A Beer with Living Men
A dialogue with Julián Carrón at the “Quadratini Group Vacation.
Eugenio Nembrini. Welcome!
Julián Carrón. Hello, everyone! It is a pleasure to share this moment of dialogue with you. What I would like to say is very simple and accessible to everyone. The first thing that comes to mind when I look at my life is a perception I have had since I was a child: a sense of Mystery. I have always felt it, ever since I was little. If I had to choose a phrase from Jesus that sums up this reality I find within myself, it would be this one from the Gospel: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his own life?”¹
Because the whole drama of living—of this “scattered heart,”² as we sang—lies precisely in that question from Jesus. I don't know about you, but I can't help but feel it beating in every facet of my life, and it is an urgency more than a feeling. It is something that constantly boils inside me, something I find within myself as a given, as something with which the Mystery has made me. Each of us must see if this is true in our own experience because if we don't start from this, we are discussing nothing.
What I have tried to do throughout my life is respond to this urgent question: "What is the point of gaining everything else if I lose myself?" That is, if I cannot find an answer to the need I feel within myself. When I came across Leopardi's phrase, "Everything is small and insignificant compared to the capacity of the soul,"³ I recognized it as an expression of my human experience because whatever I experienced was too little! The level of urgency was constantly rising. This has been the leitmotif of my life.
As I have said on other occasions, what saved my life, in the sense that it marked it, was my loyalty to my humanity. I do not say this with pride; it is simply a fact! It is a gift of my being. And it was what guided me in everything. When I met Giussani, I was amazed to discover that his insistence was precisely on this. It was the most enlightening moment of my life because I had always had this initial perception, but Giussani made me aware that it was the criterion for evaluating any experience I had. I had an intuition, but I didn't have the awareness he introduced me to. That's why I always say that I will thank him for the rest of my life, for eternity, because he made me aware of the tool for making a human journey—so that everything I experience can increase my awareness of who I am—and for evaluating any choice I make.
I am amazed to see that Pope Leo XIV now often returns to this theme in his speeches. Recently, addressing young people in Chicago in a video message, he said: "We all live with many questions in our hearts [our 'scattered hearts']. St. Augustine speaks so often of our heart 'that has no rest' [for which everything is too little!] and says: 'Our heart is restless until it rests in you, Lord.' This restlessness [attention!] is not a bad thing, and we should not look for ways to extinguish the fire [as we so often try to do, distracting ourselves], to eliminate or even anesthetize ourselves to the tensions we feel, to the difficulties we experience. Rather, we should get in touch with our hearts,⁴ because it is the criterion by which the Mystery—as we read in the first chapter of The Religious Sense — has thrown us into the thick of life so that we may recognize what corresponds to our needs. Without this, everything else is too little! 'What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses himself?'”
Again, speaking recently to the Italian bishops, the Pope recalled as an “essential tool” for communicating the faith, together with the Christian proclamation, the awareness of man, “the anthropological vision.”⁵ After all, one can learn Christian “formulas” without them being a response to the urgencies of life. This is why Fr. Giussani started the movement. All those he met during his years teaching at the Berchet High School knew the Christian “answers,” but after a short time, most lost interest in the faith. Why? If what we encounter does not answer our questions, in the end, we do not even understand its value.
This perception, this awareness that we see in Pope Leo and in Giussani, has been a crucial point in my life, as I have always told you. This is what struck me more than many other things when I encountered the movement. It is what has marked me most. Then I realized—I discovered this recently—that what had struck me so much was, for Giussani himself, the most important thing in his teaching! In 1964, he said: “The most important thing from an intellectual point of view that I say in all my teaching, and which even today no one understands, is when I invite people to compare everything with their own elementary experience.”⁶ That is, with life! With the urgency of living! With this complex set of original needs with which the Mystery has thrown us into comparison with everything. Having found in Leopardi a companion for those ultimate needs, Giussani was able to understand the “beautiful day” as the answer to those needs. This is where I recognized myself: only when one experiences Christ can one understand whether the urgency one feels within finds an answer that is equal to it.
Since then, I have found nothing comparable. But what amazed me was not that I no longer made mistakes, but that even when I did, choosing something other than Christ, I came out even more convinced of Christ’s unique exceptionality because nothing could compare to Him. It's not that life was all flat; there was all the "coming and going" of life, as for everyone, but I wasn't surprised at having done the right or wrong thing. What excited me was having within me the criterion for evaluating everything, and so everything became part of a construction; there was nothing to discard. Nothing that happened, good or bad, was to be discarded, because it made me even more aware of what it meant for life.
