Is There Hope?
Julián Carrón - A dialogue on faith and religiosity.
Daniele: Dear friends, it is with gratitude and emotion that we come to the end of this series of meetings, “The Sparkle in the Eyes,” promoted by the San Michele Arcangelo Foundation. I bring you the warmest greetings from the President, our dear friend Luca Baravalle, who could not be here this evening due to institutional commitments.
First, I would like to thank Don Julián and Don Eugenio from the bottom of my heart for their presence and their discreet and profound fatherhood. As they remind us, one cannot be a father unless one is a son. Only by living as sons—that is, by entrusting ourselves—can we, in turn, become fathers capable of generating life.
Thanks to the journey we have made, we have rediscovered that the criterion for judgment is not foreign to us but dwells within the heart of every human being. It is a real possibility, given to each of us, to verify in full freedom that every circumstance—even the most unexpected or the most difficult, and we at San Michele know something about this—can be an essential factor in our vocation.
At the center of all this is an event that took place 2,000 years ago and continues to reach us today through the faces and words of those who accompany and awaken us. This encounter keeps our humanity alive and teaches us to look at everything with new eyes. Thanks to this experience, discernment is reawakened and enlightened, allowing us to recognize the sparkle in people's eyes—a sign that life, even today, is a call to hope and responsibility.
I conclude with the challenge recently posed by Pope Francis: “It is not a matter of giving hasty answers to difficult questions, but rather of drawing close to people, listening to them, trying to understand with them how to face difficulties, and being ready to open ourselves, when necessary, to new criteria of evaluation and different ways of acting, because each generation is different from the next and presents its own challenges, dreams, and questions.”
Thank you to all of you for being here this evening.
Don Eugenio: Certainly, these days, it seems to take courage to open the newspaper in the morning and ask, “Is there hope?” It would seem that everything says the exact opposite. So tonight, we want to conclude the work we have done in person this year with about sixty people, and with many connected remotely, as the main theme was hope. We have worked on this text, which you know very well, and we are delighted to conclude this work. It is an attempt we have made, together with you who wrote it, to help us take that step of seriousness and maturity that we seek. We want to become mature, joyful, and certain.
So, I'll start with a very simple question. If I had written this book—which is impossible, but if I had—a book called Is There Hope?, I would have put three exclamation marks, because I would say, “Of course there is hope!” and then tell you why. Why did you write a book titled Is There Hope? with a question mark? Do you want to leave the question open? Let's start there. And then, whoever has prepared questions, please come forward.
Carrón: Hello, everyone, and good evening. Let's take this opportunity to address a crucial question directly. Years ago, when we were choosing the title for the spiritual exercises, we were faced with an open question: Was it better to make a statement or ask a question? Not just any question, but this one: “Is there real hope? Is there hope?”
Why this choice? We wanted the title to encompass every human situation touched by this question. If we had made a statement, we would have somehow excluded those who do not share that certainty. Instead, a question that everyone feels deeply allows everyone to feel involved because it recognizes those who take their questions seriously.
One might think this is simply for “others”; however, this question is particularly interesting for those who are certain of this hope—both for those who live it and for those who do not. I have always been struck by a phrase from Giussani from years ago in which he describes the situation in which we existentially live our faith.
He said: "We Christians, in the modern climate, have not been detached from Christian formulas—hope, charity, Christian answers. We have not been detached from Christian formulas, nor have we been detached from Christian rites. Some rites still remain. We are not even detached from the laws, from the Christian Decalogue—even if this is less and less the case. We have been detached from the human foundation, that is, from the religious center. We have a faith,” Giussani said, “that is no longer religiosity. We have a faith that no longer responds, as it should, to the religious sense.”
We have a faith, that is—and this is the consequence of ignoring the question—that is not conscious: a faith that is no longer intelligent about itself. It seems to me that we have often repeated, “Is there hope?” while taking its meaning for granted. And so, if one repeats things without consciously asking the question, even if one has the answer, the answer “does not respond as it should to religious sentiment.” This is why the consequence is a faith that is not self-aware.
We see this very clearly because a faith that is not self-aware is precisely what leads to a loss of faith. Everything we are experiencing, such as this detachment, is because for many years we have repeated Christian formulas without being aware of what human question they respond to.
