Luca Russo's book is a genuine theological treatise, written through the reflections of a father who, together with his wife and their daughters, welcomes those children cast aside by the world. Their family—part of the Giovanni XXXIII Community founded by Don Benzi—consists of children and adults who are no longer merely foster children or patients in intensive care, but sons and daughters; no longer simply people worn down by life or its struggles, but brothers and sisters capable of giving love and awakening it in others.
The author reveals the true worth of these lives. He shows us their faces, lets us feel their weakness, and celebrates it as genuine strength. Their precious existence mirrors Christ on the cross, and our task is to stand with them, to be present, to restore dignity through the power of a true family that allows them to recognize themselves as beautiful, fragile, and beautiful. The most broken lives cry out for consolation, and every gesture of comfort we offer is God himself acting through us. "So precious are the weakest members of humanity in God's sight that he dwells in them fully."
And whenever we presume to decide and choose between life and death for a suffering person, we commit nothing less than God's euthanasia. Written in poetic and demanding language, the book requires slow, careful reading; not everything is immediately accessible or easily agreed upon. Yet it offers genuine and significant material for reflection—the kind worth bringing to prayer groups or formation circles.
Rita Massi, 2017