Don Eugenio asked me, "The adverse circumstances that life presents become, for most of us, an obstacle. How did you deal with them?" I dealt with them starting from this. It led me, along the way, to perceive everything I complained about as an opportunity and not as an obstacle, because everything allowed me to verify whether I had the possibility to face circumstances starting from Christ, from the encounter I had had.
I am amazed that Don Giussani, at the end of the tenth chapter of The Sense of Religion, whose passages we all know very well, leaves us—as he always does, in his pedagogical genius—with the criterion for evaluating whether we have understood what he is saying. What sign does he leave us at the end of the chapter? Do you want to know if you have truly understood, if you have truly experienced who you are, the fact that Another is making you who you are right now? It is if you can enter “into any circumstance with a profound tranquility and a possibility of joy.”⁷ A person who has that Presence within himself, who has become aware of that Presence—which even has a face, unmistakable features, which is Christ—can verify whether it is just a word, a state of mind, whether it is just self-conviction or imagination, or whether it is so real that it allows her to enter "into any circumstance with a deep tranquility and a possibility of joy." Like a child who enters any darkness holding his mother's hand.
So, everything I have experienced and am trying to experience is to let Him in constantly, to grow ever more in the awareness that it is His presence that determines everything in life. We have repeated many times that those who are spared the effort of living cannot experience it because they cannot become aware of themselves and of all the vibrations of their own reason. So, for me, everything—absolutely everything, without discarding anything!—became part of this journey, which made everything precious. Freedom was constantly at stake here. Freedom, as Don Eugenio said, "this unquestionable love of freedom that we see in you," is precisely this: I wanted nothing more than to risk my freedom in everything that happened because it was an opportunity to discover whether what I had found and the proposal that had reached me could respond to any circumstance and any person I encountered, in whatever way I entered into a relationship with them. Many of the encounters I have had over the years have been an opportunity for me to verify whether the reasons I needed to live could stand up to anyone, in any situation. And, therefore, they were always an opportunity for discovery. I was struck recently when reading The School of Community, where Don Giussani insists that the freedom of each of us is played out in "discovery," because "man as a free being cannot reach his fulfillment [...] except through his freedom." Because "if I were led to my destiny without freedom, I could not be happy [...]. It is through my freedom that destiny [...] can become an answer to me. [...] Now, if the attainment of destiny, of fulfillment, must be free, then freedom must also 'play' in the discovery of it."⁸
I am amazed by the significance of this in front of people like those I recently met: a couple who had a mixed marriage—she was Catholic and he was a former Catholic who had lost his faith. Because she was grateful for the seriousness with which he was coming to terms with himself, they had a mixed marriage to give him all the space he needed to discover what she had discovered. Now that they have both discovered this, they want to remarry. This space of freedom that we offer to those we meet is crucial so that nothing is perceived as an imposition. How often do you tell me that angry, discouraged people come to you, rebelling against their illness and their condition? The space left to their freedom, so that they can discover, by being together, how the Mystery responds through their experience, is truly amazing! That a person can find a space where they are welcomed and embraced in their entire situation—their rebellion, their resistance—without discarding anything, so that they can discover what can make even illness something livable. Indeed, as we said in a recent assembly in Bergamo on the theme of “hope,” it becomes a great opportunity to see life shine! Because “Christianity,” says Giussani, “being a present Reality, has as its instrument of knowledge the evidence of an experience.”⁹ And this is decisive! Many of you, like many of your friends, neighbors, and family members, “give up” not because you see reasoning or a discourse, but because of “the evidence of an experience” that has changed your life. And this is precisely what can challenge a person the most, especially in this world, as Don Eugenio said: “In this world so varied, confused, hostile, and disoriented, many people who are searching for an answer can find it only in living experiences.” In people who have the same difficulties but in whom they see the answer happening—not as an explanation, not as a discourse, but as the occurrence of an experience before their eyes. As you see all the time.
For this reason, even a situation like yours—as my life has increasingly become, even now that I am retired—can be an opportunity for verification because it is like a test of maturity. When illness strikes or when retirement comes and there is no longer a busy schedule, is everything we have done in life, everything we have discovered, all this "Christ" we have recognized, enough to fill our lives? Thinking about you this morning, I said, "The situation you are experiencing is a privilege." Why is it a privileged situation? Because you can ask yourselves, "I, in this situation, in which I spend so many hours in a wheelchair (or in a condition that each of you knows better than I do), while everyone else is doing their own things, their own tasks, their own work... can I use this time to examine what I have encountered?" Only those who find an answer to the initial question—"What good is it for a man to gain the whole world if he loses himself?"—will truly recognize that they have found, not in the abstract, not as a theoretical statement, but as an experience of living, the answer to the "scattered heart" that each of us has.