So this is not simply a desire to embrace everyone; it is, first and foremost, an urgent need for all of us not to repeat formulas in a formal way. It's not that we don't say it—and mind you, I sincerely do not question anyone's sincerity when they repeat it; but sincerity is one thing, and awareness of what one is saying is another.
This becomes clear when life challenges us. Are we not often surprised that what we thought was sufficiently rooted in us, in fact, was not? And so, many times, even if we repeat things, the urgency of living makes us take the questions seriously again to walk the path that we had not walked before.
I am amazed that this sensitivity—which we learned from Fr. Giussani on so many occasions—is what we are now seeing in Pope Francis. In just a few months, he has repeated this point frequently.
For example, in a video message to young people in Chicago, the Pope said: "We all live with many questions in our hearts. St. Augustine speaks so often of our heart that has no rest,” and he says, “Our heart has no rest until it rests in You, Lord.” He adds, “This restlessness is not a bad thing. We should not look for ways to extinguish the fire of this restlessness, to eliminate or even anesthetize ourselves to the tensions we feel or the difficulties we experience. Rather, we should get in touch with our hearts and recognize that God can work in our lives. It is precisely through us that He can reach other people, because only if we have this perception of these questions can we then more easily reach others who have them. We avoid giving them, as we often do, the ‘little religious lesson’ to their questions, instead of walking with people along the path that makes them aware of the question, so that everyone can walk the path that will lead them to find the answer."
Just yesterday, he addressed the Italian bishops and repeated this point in another way. The Pope said: "In this scenario, human dignity risks being flattened or forgotten—because if the question is lost, dignity is flattened or forgotten, replaced by function, automatisms, or simulations. When these fundamental questions are flattened, instead of seeking a true answer adequate to the drama of the question, we replace the answers with functions, roles, automatisms, or simulations. But the person is not a system of algorithms: he or she is a creature, a relationship, a mystery. I would therefore like to express a hope: that the journey of the Churches in Italy will include, in coherent symbiosis with the centrality of Jesus, the anthropological vision as an essential tool for pastoral discernment and for the journey of Christian proclamation." Because without this, we give answers to questions we do not have, as we have done so many times, with all the consequences that are now evident to the whole world.
In fact, when Giussani started the movement, he did so after realizing that for many students in his class, all the answers they had received during years of catechesis—in addition to Christian initiation with baptism and confirmation, and hours and hours of oratory—had, after a while, become empty, and many had already “turned away.” So what did he do? What we are discussing: he proposed the faith in a reasonable way, showing, or trying to show, the relevance of the faith to the demands of life.
If this is not done constantly, every morning, we see others with their minds caged by worries, already weighed down just by waking up. "Yes, there is hope. Are we talking about centuries past?" No, we are talking about every morning. This is what the Pope says.
This perception of the human person is an essential tool for communicating the faith. If anyone needs to understand this, it is us. Because what Giussani did was precisely this: it is the point from which we can understand why Jesus is not just a name, a word that is ultimately empty. It is the perception of oneself. Only those who have this tenderness with themselves, this full awareness of themselves in their drama, will be able to understand the meaning of Christ; otherwise, "Christ" will be pronounced as a mere name.
For this reason, a lively reflection on the human person—on his vulnerability, his thirst for the infinite, and his capacity for bonding—is fundamental, the Pope continues. Ethics is reduced to a code, to “things to do” that we do not perceive as adequate for the demands of living. And faith risks becoming disembodied. Therefore, Giussani would say that it is a faith that is not reasonable, not perceived in all its awareness.
For this reason, it seems to me that this is not simply about a question mark; behind this question mark is the entire method of Christian proclamation.
So, everyone can see in their own lives why this attempt to explain and answer your question is not simply formalism. For us, does every instant, every moment of life have this drama within it, or is it empty formalism?
Because the issue is that so often, deep down, we wake up feeling flat. As someone I met in Madrid last week said, when we were talking about this drama of awakening, he was amazed that this sense of flattening had already won from the first moment of the day.
Hope and Reality: A Dialogue on Criteria and Lived Faith
Don Eugenio: The good thing, if I may say so, is that in the work we did, there was little flattening. On the contrary, it was beautiful, because reality touches and provokes questions for many of us who were present, and those questions emerged. So, let's begin.
