These letters, published in October 1997 by Msgr. Angelo Majo, are just some of the letters, intimate and confidential, addressed to him by Fr. Luigi Giussani. At the time they were drafted, the author was confident that they would not be read by any person other than the addressee; hence the obvious lack of systematicity in the treatment of topics and the constant reference to extra-textual situations—therefore, any potential (and unexpected, to be exact) reader must take into account that they are approaching not a book but the life of the Author.

1944—Never could I have imagined that you would remember
Luigi Giussani, still a deacon, in this single letter written in 1944, paying homage to Angelo Majo’s brother with a small gift, “a refined gift from my sister”, reflects on the things made with heart that, even if small, “are all a great symbol” and speaks of his moved amazement as Angelo Majo still remembers the “goutte d’eau qu’on peut bevoir”—a brief concept shared a long time before. Every small gesture, every person who loves us, he says, “are but the sensitive and symbolic envelope of One who brings us tremendous love, even to the point of pursuing us with jealousy and passion.” Luigi Giussani then regrets that he had “never suffered any violence” and begs to be made “a priest devoid of anything” so that he can “speak effectively” to those who suffer and he can be able to say, “Believe me, brother!”

1945—I don’t want to live in vain
In this group of letters of 1945 the experience of the cross comes out; Luigi Giussani was ill and bedridden and, rejoicing over the letter he received from Angelo Majo—the sign of a friendship so dear that he did not dare hope to be mutual—he speaks of his fear in writing words in the face of the tragic event that occurred to the Majo family; this fear can be overcome only by the “sweetest belief” that the supreme Ideal of our life is to make ourselves identical to Him on the cross to the point of “being mixed in together.” Two verses by Jacopone da Todi, “one of the greatest poets,” show that this being mixed in together is the very path to priesthood (which is now imminent for Luigi Giussani). This reflection on friendship, which is the most direct symbol “of our unspeakable bond with Him,” and on being a Priest, that is, “Being one thing only, mixed in together with Him” to the extent that “there is no longer anything, not even divinity, that belongs to Him alone,” continued in subsequent letters with a particular emphasis on the aspect of sacrifice that makes us similar to Christ. It was, however, in December 1945, on the occasion of Angelo Majo’s promise as subdeacon, that Fr. Giussani expressed—from his bed in the hospital in Desio where he had been lying with high fever for several days—the ultimate meaning of friendship, “He, my Love, has begun to touch you too,” and then “are we not in the world for love of Him and for the happiness of humankind? How beautiful it is that Jesus has brought us together for this mission.” It is from this perspective that Fr. Giussani finds the answer to what he tells us is his obsession, “I don’t want to live in vain.”

1946—Similes ei erimus (We shall be similar to Him) 
Fr. Giussani lies ill and worries about the “temptation of sadness and loneliness” that will envelop Angelo Majo upon his return to the seminary—though aware of his friend’s great suffering, Fr. Luigi Giussani dwells on his feeling too much of a “friend” to keep silent, and since “friendship is such a thing that it leaves you unquiet at the thought of being different from your friend,” he renews his exhortation to become equal to Christ on the cross; a cross he will later call “the flower of Christian happiness down here.” Meanwhile, though within the constraints of illness, “my greatest sacrifice, the humiliation of being ill,” Fr. Giussani begins to affirm the infinite greatness of desire which, sharpened by “forced inactivity,” finds its consolation only in “Dante’s divine verse, ‘And in His will there is our peace.’” Later, through a series of memorable images taken from the seascape of Varigotti, where he is forced to spend a long period of convalescence, Fr. Giussani reflects again on the greatness of which the human soul is capable, that is, “the overwhelming sense of an [...] immense aspiration to the infinite, to the infinite mystery”; but above all he reflects about the Love of God, “infinite, enormous, which has bent over my nothingness, [...] which has accomplished the absurdity of making me [...] like Him, similes ei erimus (we shall be similar to Him).”

1947—The will of God is what only matters
In his first letter in 1947, Fr. Giussani addresses, for his friend’s benefit, the delicate issue of tension between obedience to superiors, “filled with understanding and fineness,” and the exuberance of ideas and judgments “that will spring from the mysterious and unknown depths of the soul”—Fr. Luigi Giussani strongly advises his friend to revere his superiors and their principles since what is new cannot be too quick to judge the tradition that gave birth to it and helped it grow. In the following letters, the long wait for healing, “I am here always waiting [...] for something that will change this silent disappearance of mine into new active life, that will change it if the Lord wills,” and the new mourning that occurred to Angelo Majo’s family (for which Fr. Luigi Giussani will go so far as to say “I think of you with a veneration mixed almost with fear and shame”) all lead to reiterate, perhaps with greater synthesis, the main issue of 1945—every experience, even the most tremendous and painful, reveals “Reality, Him—the Lord Jesus.”