I hope that all the time you have available, which is offered to each person's freedom, will be an opportunity to let Christ in so that He can show you His ability to fill your life!
There are many people who come to visit you, not because they expect you to solve their problems, but simply because they want to see you live—to see you live life with such intensity! This is the greatest gift we can give, first to ourselves, and then to all the people who make the effort to support us: our families, our brothers and sisters, our husbands and wives, and all those who come to visit us. This is what we can bring to the world! Yes, even in a situation like yours. As a 15-year-old girl told me at lunch, I asked her, "What strikes you about this vacation?" "Seeing that, whatever situation I find myself in in life, I can live it like this." I asked myself what interest a vacation like this could have for a girl. And I was amazed that, of all the things she could have said to me, she replied this way. This is the most beautiful gift that a girl, already at the age of 15, can find as a proposal, as a working hypothesis for beginning to live her life. And it is not an abstract hypothesis but an experience that she has before her eyes! For this reason, we cannot give ourselves a greater gift than to bear witness to one another that Christ is truly life. And that all the time and space we give Him are only to see Him act and reveal Himself before our eyes. Everything He does not spare us is to make us see His victory, there—not outside, not in our thoughts, not when life is flat, but when life urges in all its drama. And then, without censoring anything, as Giussani always taught us, we can place a sign of hope in the world. Otherwise, “hope,” if it is not seen living in someone, is a word that does not take root in the heart of those who hear it. Instead, when a person is challenged by the evidence of an experience, some cracks open up. Then it will be their freedom that will have to discover it, through life, but it is the greatest gift we can give each other.
Nembrini. Let's start with the open questions! Come on!
Intervention. Last year, I heard Pigi Banna talk about when you used to visit him at the seminary. You would pick him up, get in the car, and he would list all his problems. At a certain point—I don't know if this is how it happened—you stopped the car and said, "If you're going to give me a list of your problems, you can get out." Something like that. The fact is that I found myself in a similar situation because at home I had a string of problems that overwhelmed me, and I found it extremely difficult to deal with them. Keeping your story in mind, I tried to put myself in your shoes, facing what was happening, and I tried to understand. This definitely created a dialogue with my wife that wasn't there before, or at least never happened. This situation went on for a while, but it wasn't enough because I looked at myself and all I had was patience. In short, I said, "Oh well, I'll wait," or "I'll see what happens," and so on. So much so that, after a while, I got really angry and spent two days working non-stop. The fact is that I had gone a bit too far; I talked about it with my friends, and one evening we sat around a table, and my wife and I both explained our positions. What struck me was that, at one point, she almost apologized for her behavior. I found myself in a situation I hadn't expected. And now I'm continuing like this, but it's difficult. I have a personality where I can't keep things inside; they have to come out. On the one hand, I'm afraid of bothering people; on the other, I'm afraid of having... What good is my personality? When she and I met, there were some strong feelings, and I was happy. Now I feel like I have to take a step back... but I want to be happier than I am now. It's not enough for me to come home and try to fix the situation. I've had more and I want more; I don't want to stop.
Carrón. And you mustn't stop! Because, you see, at a certain point, all these challenges are a great opportunity to get to the bottom of things. We often allow ourselves to be distracted by our temperament. But the fact is that everyone has their own! One can react in one way or another, but the point is that even one's own temperament can become tiresome. So, when you find yourself looking at reality, the problem is first and foremost one of knowledge: What is happening here? That is what you have gradually come to realize. What must we learn from this circumstance? Because if someone gets angry, that's fine; we can't change our temperament just like that. There's no point in making resolutions about congenital defects, because it's useless! The question is whether you can begin to recognize if what the other person offers you, or what reality reveals to you about yourself, helps you to become more aware of the appropriate position to deal with it. If not, it's a dialogue between deaf people. But we must not get stuck on temperamental reactions. The question is whether we have the desire to understand what we are talking about, because otherwise we will get nowhere.
Intervention. I would like to start from when you came to lunch at my place and said to me, "Are you done fooling yourself and fooling us?" That moment was like a stab in the liver, not in my heart. I wanted to start from this point because it's no longer fashionable to be angry. We're all angry now; there are too many of us already... But I wanted you to help us understand this point, which I keep thinking about, related to freedom. The transition you made at that lunch at my house is the same transition you made when... I don't talk to Don Eugenio anymore because he always starts from this point, so when I try to understand, the answer is, "Try to understand what you want."
Carrón. So, what is the question?
Intervention. There is no question. What can we do to avoid reaching the point of mocking the Mystery and ourselves?