Intervention (Alessandra): My name is Alessandra. I am from Romagna and came to work here in Milan, so I took advantage of the opportunity. I'll start, because what struck me immediately about these exercises was precisely that question mark. And that question mark has always sparked and set in motion a personal journey. The answer, as I was saying, is not pre-packaged.
In this regard, I was struck by the three criteria that Giussani lists in the work we studied—I won't list them now to keep this brief—for understanding how much and when you can trust a person or a place. This “game,” in my opinion—of discerning what is true in others and in ourselves—leads to a true correspondence, because both sides are involved, without pretense, as in a true loving relationship. Could you explain this further? I understood it as a dynamic process, but I feel you could clarify it. I sense that when a person makes these three criteria their own, they then also see them in the other person and vice versa. I wanted to make sure I understood correctly.
Carrón: No, I want to understand exactly what the question is.
Intervention (Alessandra): If you could explain these three better...
Carrón: Why? For what purpose?
Intervention (Alessandra): Because it struck me that in my experience, when I grasp these three criteria, they come back to me. Where do I find them?
Carrón: Give me some examples.
Intervention (Alessandra): I find them in myself. And when—I don't know, I can't explain it right now—but when I also see in a relationship that a person is genuine with me, I ask myself, “But do I have these criteria—this gratitude, this loyalty—to give to the other person?” And so it's like giving back to the other person what I would like for myself, do you understand? So, I'd like to understand if this is true for me, because I feel that it...
Carrón: Where have you seen that it's true?
Intervention: ...that it makes me walk, that's it.
Carrón: How did you see that it makes you walk?
Intervention: In my relationship with them, with...
Carrón: Give me an example! Because this is the work you have to do; you can't think that I have to do the work for you, okay?
Intervention (Alessandra): Come on, I can't think of anything right now.
Don Eugenio: Think about it.
Intervention (Alessandra): Yes, I will.
Intervention (Isabella): Hi, I'm Isabella. I'm very grateful for the work you've done this year on your text, Don Carrón. And I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you for some more help. Four years ago, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which required a radical change in my lifestyle and introduced a new awareness that I can sum up in a phrase from Don Eugenio: “The point, when facing things, is not what to do, but how to be present.” Then Pietro, our first child, arrived, who flew to heaven in the seventh month of pregnancy. And here too, a phrase from Don Eugenio came to mind: “The point is whether it is desperate pain or pain with Christ.” It happened that the more alive that pain was, the more alive was the question of Christ showing Himself in my daily life. And that is precisely how I can say that Christ also triumphed in that death.
I'll get to the point: we have been given another great grace, and we are expecting our son, Matteo. Like Pietro, it was immediately clear to us that this life was a gift. At the same time, however, I was filled with anxiety, the fear that he too might fly to heaven prematurely. This anxiety at times becomes very strong, even after everything we have been through. I find myself saying that my hope (Sperem, in Italian) is totally sterile. Shortly before an appointment for the little one, a friend wrote to me, “I pray that His will be done,” and I repeated the Our Father, thinking it wouldn't be so bad if, for once, my will and His coincided. When I told my friend about this, he said, “I pray that everything will be fine and that His will be done. The two things coincide.” Since that day, I pray that the little one will grow and be well and that my faith will grow, because I find it difficult to have this total trust in Christ. This is where I ask for your help. Sometimes I wonder if my faith is small and sterile, incapable of generating that certain hope of which you have given so many examples in your book.
Carrón: You see, the criteria Alessandra mentioned earlier emerge in the impact with reality. You may have often felt flattened, taking everything for granted. But a challenge like the one you had to face reawakened all the needs you found within yourself. And after going through that experience, now facing the arrival of Matteo, this is multiplied even more, isn't it?
So what do we see in this experience? Sometimes we think of these things as artificial, as somewhat abstruse reasoning we must do for the journey. But no, definitely not. The first criterion we discussed—as Don Giussani says—is that experience begins with reality. It hits you, and you are shocked. It makes the criteria of the heart leap out. It awakens your heart, pulls you out of the flatness where you were previously confused and asleep, and therefore awakens you to yourself. And there your journey begins, because you are awake, critical, and conscious of yourself.
