![Father Adrien Candiard I assure you: God loves us freely Father Adrien Candiard I assure you: God loves us freely](https://media.famigliacristiana.it/2024/5/onecms_603311a9-952c-4514-8dfb-f049fe6e71d8_3413737.jpg)
He is one of the emerging authors of spirituality, in France and beyond. Father Adrien Candiard, 42 years old, of Parisian origin, resides in Cairo, where he is a member of the Institut dominicain d’études orientalis (Ideo), prior of the convent of his order, as well as parish priest of the French-speaking community. Cultured, brilliant, with a profound knowledge of the Bible, Father Adrien fascinates many, speaking about religious topics that would seem to be of interest to few. With a precise strategy: agile books and the frequent use of dazzling expressions, which shake the reader, imprinting themselves in the memory.
His latest publication is Grace is an encounter (Lev). The subtitle is provocative: If God loves for free, why the Commandments? Raise your hand if you, among the readers, have not asked yourself this question, at least once. Let’s start from here, from what Father Candiard told Credere, who in April was a guest of the Dominicans of Milan, in the wonderful convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and who will return to Italy in a few days to speak at the Biblical Festival.
«We are convinced that we must deserve God’s love, it seems more consistent with our experience”, says Father Candiard. «“Being good to be loved”: this is the unwritten pact, for which we are willing to accept rules. The trouble is that we have also transferred this vision into our relationship with God. Jesus, however, tells us the opposite.” And it is also destabilizing for believers: “Not infrequently my interlocutors rebelled against my homilies, saying that what is described in the Gospel is not ‘normal’, is not ‘right'”, says the Dominican friar. “They are right: the Gospel is not just, if this is justice, if it only had a human measure.”
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