Nembrini. It seems to me... This freedom, which you, Carrón, have described as the greatest gift—over time does it become a real experience, whereby one can become increasingly free?
Carrón. The only thing that convinced me, my dear, is seeing it in experience. That's why if you're stuck there and angry, like you were, you can't move forward or backward. But even that gets boring! Right?
Intervention. Yes.
Carrón. Perfect. So, when someone gets tired of being stuck and angry at the whole world—because even that is boring—they begin to perceive something that Giussani says: there is a space of freedom. I wanted to challenge you on the space of freedom you still had. If you have no space of freedom when you are stuck, the only thing left is to endure it. At first, I tried that too, but I got tired of enduring the situation of others, the circumstances, life, just like you! So I began to see these situations and the minimal space of freedom I still had left to play with as my opportunity. It was one of those moments when I sensed a turning point for me. And I had nothing else to offer you when I came except this: "Look, there is still something, a space of freedom that you can play with. You don't have to live constantly stuck, angry, suffocating in that situation." Because within us, despite the difficulties and circumstances, there is something irreducible, which is our freedom. And faced with this, one can decide to let a presence into one's life, or not. You see it when you get angry, the husband with his wife or the wife with her husband: you are there, facing each other, but you are so angry that you don't let them in. At a certain point, as our friend said before, it happens, and you let them in. We see it in the child with his mother when he gets angry and doesn't want to know anything.
Intervention. Even with Dad!
Carrón. Even with his father. Perfect. No one is saved here. So, the point—and this is what makes me so happy!—is that man is more than his reactions! Something more than his anger! Something more than his suffocation, his feeling of being stuck! There is a possibility for a relationship. First of all, with those around him, but above all with the Mystery. When I think of so many of you, this is precisely what changed your lives! It's not that you've fixed the situation or that you did it to fix it, because many situations are not solvable; they cannot be changed. So, is there nothing to be done? Since I can't fix it, do I have to be stuck for the rest of my life? No! Because I can always let a presence in. But I don't do this work because I'm sick. If I didn't do it every morning, I'd be angry like you, and I'm not sick. But how can you live without it? That's the problem. And that was the challenge I wanted to throw at you. Why? Out of love for you, out of love for your destiny. It was to say to you, "Open yourself up to another possibility!" For most people, this is too simple to change their lives. I really like Jesus' phrase, as if he were amazed at God's plan: "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to the simple."¹⁰ For the wise, these things are too simple! That life changes if one opens oneself to another seems too simple. It cannot be that the whole problem of living is letting a presence in! As for Jesus, that of the Father, and vice versa. This is why Jesus says: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened [angry, stuck], and I will give you rest. [...] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."¹¹ But this is too simple for the wise, who know more about life. Instead, Jesus experienced all circumstances, which, as we know, were not spared him, living this relationship: everything was an opportunity to open himself to this relationship that changed his life.
If we do not learn that the reason Christ came was to introduce us to a relationship with the Father, that he lived in every circumstance so that life could become life and not anger, rebellion, or suffocation, we will have to give ourselves the time necessary to discover it. We constantly see Jesus' dialogue with his disciples, who do not understand. Every time he raises the bar and spares them nothing, it is to show them that only those who live like him—of this relationship, letting in the presence of the Father, and we His—can begin to breathe and enjoy any circumstance without having to change anything about the concrete situation. What changes is the consciousness with which I live things! Because I am more than the sum of my circumstances! As Giussani says, we have reduced our perception of ourselves to antecedent factors, such as biology, psychology, history, illness, pathology... but we are more than that.
“The strength of a subject lies in the intensity of his self-awareness.”¹² What was Jesus’ self-awareness? How did He live everything? Faced with the abandonment of those who walked away after the multiplication of the loaves—because He had promised them a greater life that would meet their needs—or faced with the disciples who did not understand, or faced with Peter... what did he live on? On his relationship with the Father. If life is not this for us, we lose our lives while living!
Intervention. Three years ago, when my wife died, I had an incredible experience of grace, and I thought, "What else do I need to see in this world to understand that Jesus wins?"
Carrón. So much!
Intervention. That's exactly the question. Because I'd like to go there, but in the meantime, I'm here. So that means there's still a lot to discover. It's not always like that; it's not like you always live in a period of grace. At a certain point, you ask yourself, "Damn it, do I have to start all over again?" You said two things that struck me: that we need to be aware of the experience we have had and that we change methods, we move on. I wanted to understand this better, and I think I have the beginning of an answer.
Carrón. Go on, go on! Try!
Intervention. The first thing, in my opinion, was resting on my laurels: thinking that the grace I experienced was somehow my own doing, the result of something I did. The second is that, if that were the case, if one rests on the famous "treadmill," life would not be... I don't know, but I wanted to understand...