So this addresses our legendary question: “But how do you do it?” As if it were something complicated, only for “insiders,” for people who have nothing better to do. No, life is urgent. And the more urgent it is and the more it challenges you, the more the question emerges. This is why we have repeated so many times the phrase that “those who have been spared the effort of living cannot become aware of themselves, awaken, be fully conscious of who they are and what their human needs are, and what the vibration of their reason is.” You didn't have to go through some complicated journey for the urgency of your reason to awaken.
It simply emerged as you lived, didn't it? And the further you go after the journey you have made, it is not that this has failed in the face of what you have experienced. Now, with Matteo's arrival, it is even more alive. We are the ones who think that Christ comes to flatten things. In reality, if we see what happens, it is quite the opposite, in two ways. One, Christ did not promise us that meeting Him would spare us the effort of living, right? So the urgency continues. It continued after what you experienced before, and now with this new expectation. So the urgency is still alive.
But also, the Christian encounter doesn't simply flatten the question; on the contrary, it awakens it even more. If we are attentive, the more we see Christ's presence in action and the more familiar His exceptionality becomes, the more we are constantly struck by the newness He introduces. He reawakens in all those who stood before him the question: “Who is this man?” It is the opposite of flattening questions, because the more one is provoked by something real, the more the question emerges.
So, what can you answer to this urgency that you feel now, before Matteo's gift and your anxiety? What have you learned? What if this anxiety that your affection for Matteo introduces were the occasion for the answer never to be taken for granted, and for it to become something real in Christ that you discover more and more in its density, in its relevance to the need of your anxiety?
If you let this fall away today, or tomorrow when everything is going well, what will remain of your passion for Matteo's destiny? And what would you communicate to Matteo? Empty, formal phrases? Or would you communicate to him, by living it every time he sees your face, that the answer to his being, to his existence, is something you owe him and are giving him now by responding to your concern for his destiny? If we spare ourselves this, we understand well that a faith detached from religious meaning becomes formal. And we ourselves become formal a moment later.
How do we know this? How can you prevent the “already known”? Anxiety! But not because I say that anxiety is only negative, as the Pope said. We have this perception. But if you did not feel it, you could not recognize Christ every day as the answer to your anxiety, and you could not see how He responds to this restlessness as a present fact, as a present presence that can respond to your anxiety. If this is not the case, everything is formal! We can repeat the formulas, but “when the Son of Man returns, will he still find faith on earth?” Faith as a recognition of a presence that one needs to live, not a formal repetition of formulas already known. In the beginning, the documented anxiety shows that what little faith there is, as recognition, is a formal repetition of formulas, to be peddled!
If we do not understand this, we do not see, as the Pope says, that this is not a negative thing. If this is the fire we want to extinguish, eliminate, or anesthetize—yes, if we anesthetize all this—the consequence is that Christ is a mere name that ultimately tells us nothing.
To us! Imagine Matteo when he sees your face. Imagine your neighbors seeing you as if everything were already known, not something you are surprised to be experiencing, as something that is happening now. And if it were not constantly awakened—whether by anxiety, worry, or heaviness, everyone can find it in their own lives. All you have to do is ask yourself today: How did you wake up? And how did you respond to this awakening? Was everything already numb? Did we prolong our sleep throughout the day, or at some point did we surprise ourselves with the urgencies of life? And when we were surprised, how did we deal with it? What did we discover? What was the structure of our reaction?
Was it the joyful recognition of a presence? “Thank goodness you're here!” Or was it simply repeating what we already knew, without perceiving anything happening within us as a present event? Because if Christ is not a present event, He is useless for living.
I was struck by something Giussani said, a formula that is truly astonishing. He says: “Christianity, being a present reality”—not a formally repeated formula—“being a present reality, has as its instrument of knowledge the evidence of an experience.”
The evidence of an experience! It is communicated in the same way one encounters a loved one. The evidence of an experience, not a repetition of “Ah, I already know.” Because, being a present event, love, like the Christian event, only reveals itself in the happening. And the only instrument of knowledge is the evidence of the experience that occurs. Do you understand?
And then? That's where we see if it meets the criteria we find living within us. We see if, when someone answers me, they are talking about the experience they are having in the face of this need we find ourselves in when life reawakens questions in us.
Otherwise, we repeat what we “already know” without anything happening. And the worst thing is that this is what Christianity becomes: something “already known.”
