HOLINESS IN PERU

Our nearest neighbors are in Peru for three months with their two young daughters to immerse themselves in the language and people.  This reminds me that I have several Peruvians on the list being considered for canonization.  The first is  ANDREA AZIANI (SAMEK-LODOVICI) who, while not a native Peruvian, gave his life to the people there. He was born in Milan in 1953 and at a young age lost his mother. He and his brother were raised by their grandmother Cora and his grandfather, Professor Emanuele Sameck Ludovici. He had Jewish roots on the mother's side and was related to Emanuele Samek Ludovici, young philosopher of the Catholic University of Milan, who died prematurely in 1981 after a car accident..

In 1972, at the age of 19, he met Fr. Giussani  (Servant of God Luigi Giovanni Giussani was an Italian Catholic priest, theologian, educator, public intellectual, and founder of the international Catholic movement Communion and Liberation), which began his path in 1987 to Peru, laying the foundation of the Catholic University in which he taught until his death in 2008.

 He dedicated his whole life to Christ, consuming himself with love for Him, with a passion for others to find Jesus, always seeking to do God's will, whether in his work as a teacher or as a consecrated layman.  He was a model  of virtue and example for the Church to all who knew him especially children and his students.

He was totally consecrated to the Church and to Christ without leaving the world. His joy, his holiness and fullness of life, led many to question: "Can you live like this?" Proposing the beauty of Christ, in chastity, he was an example of total dedication to God as a layman sanctifying the world.

Education was the central nerve of his life and he educated with the passion with which he faced reality and his total commitment to communicate it. He taught philosophy, ethics, epistemology, anthropology, and social doctrine of the Church, transmitting a passion to know more deeply the Truth, knowing the situation of the today's educational crises of faith.

Despite his dedication to the teaching profession, there was always time to talk, to live with everyone, students, teachers, priests, the poor, the elderly, children and young people. Everyone knew him, from the president to the street vendors of the city. He could argue peacefully with the ministers and with the greatest intellectuals of the country and then quickly spend hours among the shacks helping the hungriest people and playing with the children in the dust of the roads, teaching them songs and prayers and bringing them food. 

He was a man of great prayer and could be  found absorbed before the tabernacle in adoration.

At his funeral attended by the highest representatives of the institutions but also a crowd of unknown people, united by the condolences, affection and gratitude for a person who had given them every kind of support. A concrete help, personally he took care of buying medicines as well as whitening the house, he did not deny anything to anyone in need. He attended heads of state as the most humble. Now he rests in a Peruvian park, his memory is more alive than ever and the countless testimonies of his 'fever of life' dedicated to others in his name,