{"id":4511,"date":"2006-02-17T08:43:24","date_gmt":"2006-02-17T08:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/life-is-beautiful.html"},"modified":"2006-02-17T08:43:24","modified_gmt":"2006-02-17T08:43:24","slug":"life-is-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/life-is-beautiful.html","title":{"rendered":"Life is Beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roberto Benigni waxes pretty eloquently about Jesus and love<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Benigni on Monday was addressing a gathering of young people who filled the Verdi Theater in this city of the patron of lovers, St. Valentine. <\/p>\n

The meeting was organized Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, who heads the Diocese of Terni-Narni-Amelia, according to the Italian newspaper Avvenire. <\/p>\n

For others <\/p>\n

Oscar-winner Benigni told his audience that Jesus "has truly stated that he is Love." <\/p>\n

Love is for others, "as our happiness depends on their happiness, and this is what Jesus has taught us," explained the actor-director. <\/p>\n

Benigni gave young people a piece of advice. "May your steps move at the pace of [Jesus’] steps, fix your gaze in his direction." <\/p>\n

During the show, Benigni recited passages of the Song of Songs and addressed a last thought to Mary, quoting one of the verses of Dante from "The Divine Comedy": "O Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son! Created beings all in lowliness surpassing, as in height above them all; term by the eternal counsel pre-ordain’d."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roberto Benigni waxes pretty eloquently about Jesus and love Benigni on Monday was addressing a gathering of young people who filled the Verdi Theater in this city of the patron of lovers, St. Valentine. The meeting was organized Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, who heads the Diocese of Terni-Narni-Amelia, according to the Italian newspaper Avvenire. For others…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nLife is Beautiful - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/life-is-beautiful.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Life is Beautiful - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Roberto Benigni waxes pretty eloquently about Jesus and love Benigni on Monday was addressing a gathering of young people who filled the Verdi Theater in this city of the patron of lovers, St. Valentine. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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