Carrón. The question is whether all the time we have been given to live, whatever the circumstances, is for this reason more than we can still discover. This is life, life-life! If we do not experience it here and now and think that eternal life is something in which we have nothing to discover, it would be better to become Buddhists because it would be eternal boredom. Instead, we begin to understand what life is, life-life, true life, eternal life, if we begin to intuit, to experience here that all the time we have been given to live is to discover Him more and more. As St. Paul says: "Forgetting what I have done, I press on to win the prize for which I was won."¹³ Otherwise, it is as if one already thought one knew everything, and what interest would there be? Life would be totally boring. Instead, it is the opposite. In the end, the problem is not whether to go to the other side or stay here. The problem is how we live, here or there! If it is not about something more, about entering into a mystery without limits, about a fullness without boundaries, about a greater experience of myself, of the fullness of myself and of you... then I understand that people have no reason to continue living. And the more dramatic life becomes, the more this emerges. But what can we offer to people, and first of all to ourselves? That whatever circumstances we are not spared are given to us precisely for this reason: for the ever more fascinating discovery of who Christ is. Otherwise, there is no life. A medieval father, who struck me deeply, said: "When the love of Christ absorbs the heart of man in such a total way [...], poverty is no longer a burden; he no longer feels insults; he laughs at disgrace; he no longer takes account of those who wrong him, and considers death a gain. He does not even think about dying [because the Mystery does not call him!], since he is aware, rather, that he is passing from death to life; and he says with confidence: 'I will go and see him before I die!'"¹⁴ This is what each of us can do at this moment. Every moment contains this possibility of our freedom to recognize Him. And everything is at stake here. Otherwise, it is empty; the moment is empty. And an empty moment is unbearable! Imagine if it were one moment after another, after another... it would be even more unbearable! Whereas, to have the constant possibility of making this discovery, every morning, placing ourselves before the Mystery, because it is enough for Him to penetrate the horizon of our life... Think of a child who starts crying and, as soon as his mother enters his field of vision, everything changes. If this happens with the face of his mother, what can happen if His presence enters the horizon of our life, of our gaze, of our consciousness?! But no one will convince you that this is real unless you experience it. Because the means of knowing an experience such as the Christian experience is the evidence of the experience itself! Therefore, young people, no one can do it for us! Let's stop complaining! Because it's a waste of time. Not that I'm scandalized by complaints, no, no, no... But this will not give us even a millimeter, a moment of experience of what we need! Therefore, we cannot spare it from one another. You see it too, when children get stuck, when we get angry or stuck. The only thing that will convince us is having the freedom and boldness to let Him in! Only this can truly convince us. No other company is up to the task, because if it is not a company that introduces us to this relationship, it is not enough. The true company—Jesus—is the one who introduced the disciples to the relationship with the Father. When someone wanted to lower the bar, as Peter did, Jesus said, “Get away from me; I don’t want anything to do with you.”¹⁵ Life is given to us for this, and Christ entered history to introduce us to this relationship. The challenge is before each of us, every moment, whatever the circumstances; no illness, no anger, no situation can prevent it! This is the greatness of man: he cannot be reduced. And even when he is reduced, there is always the possibility that, suddenly, the game will start again. This is the charm of living. Everything else is too little! For me. Are you satisfied with that? Keep it, but I want nothing to do with it.
Intervention. When I was sick, in bed, and unable to move, it was like living in a period of grace because I recognized that everything was given to me. I am a person who likes to help others, and when I couldn't do anything, I saw that others were helping me, and I was amazed and grateful. The problem is that this is not enough because time passes, I start to feel better, and now I am on my feet. There was a time when I was better, but I was afraid to leave the house, whereas now I'm starting to help out at a help center again because that way I'm in touch with reality, but I ask myself, "Where has all the gratitude I felt gone? How can I hold on to it?" What does the work you do every day, as you say, mean to you? Because I can't imagine doing something like that every day.
Carrón. Perfect. This is the question I ask you: "How can you live without doing so?" How can you bear yourself without letting His presence in?
Intervention. Badly...