But if we do not start from perceiving Christianity as we perceive the experience of love—as an experience as it is happening—and if it is not a living reaction that produces the other's presence within us, we become accustomed to repeating empty things.
But the urgency of a presence is so decisive that only when it happens does it find its answer. For this reason, as you can see, there is no need to add anything complicated to the experience. We make it more complicated when we try to climb on glass!
Because in experience, that's how it happens! As it happened in the beginning: “We have never seen anything like this,” said those who were with Jesus every day. “We have never seen anything like this” because of the constant recurrence of this experience, because the means of knowing a present experience is the evidence of that experience.
Hope, Faith, and the Human Reaction to Mystery
Don Eugenio: Lucy!
Intervention (Lucy): I'm Lucy. I'm speaking on behalf of about forty people who were unable to come and ask this question themselves. The question is: "Hello. After the poor results of the follow-up CT scan, the tumor has progressed. My 19-year-old daughter said to me, ‘But you see, Mom, prayers don't work, do they?’ I replied that God's plan does not always correspond to what we want. But this answer, to my dissatisfaction, seemed to imply that what happens to us, when it does not correspond to our desires (even if they are good), is done by God without taking our good into account. Can you help me?"
Carrón: And how did you help her?
Don Eugenio: I would have so much to say. But I don't know.
Intervention (Lucy): I don't know, never mind. It's a question I can relate to.
Carrón: Perfect. Because if you don't take the question seriously for yourself, when someone comes to you with that question, you don't know what to say. Let's do a test: what we experience when faced with other people's questions is a result of having skipped our own. This question made you look at your own. And how did you answer it? How do you answer yourself so that you can answer others?
Intervention (Lucy): Well, I'll try to answer. I lost my husband two years ago to suicide, and that certainly didn't correspond to what I wanted. However, what has happened in the last two years, both for me and for my son—a son in a community, unexpectedly—has been a blossoming.
Carrón: So how did you find the answer to this question?
Intervention (Lucy): Because even though it certainly wasn't what I wanted, after what happened...
Carrón: Did Jesus listen to your prayers or not?
Intervention (Lucy): In another form, yes.
Carrón: We cannot answer these questions formally again. Imagine, when it happened to you, if anyone had given you a formulaic answer, they would not have been able to convince you as you are convinced now. Why? Because the instrument of knowledge, as we said before, is the evidence of an experience.
So, we understand what we can say to a person. We cannot spare them the path you have taken. I am particularly interested that you linked your own experience to the question you asked, because you already have the answer to this question in your experience.
But how often are we unaware of our experience? You ask for answers that, if they do not come from your own experience, seem abstract. There is nothing I could say to you that is more relevant than the experience you have had over the last two years. It is, incomparably, a more relevant answer, more capable of making it clear to you as an experience, than anything I could say. But how can we not realize this? So we repeat the question in the abstract, forgetting how the Mystery, by changing the method, answered your question.
How did the Mystery answer your question? By giving a lesson? No. It answered by giving you an experience. Because the instrument for knowing a present reality is the evidence of an experience, and it gave you one so powerful that, when I prompted you, you had to recount it. Do you understand?
And that is what can convince. But if you don't learn that this is what convinced you, what can you say to the person who asks you the question? What was your mistake? Instead of telling her how the Mystery answered you, you gave her an abstract answer. And the abstract answer didn't convince her, if I understand correctly. Why? Because it's normal that it didn't convince her.
To convince someone of an event, they need to participate in the event, to experience it anew. So does that mean you can't tell her anything? Yes, you can tell her how the Mystery answered you. Because that's a much more compelling answer than a theoretical one. “Look, you tell me this about your tumor. This is what happened to me.”
“I saw that He answered me through this experience, and this experience, and this experience. Now you decide if you can verify what I have verified.”
And then you will see if the Mystery answers the question or not. Because only if one realizes that it answers beyond all measure—that is, not because it heals your illness, but because it fills you with such an overflowing of His presence that it makes everything different—this is more decisive than the answer to the illness.
Why? Because we all have a chronic illness, you know? Sooner or later it arrives like a train at the station, punctual: death. So Jesus did not come to heal all the sick people of his time, nor to heal everyone from the illnesses that may befall us. He came to kindle a hope that allows us to respond to what has happened to you, and to what has happened to her.
