not lose his reward» (Mk 9, 41)?
Please accept our gratitude for such a lovely initiative that also unites us with the nuns of the different cloisters who have already benefited from your generosity and with the missionaries throughout the world. Another way of being the Church.

Sister Edith,
for the Valleyfield Clarisse nuns


DOMINICANS OF THE “VENERABILE CATALINA DE JESÚS HERRERA” CONVENT
Durán, Guayas, Ecuador

We offer you our prayer with joy

Durán, 15 November 2006

Dear Mr. Giulio Andreotti,
Please receive a fraternal greeting and our profound thanks to you and those who make it possible that the magazine 30Dias reaches out to the whole Church and to the world.
We follow with interest the news and the teachings offered us by the magazine’s articles. A part of it we read in the refectory, and the rest is read by the nuns individually. We were greatly struck by the harsh reality that our brothers in the Lebanon experience!
Many thanks for the sharing of your faith with those we feel close and united with. The contribution that your magazine offers us, allows that our vision of the world expands and that our faith in Christ and in His Church asserts itself.
We offer you our prayer with joy for all your intentions.
We greet you affectionately in Christ and Mary,

The Dominican nuns


CARMELITES OF THE SACRED HEART CONVENT OF MOUNDASSO
Dédougou, Burkina Faso

A big and sincere thank you

Moundasso, 23 October 2006

Mister Director, our silence is not forgetfulness, absolutely. Today I come to express our sincere thanks for the magazine 30Jours dans le Église et dans le monde.
May the Lord reward you and grant a hundredfold to you and to the benefactors that offer us the subscription that we receive regularly with great joy.
All the articles, written so well, about our Pope Benedict XVI are of great richness. During our meals a nun reads and the interview with the new Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, was listened to very attentively by each one of us. We bring it to our prayer of intercession as we also bring all the joys and the sufferings of the Church and of the world.
Thank you for the esteem and the interest that you manifested for our community of Carmelite nuns in Africa, precisely in Burkina Faso.
We still have a request to make. We have a small printing press. Would you allow us to reprint your beautiful booklet Qui prie sauve son âme [Who prays is saved in the French edition] for so many Christians around us, very poor and without material means? We will offer it to them at a much reduced price. We await your response, thank you.
Still once again a big and sincere thank you. We are very close in thought and our prayers accompany you.
Very fraternally,

Sister Marga de la Croix OCD

Very gladly do we allow the Carmelite nuns of the Sacred Heart of Moundasso to reprint 30Jours dans le Église et dans le monde in their small printing press.

The editorial staff of 30Giorni


CLARISSE OF THE BRNO CONVENT
Brno, Czech Republic

We have faith that the Lord will make this simple form of abandonment to Him fruitful

Brno, 6 September 2006

Pax et bonum!
Dear Mr. Andreotti,
We thank you greatly for the sending of your magazine 30Tage in Kirche und Welt. We would be happy to continue to receive it. In the two numbers that were sent us (6 and 7/ 8 of 2006) we particularly liked the articles about Professor Joseph Ratzinger and Professor Hans Küng in their years at Tübingen, and about the sudden death of the Metropolitan Nikodim during the course of the audience with Pope John Paul I. Both the articles were rich with information and interesting. But we have also read with great profit all the others. Thank you!
You ask collaboration from us not only under the form of prayers, but also of reflections on what is actual. I understand your expectations, but nevertheless I find it difficult to imagine that our life, conducted in silence and withdrawal, would give us a better viewpoint than that of those who are located in the midst of daily happenings and dispose of more detailed information, useful for better understanding them. It is preferable that each of us continues to do his own work, to fulfill his own vocation: the politician and the journalist fight with the word and we are willingly at their side with prayer, in this way “covering their backs” in the battles they face. For those we are not able to advise, but we encourage you to be ready to accept all that the Holy Spirit inspires and to support it with courage. The religious contemplatives are certainly not abler than others in the evaluation of the events of our time.
In your letter of accompaniment of last July, you express the wish to know better the reality of the cloister in its different origins. We are Clarisse and follow the Franciscan charisma which we wish to live here, in the Czech Republic, surrounded by atheism. We stay “at home”, to pray communally and individually, to meditate and to direct our look always toward God. It is a simple, reasonable and beautiful life. And we have faith that the Lord will bring to fruit this simple form of abandonment to Him, for the Church and the world.
I offer you cordial greetings and best wishes for your work, also in the name of all our eleven sisters who live here, in a new convent and in a young community.

