“When the heart rises to the insight that everything is gift,when it makes this discovery, hum

“When the heart rises to the insight that everything is gift,
when it makes this discovery, human beings no longer invent
themselves. They cease to pretend. They no longer need to
imagine what they might be. Finally they are. They acquire the
substantial solidity which is displayed before their eyes by the stars.”
~ Luigi Giussani
[Fayum Mummy portrait of a young woman, 3rd century, Louvre, Paris] 

• Luigi Giovanni Giussani was an Italian Catholic priest, theologian, educator, public intellectual, Servant of God and founder of the international Catholic movement Communion and Liberation. For more:  https://english.clonline.org/fr-giussani 

• The images seem to allow us to gaze directly into the ancient world. “The Fayum portraits have an almost disturbing lifelike quality and intensity,” says Euphrosyne Doxiadis, an artist who lives in Athens and Paris and is the author of The Mysterious Fayum Portraits. “The illusion, when standing in front of them, is that of coming face to face with someone one has to answer to—someone real.” More: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-oldest-modernist-paintings-20169750/