Only when one realizes what a grace His presence is does one begin to understand that He doesn't simply respond to the question of illness, but responds in such an abundant way that one understands He has responded beyond any measure.
Because we grasp this, and then, deep down, we think we have the answer in our pocket, we have not understood the significance of His presence. We find ourselves back at square one. Isabella, I only wish and hope that everything goes well, because you are now testing what you learned from your first experience.
Because it is not mechanical; just because you have seen it the first time does not mean something has remained in your experience, in your life, in your gaze that can be transmitted to Matteo. Because otherwise, Matteo's life will be tough, without hope. Without someone to give him hope. So, it is important that we realize that we often stray from the method God uses with us when we answer other people's questions.
The Mystery works for us in a certain way, and this is the only way we are truly convinced. But if we don't fully experience this or grow in awareness of how the Mystery works, then when someone asks us a question, we don't know what to say. We give them an answer that would not have helped us, and then we are surprised when it doesn't help them.
What mystery is there that has not been revealed? Nothing else would have helped you. And so, many times it is not that you do not answer; the problem is that we do not learn from the answer the method by which the Mystery responds. Because then you cannot respond with “instructions for use”; you have to give them a suggestion of the path they must take if they want to know whether the Mystery responds to their question, to their prayer. Otherwise, no one will convince them. Do you understand?
Hope and Witness in Pain
Don Eugenio: I'll ask the last question. For the last chapter we worked on, “Sustaining People's Hope.” La Rosa, our secretary, sent this question because we went through a very difficult time among us, especially among the “little squares.”
“Two days apart, two of my friends—one of the ‘little squares’ and the other who was on a PIME mission with me years ago—took their own lives. Two people I loved and whom I considered to be of great faith. Of course, there is the pain of living, this terrible monster that always places the inconsistency of reality before your eyes and a need in your heart that is an infinite abyss.
But I cannot dismiss the matter by simply thinking about the illness that was consuming them. That's not enough for me. It has become clear to me that neither the company of the ‘little squares,’ nor their dearest loved ones, nor, paradoxically, their faith could prevent these friends from taking the extreme step. So how can I say that it is possible to sustain human hope if my hope, my faith, or even my life as a witness of hope are not enough?”
Carrón: Wonderful. What do you say? Everyone must answer this question because what happens today may come back to haunt us tomorrow. Deep down, we believe that our witness, which is truly a decisive factor, can be the cure-all. This does not mean that witness is not necessary for us, regardless of how others receive it. But witness alone is not a mechanical solution to the problem.
I challenge you with a fact to which we must resort many times when faced with questions like this.
Was Jesus spared this question? Or did Jesus have to spend his whole life complaining because he failed to stop Judas? Was there something missing in Jesus' testimony? Or is Jesus' testimony something that does not take away freedom? And does the whole drama of living, of being able to respond or not respond to the power of testimony, remain?
Because, after all, we can say: “Even if testimony is great, maybe it wasn't enough.” And that's why this happened.
But was there something missing from Jesus' testimony? Or was He the perfect witness? So, not even Jesus was spared this trial. This does not mean, then, that we can ignore testimony. No.
Just as Jesus did not deprive us of His testimony, we too are called, as far as possible, to bear witness to the grace the Mystery has given us. Jesus responded to the Father's plan in the way we all know. This was the testimony he lived even before Judas and before all those who then abandoned him, including the twelve. So, the point is that even such a testimony is not mechanical and therefore always leaves room for freedom, whatever the situation.
So how would Jesus respond to this question? Jesus' answer to this question is His resurrection. Because if something had been missing from His testimony, the Father would not have responded. Therefore, if Christ is risen, it means that there can also be hope for Judas and for everyone else. Jesus puts before us that the last word on His life, on His testimony, is the confirmation of the Father by raising Him up.
And He puts it before us: “Look, this is the last word on our lives and our attempts, which are sometimes clumsy. And we cannot even judge, much less in certain situations such as the one you mentioned.” The only thing we can put before us is God's last word on history, which is His resurrection.
“Look, all of this can be before us with all our fragility. But this did not prevent the Father from putting before us the victory of His Son; that last word on life is His resurrection.”
For this reason, even here, this alone will not convince us, just as it did not convince the disciples until they experienced the Risen One. Let us look at all the accounts of the resurrection: weren't they all like Judas?