Sister MariaThoma Wüpping OSC, Abbess


CARMELITES OF THE NOBILI ANNEXE CONVENT
Pune, India

We give thanks and praise to God for the gift of this meek and humble Pope

Pune, 13 September 2006

Peace and joy of Jesus and Mary!
Dear Senator Giulio Andreotti,
It was a great surprise to receive your wonderful magazine 30Days. The first issue gave me a glimpse of our beloved Pope John Paul I who was very dear to me as his altar boy was my confessor in India (as he founded the OSM in Tamil Nadu) and I have heard so many lovely anecdotes about his beautiful life!
Thanks a million, dear sir, for sending this magazine to us. We would not have have been able to contribute to it and so a great big “Thank you”. We assure you of our prayers. We too would like to die as daughters of the Church as our holy Mother Teresa did!
Your honesty is depicted in this magazine which shows how our good and holy popes, like Pius XII and others, have suffered for the Church. They were misunderstood, criticized, and now we have another saintly Pope in Benedict XVI. Let’s thank and praise the Lord for the gift of this meek and humble Pope.
We thank you once again for your great gift. May this magazine open the eyes of many to know the truth of and in the Church and deepen their love for the Church.
May the Virgin Mary bless and hide you under her mantle. She will obtain many precious graces for you from the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit . So keep us in your prayers.
Yours sincerely in Jesus and Mary,

Sister Agnes of Mary OCD


CARMELITES OF SANT’ANNA CONVENT
Carpineto Romano, Roma

Cordial and fraternal respects and prayers

Carpineto Romano, 11 November 2006

To the editorial staff of 30Giorni,
The Carmelites of the Sant’Anna convent, assiduous readers of 30Giorni because interesting and cultural, while they thank you for the generosity used in their regard, request the Director, if he believes it opportune, to publish the material sent. Thank you in anticipation! With cordial and fraternal respects... and prayers.

The Carmelite nuns in Carpineto Romano


 

We publish the passage of the Creed of the People of God that faithfully presents all the doctrine of the faith on original sin.
The exposition of the doctrine is so clear and simple that it needs no comment, but the grace of faith that is, as the apostle Paul writes in the Epistle to the Romans, «heartfelt submission to that teaching that has been passed on to you» (Rm 6, 17).
We wish simply to suggest the image that Don Luigi Giussani always used to explain the consequences of the wound of original sin on human nature and its natural dynamics. Even though we are aware that there is a clear distinction between the doctrine of the faith and one of the possible images that attempt to explain it, the words of Don Giussani seem relevant also to cultural debates of these times.
«The natural mind, though constituting for mankind in all periods a weave of ideal indications, is suffocated in concrete by a great frailty. If mankind by nature has its strength, existentially it is wounded, ambiguous, equivocal. It is as if it were dizzy, as if its wrists shook. If, for example, we traced a line on the ground and challenged the bystanders to walk it one foot in front of the other and go ahead like that, nobody would have difficulty. But if we could take the same line and we raised it a hundred meters above the ground, the situation would change radically. It would certainly be the same line, the same movements required, but in very different conditions, to the point of making the identical operation impossible for most. As structure mankind is capable of determined things, of which historically and existentially it becomes incapable» (L. Giussani, Il senso di Dio e l’uomo moderno (The sense of God and modern man, tr.), Bur, Milano 1994, p. 93).


from the Creed of the People of God by Pope Paul VI

It is human nature stripped of the grace that garbed it and wounded in its natural strengths that is handed on to all mankind

We believe that in Adam all have sinned, which means that the original offense committed by him caused human nature, common to all men, to fall to a state in which it bears the consequences of that offense, and which is not the state in which it was at first in our first parents, established as they were in holiness and justice, and in which man knew neither evil nor death. It is human nature so fallen, stripped of the grace that clothed it, injured in its own natural powers and subjected to the dominion of death, that is transmitted to all men, and it is in this sense that every man is born in sin. We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature, not by imitation, but by propagation and that it is thus proper to everyone (cf. Denzinger 1513).
We believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the sacrifice of the Cross redeemed us from original sin and all the personal sins committed by each one of us, so that, in accordance with the word of the apostle, where sin abounded, grace did more abound (Rm 5, 20).
We believe in one Baptism instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Baptism should be administered even to little children who have not yet been able to be guilty of any personal sin, in order that, though born deprived of supernatural grace, they may be reborn of water and the Holy Spirit to the divine life in Christ Jesus (cf. Denzinger 1514).