Carrón. Not me. I don't have anything more important to do in life. There is no greater help, even for others, than letting Him in. Why? Because it is the way we can show others that there is no circumstance, occasion, or moment that cannot be transfigured. It is not because we are better, more successful, or more powerful, nor because we have willpower, no! It is because we are more like children. Because we let Him in as children do: "The kingdom of heaven is for those who resemble them,”¹⁶ children. But for a child, it is natural to be captivated by the face of their mother, while being a child as an adult is a challenge, a miracle. That is why, you see, you have made the journey, but you have not completed it. When you were stuck in bed, you were grateful, but then life started again, and you forgot. Now the problem has resurfaced, but not as a misfortune! If you did not feel the urgency to meet Him again, to let Him in, you could live without Him. You must not blame yourself: "So everything I experienced before was useless!" No, it helped you realize that only when you let Him in does your life shine, is it full, is it full of joy, while if you don't let Him in, you haven't learned anything yet. It's not circumstances that are decisive; it's the self-awareness we have of what we've learned. What you say is true because often nothing remains of what we experience. As one of my students says, "Everything I experience is wiped out, professor. Nothing remains." And then we are surprised. But what if this were an opportunity to learn? Thank goodness that, even though I wipe it out, the urgency reemerges; otherwise, what would I live for? So I start looking at this too, not getting angry that I haven't learned anything yet, but as an opportunity to learn it now! And everything is turned upside down! If we don't learn this positive outlook on everything that happens, we will always have an excuse to complain and look at our navels instead of letting another presence in.
Intervention. A month and a half ago, my husband went to Heaven. I am experiencing, to my own surprise, that it is possible to be happy even in pain, even when accompanying one's husband to his destiny. Many beautiful things have happened in this painful circumstance. On the day of the funeral, at the cemetery, when we said goodbye, Don Eugenio said to me, "Now you have a task: don't forget." This phrase comes back to me from time to time as a question I would like to ask you: what does "don't forget" mean to you? Why is it so important? And how can it be done? For example, many friends say to me, "Write, write, keep these facts." I try to write something down from time to time, but I ask myself, is that all there is?
Carrón. I don't make resolutions like that because I never follow through on them. I believe that life, in its very dynamism, answers all these questions. You see? First of all, you are surprised that you can be so joyful despite the death of your husband. But even that is not enough because life is urgent! And what if that is precisely the contribution—that urgency I mentioned at the beginning, that we constantly carry with us and cannot erase—that helps us not to forget? We must not worry. Because life, the urgency of living, continues to knock at the door! Do you see how it knocks? You may not be able to write or remember, but it knocks. The real question arises when it knocks! And I feel all the urgency and all the intensity of this urgency: What is my freedom doing?! Guys, it's not a question of "what it's doing," of what action it must take. It's a question of realizing who I am. Who is the Presence that I have encountered in my life? We have to change the question—how do we do it?—because it's not a question of doing, it's a question of realizing! Realizing a Presence. What can help you most to realize that Presence? Urgency. Go along with the urgency! Not trying not to get distracted, not to get angry... no! It is Him! It is He who comes and says to you, "Don't you miss me?" "How long has it been since you thought of me?" "What is life like without letting Me in?" Since this keeps coming back, in one situation or another, there is no greater help on this journey than urgency! Than life itself! Than the impatience we have inside! The restlessness! That heart that "has no rest" that St. Augustine speaks of. This is how He is calling us. We think that this urgency of ours is something we invent, something we give ourselves and sustain. No, it is Him! It is Him! "But don't you miss me?" And then? That is where our freedom is at stake: if I let Him in, life explodes; if I don't let Him in, because it is too simple for the wise, too simplistic, then we see the consequences.
Intervention. You said that when you are stuck, angry, or feel like there is no way out, and you cannot bear the situation you are in, at a certain point, you have to gamble with your freedom, letting Him in—basically changing your attitude. I sometimes find myself in this situation and maybe start doing this work. Sometimes I do it, but at that very moment, I am assailed by doubt: "Is what I'm doing really opening the door to Him, or is it sweeping the dust under the rug so that at least it can't be seen?" And that's where I fall, because I think, "No, it's me who wants to dodge the issue, who wants to sweep the dust under the rug." How can I verify whether it's me who's sweeping the dust under the rug or whether I'm really letting His presence in?
Carrón. Each of us can discover what we are doing, as we read in yesterday's Gospel: "A tree is recognized by its fruit."¹⁷ If you sweep the dust under the rug, is it the same as letting in His presence? This is what will convince you. Whether it is simply trying to distract yourself with other things, shifting your thoughts, or letting His presence in. Here we come to the point: but is Christ a presence for us? If you think of the most brilliant moment of your being in love, were you confused when you let in the presence of that person, who had begun to be so important in your life that you could hardly live a moment without returning to her? Was it the same as trying to distract yourself? We need to help ourselves with trivial examples to see if it is the same, one thing or the other—what happens in one case and in the other. Because you can only answer with experience, not with an explanation. An explanation is the closest thing to an experience, but it is something else. The explanation of being in love is the closest thing to being in love, but being in love is something else entirely! And anyone who is looking for someone to fall in love with knows this well. It's not enough to read a novel about love, or to read beautiful descriptions of love, or to fall in love with ChatGPT as if it were a person. You can see the difference. But your question is very pertinent because only experience can answer this doubt.