Peter is there, still confused, with his remorse. “Do you love me?” The two from Emmaus: “We were hoping.” But they return home disconsolate, without hope. And Thomas who says, “Unless I put my finger...” That is, no one was spared the invitation to experience, even after the resurrection. What won them over in the end? The experience of the resurrection. Not the affirmation.
The experience of the resurrection: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he spoke to us on the road?” That is, again, as we said before, that Christianity, being a present reality, has as its instrument of knowledge the evidence of an experience. And it is dizzying, because formulas, the formal repetition of things, are not enough.
It is dizzying because we have to wait for it to happen, just as they had to wait, with all their doubts, for it to be answered with the experience of a living presence. Without this... This is the beauty of this historical moment. Before, we were satisfied with Christian formulas. Not anymore.
For if Christianity does not return to being what it is—an event—then no reduction of the event to doctrine, no reduction of the event to ethics, and no reduction of the event to explanation can respond to the drama of living.
But is this a problem or an advantage for discovering the nature of Christianity?
That we cannot do without the event, because only the event fully corresponds to the questions, to the criteria of judgment for living! If we do not see it this way, even if we respond theoretically, we will never be convinced. Why? Because Christianity, being a present reality, has as its instrument of knowledge the evidence of experience, that is, participation in the event that is Christianity. But this—if you think about it—is amazing!
Faith, Reason, and God's Freedom
Don Eugenio: Yes. But I will stop here, because many people have asked me at the end, "In the end, if this hope is possible, can only we Christians have it, or is it a matter of reason? Is it a question of faith or reason?” I think of the many who have asked me this, who translate it into practical terms based on the experiences of people who encounter the sick who live in a certain way and who say to them the famous phrase: “How fortunate you are to have faith! How I wish I had it too, so that I could face this situation with clarity.” But is it a question of faith or reason? Is hope possible? Is this path that you have described so beautifully tonight possible for everyone or only for some?
Carrón: Each person must answer this question with his or her own experience. And just as we cannot spare ourselves from this with formulas among ourselves—as you see how we say things to each other and convince each other—we cannot spare others from it either.
And here, each person must verify what he adheres to as a working hypothesis. “I can testify to you what I live and why I live this way. If you can live this, I am happy with you. But I am not telling you that it must be this way. I am telling you what I experience. Do you see that I experience this?”
That question would not arise if they did not see something in the “little squares” that enables them to live the challenges they face, which, as we know, are not trivial, because many then die and return to the Mystery.
One moment after another, we continue on the path of encounter in the Mystery we are experiencing here, whether they have a cold or a broken leg. We are seeing people who are facing death and saying goodbye to each other week after week. So, you see that presence, that way of facing this without having to run away. Those who see it recognize it, because otherwise they would not ask the question. We can only bear witness to it.
And here, too, what happens to us also happens to them: we are scandalized by the way the Mystery does things!
Because we ask ourselves the question—we have spoken about this on other occasions—that Judas Thaddeus asks Jesus: “But why did you reveal yourself to us and not to others? And not to everyone?”
And then, the answer is impressive. How does Jesus answer this question? I will read you something that Pope Benedict said in a published homily given in his private chapel to those with whom he lived.
He says: “The Risen One should not show himself, after he has risen, only to a small group of chosen ones. He should also go to Pilate. He should go to his priests, to the Sanhedrin. And so, with his powerful presence, he should make it clear to everyone that he is risen and leave no doubt. He should win precisely with the power of his presence, that is, impose himself with the power of his living presence.”
Pope Benedict continues: "Thaddeus says: ‘What has happened? You should not show yourself only to us; you should also go to the others.’ We too are tempted to say the same thing. But He is different. And what is the difference? That if He did so, He would impose Himself, trampling on freedom. But God is different. God leaves us our freedom."
God is different, we see it with our own eyes. God leaves us free and waits for us on a journey of discovery, says Pope Benedict. He gives all the space to our freedom. Because so many arrive there who object or blaspheme or rebel or protest about everything, angry at everything and everyone. And it's not that they arrive there and from one day to the next it's over. They don't see a vision of all the “little squares” happy and then surrender to the evidence. No! He waits for them on a path that respects freedom.
