Embracing Our Humanity

English. Spanish. Italian.

Ignacio Carbajosa - "Faith boils down to this agonizing question: Can a cultured man, a European of our time, truly believe—believe completely—in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ?"

When Fr. Giussani quoted Dostoevsky in the third chapter of his work At the Origin of the Christian Claim, he did so not out of mere academic curiosity. The problem facing young people in 1950s Italy, like the problem facing my generation—those of us born in 1960s Catholic Spain—was dramatically linked to that question posed by the Russian genius.

The positivist and rationalist culture that permeated Western society had left the word "God," and everything that could not be touched or experimentally verified, devoid of any real content. Half the words in the catechism remained abstract, even if they were still used, sometimes carelessly, in society or in church youth groups. In the late 1960s and during the 1970s, the young people who crowded the churches and oratories abandoned the faith as one might cast off a worn-out garment: without drama, though not without dramatic consequences, as time has since shown.

How would the mystery of God, who had shown His power with the resurrection of Christ almost two thousand years earlier, challenge this radical objection to the faith that threatened the presence of the Church in the West?

In hindsight, we can now recognize in Fr. Giussani, and in the charism that the Holy Spirit gave him, God’s mercy toward His people. Fr. Giussani’s personal history, the historical events he had to endure, are part of the way God intervenes in history.

The first thing that strikes us—a key part of the novelty that Fr. Giussani introduced in Milan in the 1950s—is that he did not have to pretend to be "modern" to approach modern man, as we still see so pathetically in many churchmen who hide their clericalism under "fashionable" clothes. Fr. Giussani was "born" modern; he did not have to pretend. He himself experienced firsthand, and had to traverse, the great temptation and objection of the modern world. His "encounter" with Giacomo Leopardi when he was only thirteen wounded him deeply, exposing within his own humanity the great needs of the heart that have driven modern man to seek happiness. Not only that, but those needs—as old as humanity itself—arose in Fr. Giussani through his encounter with Leopardi in a problematic, nihilistic context. From that moment on, and for three years, even the sacrosanct words of the catechism, heard, read, and studied in the seminary, remained suspended for him.

Until the "beautiful day" arrived.

"The Word became flesh means that beauty became flesh, it means that truth became flesh, it means that justice became flesh, it means that goodness became flesh." The prologue to the Gospel of John, read and explained by his professor Gaetano Corti, reconciled the young seminarian's humanity with the Christian event. Beauty, Justice, Truth, Meaning—sought in so many ways by Leopardi and, therefore, by Giussani—became flesh in Christ and are offered to our experience just as they were offered to the experience of the disciples two thousand years ago.

From that moment, the personal story of that young seminarian became a story of grace for the world: "God [...] had me go through the seminary that way because I had to create CL; otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it" (L. Giussani, "Tu" (o dell’amicizia), p. 43).

I, too, was born into a context that was formally Catholic and, at the same time, culturally nihilistic. I could say that this context had instilled in me an aversion to faith: even though I wanted and needed God to exist (otherwise, death and suffering would have remained meaningless), my positivist reasoning relegated that existence to the realm of "beliefs" and feelings (which, in any case, I was unable to muster).

Specifically, there were three objections I found myself facing—the same ones the dominant culture had opposed to the very concept of God and the Christian faith for two centuries. My encounter with Fr. Giussani was the historic event of grace that allowed me to believe, truly believe, in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and, consequently, to breathe and embrace my entire humanity with all its needs.

The first objection was positivism. According to my education, reality did not point to anything beyond itself; only what could be seen and touched existed. Therefore, "God" was a meaningless word, without any real referent. Fr. Giussani, however, opened my eyes and my reason to the realization that the primary religious domain is reality itself: the very fact that things exist points to the Being that sustains them and brings me into existence at this very moment.

The second objection came with school. During my adolescence, I was a volcano in full eruption, assailed by countless desires, all of which pointed to the need for an answer. Unfortunately, Feuerbach (whom I read and assimilated at school) broke the link between my desires and their fulfillment. From him, I gathered that religion is nothing more than a projection of my desires—that these desires point to nothing and have no meaning. Those were years I spent drowning, a consequence of having no horizon for my desires and needs. Fr. Giussani, on the other hand, prompted me to use my reason, to take seriously what I observed at work in my own humanity. He helped me understand that my restless humanity is already a sign of the companionship of the divine Mystery drawing me to Himself—a sort of wedding ring. Indeed, that restlessness was the radar that allowed me to intercept the new humanity of Christ in my encounter with Fr. Giani.

The third and final objection goes back to the masters of the Enlightenment, Lessing and Kant. According to them, a historical event (which Christianity is) cannot be the keystone for a universal problem of reason (such as the meaning of life). In meeting Fr. Giussani, I had encountered Christianity, but because of that objection, it seemed impossible that what I had found—a particular event—could be the answer to the longing of all human history. Fr. Giussani, however, taught me to use the criterion of the heart, of my original needs, to recognize that this event was true. Because it is true for me today.

I will always be grateful to Fr. Giussani, and to the Spirit of Christ who inspired him, for restoring to me the full meaning of my humanity. From an enemy, it became a friend, a companion on the journey—indeed, the very presence of the Mystery in my restlessness. Just as Christ once removed the stone from the tomb, today He continues to show Himself victorious over death and evil by removing even those other stones—the modern objections to faith—that seemed to bury the Christian event definitively in the past. Fr. Giussani is certainly part of the historical unfolding of that victory.
The author has not revised the text and its translation by the staff at epochalchange.org