A Journey That Begins in the Heart
Simone Riva - How often do we stray, losing sight of our starting point? We must always return to the One who guarantees the momentum we carry in our hearts.
I saw astonished, almost confused faces in first grade after explaining how we would begin the year’s religion work: with their questions. “At this point in your lives, what are the questions, the open issues that you want to address together?” I allowed time for everyone to write their contribution anonymously.
At one point, one of them said to me, “Teacher, this is the first time anyone has asked me something like this.” I am not surprised by this boy’s disarming statement. We live in a world where everyone is concerned with giving us their answers even to questions we do not have. Yet, I also think of all the years these young people have been attending church and receiving the sacraments. [Editorial Note: The following text, Holy Mass on Rai 1 today with Pope Leo XIV/ Live video of the canonization of Bartolo Longo: who are the new saints?, appears to be an improperly inserted headline/citation and has been isolated for clarity.]
The fact that even on those occasions they were not taken seriously at their current point in their journey is thought-provoking. It is said that they are young, that they do not understand, that it is too early—and so the trap of entertainment, made up of things that would be fine for anyone except him, her, you, or me, is sprung.
I collected the sheets of paper on which they had written their questions, and they were full of surprisingly profound things, of unique depth and urgency. Pope Leo, meeting a group of Augustinian sisters this week, said at one point: “Our journey begins in the heart: ‘God, in fact, does not look at what or how much you do, but how much you grow in desire and love for Him, because, even if it is true that everyone will be judged for their works, nevertheless the value of works lies in the charity of the heart’ (St. Thomas Aquinas).”
It is as if we have lost sight of the journey’s starting point, allowing ourselves to be seduced by the consequences. Yet we are the first to become impatient when we immediately sense that the other person is using us—even if motivated by the best of intentions—to lead us where they want, without waiting for our yes.
In an extraordinary text by Fr. Giussani, just published, we read: “Kafka says in one sentence: ‘I am not alone at all, because I have received a love letter here, and yet I am alone, because I have not responded with love.’ Mercy lies in the fact that, even if you have not responded with love, God continues to send you his letter, and you are free to respond. Mercy is the fact that God’s proposal is never stopped by your choice, so your choice is never definitive. Evil no longer defines man, because what defines man [...] is not what man does, but God’s mercy, that is, the endless possibility that God offers him” (Luigi Giussani, L'incontro che accende la speranza, LEV, Vatican City, 2025, pp. 98-99).
Only someone who is certain of this final divine word of mercy can dare to begin the journey from the heart of man, from his questions, his desire, and his need. It is because one has encountered, and is still experiencing, the event of an embrace of one’s whole self that one does not get confused by constantly abandoning one method for another.
The Pope recalled this in last Wednesday’s general audience: “This abyssal desire of our heart can find its ultimate answer not in roles, not in power, not in possessions, but in the certainty that there is someone who guarantees this impulse that constitutes our humanity; in the awareness that this expectation will not be disappointed or thwarted. This certainty coincides with hope.” What a gift it would be to see faces as amazed as those I saw in class the other day. It would instantly change our own as well.