The Way: Presence, Not “Things to Do”
Don Eugenio: Can I have two more minutes? This was the other question that came up a lot: “It's clear, this journey is beautiful, this expression you left us, isn't it? ‘God leaves us freedom and waits for us on a journey of discovery.’” The confusion we often see among us, which we have also seen this year, is that for us, the journey is often a list of “things to do,” even religious things. So the question becomes, “What do I have to do to make this journey?” It seems to me that when you say “journey,” when the Pope says “journey,” he means something different than “what to do.” So, maybe this is a bit of a personal question: what journey are you on right now?
Carrón: The journey I am on right now is what I tell you every time I speak, what I see. That is, the journey I am on is what I tell you: every morning I find myself facing an abyss. And I could repeat things to myself, but that is not what convinces me. It is not “what do I do?”
But I know what has happened in my life, what experiences I have had, what kind of presence has entered my life. So what do I do? I let this presence back into my life. Because what does a child do when he is afraid? He lets a presence in. The journey is not an abstraction. The journey is not doing I don't know what.
Be careful, it's not that you don't have to do anything. You have to see what happens in these new friends who join the “little squares” and arrive angry. You have to stand in front of them even if they protest, even if they are angry because they are not yet happy like the others they see.
“What do I do?” It is to stand before that presence! And standing before that presence, letting myself be overwhelmed by that presence, I see—and you see as I see—that people begin to let a presence enter this journey that makes a difference.
If this presence does not become familiar, we replace it with formulas that do not convince us, and so we continue to complain.
This is why, as Giussani asked years ago, what happens in the morning when you wake up, if you don’t go through all the gangue of thoughts—with all their facets of worries, anger, rebellions—until you reach His presence? Jesus will always be a stranger! Because if you don’t let Him in, He can’t come in. What is the work to be done? It is to let the presence of the mother enter a child’s fear.
The question is: “Are we available?” At a certain point, after the time we need, as if foreseeing that all our attempts will change nothing, do we surrender to the evidence of what will happen if we let Him in?
It is only when people, after months or years of being with the “little squares,” begin to leave space for what they are seeing in front of them, that they too begin to participate in what they see in others. Because this alone can be witnessed.
It cannot be imposed in any way. We often think of it as something like power, don't we? Even Pope Benedict continues to talk about this. We often think that power is the only thing that can change things, even create a new world.
This seems very obvious to everyone, but even Jesus says “no.” And just as the other two temptations in the desert accompany His entire life, Jesus was not spared from going through all these temptations that appear in His life.
We think, for example, of the moment in Caesarea Philippi when Peter understood and confessed, “You are the Messiah.” And Jesus praises him. “Yes,” He says, “but you have not understood this. It is the Father who has made this known to you.”
But then He continues: “You have not yet truly understood what the Messiah really is. The Messiah must suffer, be given to the pagans, be crucified.” And then St. Peter takes Jesus aside and says to Him: "No! You are the Messiah! The Messiah does not suffer!“
Here Jesus feels just as he did in the desert before the devil and says: ”Get away from me, you who think like men and not like God!" This temptation always remains.
Even in the history of the Church, with Christian empires, we have many times tried to give power to Jesus and exclude the weakness of God. Even today we make many attempts along these lines. And Jesus says: “No, this is not the way I can be your king. I can only be your king in a very different way: in the way of passion and love.”
In other words, Jesus did not come to free us from suffering, but to free us through suffering, to enter into this mystery of transformation that is part of the essence of love. What we see is not that he spares them suffering, but that through suffering he introduces them to a way of living that makes everything different, as you see so many times in the “little squares.”
So, it is only this path, which is much less complicated, that we must learn. Because you are perfectly right that people often get lost on this path. That is why the only way, first of all, as we said before in response to Lucy, is that if you do not understand the path that God is taking with you, you will not be able to indicate the path to others. Because the path that God takes with us is simple.
If we do not understand it through experience, we tell others about a path that is artificial, or we invent the path instead of following the way in which He does things. This is why I hope that we learn this, because without it there will be no adequate answer to the question: “Is there hope?”
Don Eugenio: Thank you.
The author has not reviewed the notes, transcription, or translation.
Source: https://youtu.be/pUdQ9dKHEVA?si=5f_h7MDmO8ebfvqt
