“Thus the more readily we accept grief, the deeper in us the awakening of the love which is not attachment but a positive serenity, pure and full of faith, the infinite in a loving act, even though in bitterness and tears.” Aldo Capitini Hymn Love , Faith , Tear
““Continuous attention must be directed to the behaviour of others and ourselves, trying to pinpoint the creative aspect, the contribution towards the good, the opening towards a greater value, the courage of having decided against the majority. It will seem to us that the moral contribution of the ones who have made themselves the instruments of prejudice and privileges is small, and instead it is great the contribution of those who try to awaken the conscience of everyone, even with their own personal sacrifice.” Aldo Capitini Hymn Courage , Personality
“And you mother still close to me,you know that it is not enough to live an ordered and honest life.You have been faithful for years to bring order into our house.As soon as the dawn appeared in the night sky,you rose towards the tasks awaiting you –in the silence of a mental prayer.Perhaps it is not enough even the overwhelming love,to which you gave the sober expression of concrete acts.The sacred wool, the steaming milk and the bedcomposed with inimitable care by your hands.Going back in time you recounted to your children their births,and the birthdays have slowly vanished.The beginning is now found from a thousand beginnings,with the ancient, with the unknown, with Christ.A present act includes them all,opening after the events have passed.And there is a severe duty for struggle,something in our own life could be wrenched away by it.The guards will soon appear,and they will take me to my cell with the high window.You will still be with me,as mother and inexhaustible human presence.Giving freely of your love, you still knew that your son is freedom.You were a nearness, that always found something to do.I have watched you unflinching under hardness and spite,always moving, and acting,holding back your inner rebellion you had pity on rage.Now we are together to work and open all around.In the loving gift to the world which ever crucifies usis our fulfilment.Seeing its limitations, still to treasure everythingis the gesture of infinite miracle,and you were right: order comes from this principle,the earthly goods, as our brothers the prophets tell us,will be given unto us.” Aldo Capitini Love , Life , Children , World
“I wanted to go away, in the midst of something entirely different,I had been there, in the house of torture,I have seen people being kicked, men’s bodies scorched,nails pulled out with pliers.Armed with flame and cudgels, grinning men in shirt sleeves.Where I could hear my friends being thrown headlongdown the stairs.Night was as day, and long shrieks wounded me.In vain I tried to think of wooded lanes and flowers,a serene life and human words.The thought seized up, it was as if a wound were opened upagain and again and endlessly searched.From the mouth struck, teeth and blood came out,and lamenting moans from the deep throat.Away, away from that house, from that street and town,from anything similar to it.I must save myself, keep up my mind,that I should not be led to madness by these memories.Oh, if we could go back to a void, from which a new order,a maternal opening could come forth,if I hear a certain tone of voice even in jest, I shudder.My unhappiness is that I avoid the sight of suffering,hospitals and prisons.I have yearned for high solitudes, lands of still sunshineand sweet shadows,but I would always be pursued by the ghosts of human beings.All of a sudden I feel the need of distraction and play,to lose myself in the noise of the fairground.I remain with you, but forgive meif you see me sometimes act like a madman.I try to heal myself by myself, as an animal,trusting that the wounds will close.I stop to listen to the simple conversations of the womenin the marketplace, with their dialectical lilt.I rejoice at the footsteps of running children,their overpowering calls.Because you do not know the absurdity of my dreams,the fixed expressions, the incomprehensible gestures.There is turmoil inside me, which seems to ridicule me.And I cannot cry out, not to be like them.Tomorrow I will go towards some music, now I am getting ready.” Aldo Capitini Life , Women , Men , Children
“History must change and today we see our problems in a different light, we say that our revolution today here and straightaway has something different, because it is made together with everybody, with our spirit united to everyone, even those not here, it is revolution for everybody and with everybody, not excluding and not destroying for ever, and not eternally damning anyone. It is a choral revolution.” Aldo Capitini Hymn History , Problem , Light , Change
“The true synthesis is only with the unforeseen.Detach yourself from a pledge left behind and open yourselfto a command which supremely calls,without trembling at the freedom suddenly infinite.Do not pay your extreme homage to the dead,there is something beyond.Even the sound of bells is only a preparation,and beyond the voice of orchestras, a new sublimity.Who has been more worn by life, knows it.To love, to be reborn together, open sky.” Aldo Capitini Hymn Love , Life , Freedom , Dead