1948—A more concrete reason
In rejoicing because Angelo Majo is now definitively won and bound to Christ, Fr. Giussani strongly suggests his personal discovery, namely, that there is a “more concrete, more experienceable and more passionate reason” for the “happiness” of men; “there is One” that is more universal than all men put together and at the same time “more embodied in our personal individuality: [...] and that is the love of Him. The glory of Him for Him.” This “reason” is all the more concrete that it opens Fr. Giussani’s eyes wide to every detail, “The attraction and appeal comes to our heart from countless things. In competition.” And so, whether it be a summer mountainous horizon, all the “beautiful human faces” or all the hearts, they are the sure sign that our Friend is all, that God is all. Six months later, on the occasion of the day of Angelo Majo’s diaconate, consistent with that great insight that had occurred, he will speak of the diaconate “as one of those days, to which you can always return to find that reason and that profound attraction that suddenly reawakens the fire of your generosity and faithfulness to Love [...]”

1949—I work nine to ten hours a day
Fr. Giussani’s health appears to better fit in with his tight commitment to studies and pastoral work, and, in fact, as well as communicating the joy of Angelo Majo’s priesthood, the three letters he wrote in 1949 are an explosion of vitality and commitment, “Discovery demands initiative, tension, patience, trust [...].”

1950—The fundamental feeling
The twelve letters written in 1950 unfold amid communications, good wishes, invitations and cancellations, but they are the sign of an established and certain friendship—the various situations in the lives of the two priests provide a backdrop for the constant desire for a meeting, often postponed, however, out of obedience to the same circumstances. This new situation leads to reflections that are often concise but testify to the growing certainty that “[...] reality is good (and Jesus created it for us), and it cannot betray our most yearning desires and our most passionate imagination!”; and that despite the fact that ephemeral things sometimes tempt us more than Him, “the fundamental, decisive feeling [...] is that of the intention stretching toward Jesus, a righteous intention toward Him above and beyond all things”—the awareness that finally emerges is that “we only long for Him.” Thus, every detail of life, such as, for example, the shift to a less formal way of addressing Fr. Luigi Giussani using “Tu” instead of “Lei” in Fr. Angelo Majo’s letters is permeated with a gaze to Christ [in Italian, both Tu and Lei mean you but Tu is informal when talking to someone your own age or younger, or someone you know well], “You could not have offered your you to me [...] if you had not felt like offering it first [...] to Jesus.” Furthermore, whenever Fr. Giussani was forced to postpone an appointment or miss a visit, all the fullness of this time of life stood out in his heartfelt apologies—lessons, extra classes (to which he was dedicated since otherwise it seemed to him he was “neglecting Jesus”), a mishap that occurred at a cousin’s wedding, a course of exercises for aspiring students, preparing his students for their school certificate.

1951—Pauci electi (Few are chosen)
In the intensifying mutual recommendation to Our Lady, on several points Fr. Giussani reflects about the exceptional nature of Angelo Majo’s friendship, “Imagine what wonderful thing the world would miss if you hadn’t been born” or “Thank you for being able to get past the coarse side of my way of expressing myself.” But the topmost point in reflecting on friendship is that “our peace becomes an irresistible urgency for action” as there is one thing that makes him restlessly anxious, “that nobody knows.” His reference to a particularly appreciated poem by Angelo Majo and a history book by Grousset—a real “blowout”—suggest the cultural developments their relationship may have in the future.

1952—How hard it is to clash, in friendship, against the wall of reserve
Following events unknown to the reader, Fr. Giussani comments and reflects on the “limit of freedom in friendship” and on “how hard it is to clash [...] against the wall of reserve”; misunderstandings and different tempers, however, break onto what “matters,” and that is sacrificing ourselves all the way “for the others” because of the beauty we have seen and perceived.

1953—This contrast is one more line in the design
In late August, Fr. Giussani postpones the arguments to a future dialogue and briefly says that a “melancholic design” awaits him for the coming year—this is proved by the fact that in order to follow the “speranzini” (adult vocations) enter the seminary, he cannot go to his friend.

1954-1964—Longing in the right direction is what matters
From this group of published letters, for a total of nine, and since August 1954, a full confidence as well as irony (“fluttering, as hens and turkeys”) stands out as far as a pastoral endeavor at school and in the world is concerned—in closing his letter of 1954, he entrusts to the Holy Spirit and to Our Lady the study vacation he will lead in Gressoney with 45 students. It is the prelude, in a moving tension with the years of his illness, to a vitality and breadth of experience that will extend to many people; significant in this sense is his request to Fr. Angelo Majo for an organic cooperation to the cultural dimension of Gioventù Studentesca (Student Youth), but also the requests for help with the bureaucratic organization of the first trips to Brazil (the evidence of a fervent missionary impetus). Later, in his letters of 1964, his comments regarding some misunderstandings (which normally happened in a movement that was so dynamic and so embedded in the heart of the Milanese diocesan tradition) is nonetheless an opportunity to reiterate his “everlasting, intact hope, so intact that I seem to have this and nothing else.”
Appendix
Along with the biographies of Msgr. Angelo Majo and Fr. Giussani, this Appendix also includes a short “In Praise of Friendship”; Fr. Luigi Giussani here defines friendship as “the reverberation on our human face and heart of the Mystery of God, as revealed to those whom the Father chose through the Son by the gift of the Spirit.” Friendship, he adds, is after all a “presentiment of unity” that can start anywhere in the world but that “can take root solid and broad—eternal and inclusive—in Christian soil”; friendship is not consistency or obstinacy but “imitation of the Mystery of God to which the Spirit discreetly and strongly calls. Outside this blessed land it remains a noble and sad impetus, restless in the awareness of its precariousness.”