ROMANO GUARDINI, UPDATE

In this month dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, the news just came that the cause of FATHER ROMANO GUARDINI  (See BLOG  8/2/2016) will begin officially with Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Munich on December 16, alongside that of Nazi resistance fighter Fritz Michael Gerlich (See ff BLOG_)..

Father Guardini, who died in 1968, is considered one of the most important theologians of the 20th Century. His work ‘The Spirit of the Liturgy’ was a major influence on the Liturgical Movement, and he became a key thinker for the council fathers at the Second Vatican Council.

Pope Francis has previously said he is “convinced that Guardini is a thinker who has much to say to the people of our time, and not only to Christians”.

In the 1980s the future Pope began a doctoral dissertation on Guardini in Germany, but later abandoned it.

Benedict XVI has referred to Guardini as “a great figure, a Christian interpreter of the world and of his own time”. In 2000, he wrote his own book entitled The Spirit of the Liturgy, inspired by the theologian.

Father Guardini was born in Verona in 1885. After the war, he was appointed to a chair in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Berlin. But he was forced to resign in 1939 after clashing with the Nazis. His first major work, The Spirit of the Liturgy, was published during World War I.

Following the World War II, he became first a professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Tübingen and then a professor at the University of Munich. He died in Munich on October 1, 1968.

Many of Father Guardini's major works have been translated into other languages, including The Lord..