“We can say to the other revolutionaries: you are right to be dissatisfied with this society with its erroneous and unjust ways, but how can you change everything straightaway with your own hands? Do you want to destroy the persons whom you see as adversaries, and even those who you suspect of not being revolutionary?Do you want the revolution to go forward with massacres, torture, the absolute power of a group, which prevents other people from speaking, informing themselves or criticizing or even living? We want a society founded on love and shall we start with cultivating and stimulating hatred? We want a free society and should we increase tyranny and absolutism? We want a good and clean end and should we use dirty and terrible means?” Aldo Capitini Hymn Love , People , Way , Change
“The fact is that we have realized that in labour disputes the use of violence plays into the hands of the ruling classes justifying the reaction of the military and discrediting the forces from below. Besides the refusal to use violence achieves the possibility of establishing even international solidarities of a very wide range.” Aldo Capitini Hymn
“Even the death we feel approaching is not absolute but only incidental. At that moment we perform yet another act. The act is the form, the way in which death is faced.” Aldo Capitini Hymn Death , Way , Feeling
“From a high tower I have looked to the four points of the horizon.I will go and lift up the dead on the battlefield.I will stretch out their contorted arms and legs.I will close their cold eyelids on their fixed pupils.I cannot bear to see eyes if I do not receive any words.Invisible life entrusts us with sad tasks,I look back to my years, and the pains I have sufferedare not enough.Soon there will be clashings of men and horrible clanging sounds.And people hunted, pushed, wrenched.Also I will find myself in the midst of the madness of war.I will open pure words, orders of thought, fraternal acts.In the meantime they will bring forward the mancondemned to death and they will tell him to dig his own grave.He will look up at the still hills and the sky.Some distant sounds of life will still reach him.He will not have time to think back to his many days –to the voices of his dear people, and the close relationships.Not even will he be able to look ahead,to come to terms with what is happening now.And when the shots will be fired, with the flash a cry will go upThe human cry which is too late, and it’s lost.To free, to free as soon as possible.They will ask me: why don’t you come to fight with us?They will not understand, they will carry on with the war.I loved to be with other people, as the light of the day.It is so good to work together, in trust, in mutual help.To lose myself in the crowd in modest clothes.In a circle of equals to listen and to speak.And now nobody wants to listen, and yet they are all people.I have become a stranger, the others do not know that I am there.The abrupt reply, the friend who looks the other way.It would be easy to join them in earnest action.Forgetting the deeper unity, beyond the war?I remain here, isolated from everybody,working for a deeper togetherness.Everything was only a trial, reality must yet begin.Every being was partaking of another reality yet he did not know.But now this reality is becoming clear,and it matters only what opens us to it.” Aldo Capitini Love , Life , Death , Men
“The only law to which we can give our obedience is the one of which we are convinced. And this way to act cannot be alleged to be egocentric or disorderly. First of all it is easy to realize that everybody really acts like this, that is, he does not obey laws to which the doors of his conscience have not been willingly opened. But the difference lies in that some choose an authority, and from then onwards are prepared to obey all its commands. Others instead prefer to often re-examine the reasons for these prescriptions, and do not entrust anybody with the keys of their own conscience. This does not mean that they will want to undertake a deep study of every law, every regulation, but the fact is that they do not recognize even their country’s government or their society’s president as an absolute authority. This second way will certainly be more tiring, but it is certain that the first will be more dangerous, because it diseducates people and harms those who exercise power and those who are governed.” Aldo Capitini Hymn People , Law , Way , Exercises
“Beyond the tragic blows and the brooding over violence,beyond the labour over errors and repenting over deeds,beyond the evenings without dialogues and the nightsfull of suspicion,beyond the days in which the happy ones revelin their narrow happiness –is it possible that to give blows to one another is the only reality?” Aldo Capitini Chorus Error , Reality , Night , Happiness
“Even using self determination we should establish a rule to help us gain validity. It is true that it is us who examine our conscience, but a prolonged education in the perception of values makes our conscience a better tool for decision. It is also very important to think of our action as being valid for all, as if everyone in our place should act this way.” Aldo Capitini Hymn Education , Way , Thinking , Decision