Intervention. I need to gain experience.
Carrón. You have to experience it; it’s the only way. It’s like asking yourself this question when you’re in love. If, after hearing me speak, someone were to say, “Are you sure that when you think this way about Christ’s presence, it’s real? Or is it an invention?” I would respond, “If someone had asked you the same question when you were thinking about the person you love, what would you have answered?” “How can I explain it to you? I just hope it happens to you! Then you’ll see the answer because nothing else can convince you as much as the evidence of an experience.” This is the big question: only the evidence of an experience can respond to our urgency. That’s why I was struck by the phrase of Fr. Giussani that I mentioned earlier: “Christianity, being a present Reality, has as its instrument of knowledge the evidence of an experience.”¹⁸ And what comparison does he use to explain this? “As is noticeable in the dynamics of any encounter [such as with a loved one] in which the most important, decisive, and real factors emerge.” It is the evidence of an experience. We must face this question head-on because doubts often frighten us. No, look at them! Ask yourself if it is the same thing to sweep dust under the rug or to recognize a Presence. Because it is only in experience that you can recognize it.
Intervention. First of all, I wanted to thank you for this wonderful vacation. I arrived today! I also wanted to tell you that I have a very close friendship with Jesus, whom I call “my Prince Charming.” However, I find it difficult to talk about it because I am ashamed and afraid of being considered a visionary. But when you spoke today and said, “You have to say it,” you challenged me too much… I have to say it!
Carrón. Don't worry, dear, because you can say it or not, but we can see it on your face!
Participant. I want to understand something: is my inability or difficulty in forgiving due to the fact that I don't let Christ in, or that I select the circumstances in which He can enter and those in which He cannot?
Carrón. I don't care what the difficulty is; the only question is: can you let Christ in now? Even if you are not capable of forgiving? See what happens.
Nembrini. He has shifted us; that is not the problem. The problem is: re-verify! That is what he has been telling us all day. But I do not want to comment.
Intervention. On the occasion of the Jubilee, my husband and I had the opportunity to go to Rome. We received a gift, an offer from the social education center that our daughter attends: to keep our daughter with them for four days, with educators who know her. Everything went well and we returned home peacefully; she came back very happy. However, after a few days, the head teacher suggested that she join a working group with different teams and psychologists for six years. I saw hope when I needed it most, when she was diagnosed with her illness. I also saw it thanks to the 2021 Spiritual Exercises, entitled "Is there hope?", which accompanied me. I really saw it because I was completely down. This time, however, I was full of fear, guilt, attachment, affection: will the illness return? I am no longer that person who was full of hope. But yesterday and today something beautiful happened. I cannot swim. Although this is my third year coming to Calambrone, it is the first time I have set foot in the water. Don Eugenio and Enrico were there, but I struggled; I stiffened up and couldn't do it, and I thought, "There's no hope here." Then I saw a friend of ours from the Quadratini entering the water holding Don Eugenio and Enrico's hands, and he was able to swim! And I felt like crying, because he trusted them! So I asked myself: I'm afraid if I don't touch the ground; therefore, it means that I'm calculating what will happen. Does this have anything to do with it?
Carrón. Give yourself all the time you need to entrust yourself.
Nembrini. See? Often the answers are much quicker than the questions! Go on!
Intervention. I was at the meeting in Bergamo on "Is there hope?" and when I spoke, I asked you how one could trust the criteria, and you replied, "Okay, now you tell me!" I had a thousand examples, and it was wonderful because I felt very loved by you at that moment. When I sat down, I felt a great tenderness towards myself and I thought, "Wow, I have everything in front of my eyes right now!" That restlessness, which you started with at that meeting and which you mentioned just now, is me. That beautiful restlessness, right now, is me. My relationship with my mother—who has been diagnosed with a particular form of ALS that affects only her face—has never been easy, but seeing her every day, going to visit her, has made me see, as you said in that meeting, the witness, who is the Risen One. I experience this there: she doesn't speak, we don't talk, but the way she caresses me, the way she looks at me, the way she... The same is true of my relationship with my husband and with her, who sang earlier... the relationship is changing because all the questions I had inside me are coming out with incredible power! So, I thank you because what you told us today is really true: that's how it is in experience. Thank you!
Carrón. If you invite me, don't do it because I'll save you the trouble. Because it seems as if I'm making fun of you. So find someone else, because I won't spare you, precisely because I am certain that one can only be convinced through experience. This is why the Mystery created us free. This is the ultimate reason for freedom. If I weren't free, I couldn't perceive it as an answer to me. It is not an explanation that responds, but a discovery, an experience! For this reason, I am glad that you reacted this way to my response, because it was not that I did not take what you said seriously, but because I did not want to spare you the work. This example always comes to mind, and it seems to me that all parents agree on it. People often ask, "How much should I help my child, and how much space should I give them to do things on their own?" Tell me, who among you thinks that loving a child means sparing them from doing their homework? Does anyone, in their right mind, think that loving a child means sparing them from doing their homework? If someone tells you that they will save you the homework, it's not helping you! First, because they don't trust your tenacity, your ability to succeed, and therefore they are belittling you. With that answer, I was saying to you, "You can experience this!" And that's the only thing that can answer your question because only experiencing it yourself can convince you. Because Jesus didn't come to spare us our lives, as Giussani says in Why the Church; he came to educate us in the religious sense, in this drama of living. Otherwise, we would spare ourselves the challenges we face in each other. That's not loving each other. I threw the ball back to you, challenging you, so that you could be here today and witness all this. Perhaps I could have reassured you by giving you an answer to learn, but you would not have had the experience you had!
Nembrini. I'll ask the last question, which is very simple. This friendship that God has given us, which we have called "Quadratini" over the years and which you know very well—you are here today and we are happy about that—is truly extraordinary. We are experiencing that even the friendship of the “Quadratini” is not enough. So, what is the most precious thing you give us? Not “what we must do,” but what we must keep in mind among ourselves, in our being together? The thing that, in your opinion, is most precious for this personal journey of judgment in the experience we are having.
Carrón. For me, the most decisive thing about a company like ours is what I said before: that our friendship is an opportunity to constantly introduce each other, to invite each other with our lives to enter into the only relationship that is decisive for living. Jesus did not come to create an NGO, nor to simply make us a “nice company”; Jesus came to bring us knowledge of the Father. To introduce us to this relationship. If a company like ours is not meant to introduce us to this relationship, it will not be enough. Why will it not be enough? Because, in the end, the problem, the drama, the sickness, the inadequacy... each of us experiences them firsthand; therefore, if we are not introduced to that relationship, which is the only solution to the drama of living—that is why I began this way: "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world if he loses himself?"—it will be insufficient. And the more urgent life becomes, the more this becomes evident.
You are lucky because the drama you are experiencing does not allow you to lower the bar. Even if you lower it, a moment later, the pain, the illness, the inadequacy, the drama... re-emerges! So any response that is less than this is too little.
Nembrini. Thank you so much! I'll conclude with something you said some time ago, in a meeting with the Anaconda association, because we want to feel that you are our companion on this journey, in the true sense of the word. It's something I've repeated many times, Enrico even more so, because he was there when, meeting Anaconda, you said, "I want to be your companion in life." And they immediately thought, "How nice, maybe he'll come back to visit us!" Instead, you said, "And I'll probably never see you again." And you didn't come back, right? You said to them, "I will keep you company—but real company! How? By embracing, obeying, living the life that the Mystery will ask of me. I will keep you company by living."
Carrón. I'm not here to give you speeches because I don't believe in them. My company is living. If you're interested, you have it right here in front of you; otherwise, look for someone else.
Nembrini. Thank you again!
¹ See Lk 9:25. ² Zucchero, "È delicato," 2006. ³ Leopardi, Pensieri, LXVIII. ⁴ Leo XIV, Video message to young people in Chicago and throughout the world, Wrigley Field, Chicago, June 14, 2025. ⁵ Leo XIV, Address to the Bishops of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Hall of Blessings, June 17, 2025. ⁶ M. Scholz-Zappa, Luigi Giussani. L’esperienza elementare (Milan: Jaca Book, 2024), p. 11. ⁷ L. Giussani, Il senso religioso (The Religious Sense) (Milan: BUR Rizzoli, 2023), p. 148. ⁸ Ibid., pp. 168-169. ⁹ L. Giussani, Avvenimento di libertà (Genoa: Marietti 1820, 2002), p. 190. ¹⁰ Mt 11:25. ¹¹ Mt 11:27-30. ¹² L. Giussani, The Meaning of God and Modern Man (Milan: BUR Rizzoli, 2010), p. 132. ¹³ See Phil 3:12. ¹⁴ Guerric d’Igny, Sermo I, in Pascha, 4-5. ¹⁵ Cf. Mt 16:23. ¹⁶ Mt 19:14. ¹⁷ See Mt 12:33. ¹⁸ L. Giussani, Avvenimento di libertà, op. cit., p. 190.
(Notes not reviewed by the author.)
