The Scandal of Freedom
Julián Carrón - A dialogue on choice, certainty and the human heart held in Maratea on May 18, 2025.
CE – I wanted to start with something that struck me in the thirteenth chapter of The Religious Sense, which we are studying in the School of Community. Here, Fr. Giussani speaks of an “original sympathy with being, with reality” (p. 177), almost a general working hypothesis with which nature pushes man toward universal comparison.
We have been here together since Friday, and once again we have been surprised by the recognition of this positivity. This began on Friday evening with an impressive testimony from Laura, who spoke about her relationship with her husband—you know his health condition well—and how this circumstance is not an objection but a path, albeit a very difficult one, to recognizing the positivity of being. Then, here, the horizon of the sea is something that truly captures the heart and mind. Last night, we organized a live concert in a church under Christ the Redeemer—the large statue that dominates the bay—with a talented Japanese pianist, accompanied by readings of pieces by Don Giussani, Leopardi, and St. Augustine on the irreducibility of the self. It was an extraordinary thing.
But—and this is not a “but” in a negative sense—precisely from this renewed experience, a question arises in me, and also in talking about it with some people, that I would like to ask you to start with. There is a strange contradiction between what Giussani calls “curiosity: expectation and questioning,” expectation as questioning, “a native seal imprinted on man by nature,” and the fact that we often struggle to live up to this expectation as questioning. Someone recalled what you once said: that it is as if we were nullifying the gain of experience, closing the game.
That is, on the one hand, the backlash is inevitable when you encounter something that grabs you by the gut; however, it is as if there were a distance between this original openness and our effort—and it is no coincidence that Giussani speaks here of “education to freedom.” So, the first tentative suggestion for beginning our work is this: that you can help us to face this education in freedom again. Because it is clear that, as you often say, it is not a matter of a voluntary project but of going along with this native openness. Yet we often close ourselves off. How can we always start again from this, never taking it for granted? I'll stop here.
JC – To stay with your question, I would recall something Giussani says in the previous chapter, the twelfth of The Religious Sense, where he raises the question of freedom: there is no human action that is automatic, in which freedom is spared.
In my opinion, the difficulty often lies in this constant challenge to rediscover our need to commit our freedom. I would like to reread this passage from the previous chapter together, where Giussani begins to make us aware of how decisive putting freedom at stake is for knowing reality in all its depth. He says: “Man as a free being cannot reach his fulfillment, cannot reach his destiny except through his freedom” (p. 168).
We have all studied this in the work of the School of Community: “If I were led to my destiny without freedom, I could not be happy; it would not be my happiness, it would not be my destiny.” For this reason, “the fulfillment of man would not be human, it would not be the fulfillment of the human being, if he were not free. Now, if the fulfillment of destiny [...] must be free, freedom must also ‘play’ in its discovery" (pp. 168-169).
Immediately afterward, Giussani addresses the question of why automatism would not be adequate—which is what we ultimately dream of: that, at a certain point, everything becomes automatic—and the reason is obvious: “Even the discovery of destiny, of meaning, if it were automatic, would no longer be mine” (p. 169). For this reason, “destiny is something for which man is responsible; the way in which man achieves his destiny is his responsibility, it is the fruit of freedom” (p. 169). This challenge arises constantly.
But, in my opinion, this is not a misfortune. It is the possibility of saying “you” to the other, of saying “you” to the Mystery, each time anew. Not as a burden, not as an automatism, but with all the novelty with which we can marvel at the person we love. It seems to me that, often, our objection is precisely to this plan of God, which does not provide for automatisms but leaves everything in the hands of freedom. We find ourselves a little scandalized by this. The point is that we are constantly challenged, even by fatigue, and we come to think that this phrase—“destiny is my responsibility, it is the fruit of my freedom”—leaves no room for complaint. In fact, it does not, but we experience it as moralism.
For example, I realized that when I was stuck, I would shift all my responsibility onto circumstances: “I can't, I'm not able to, I'm not capable...” In saying this, it is as if we are relieved of responsibility, but then we get fed up with not being able to do anything. And that is when we begin to see as a gift, as a grace, the fact that there is still a space of freedom in which to play the game.
And then we begin to realize that this freedom is something that makes it possible to get out of any stuck situation we find ourselves in. Most of the time, we don't decide the circumstances in which we find ourselves: our family, our social or cultural situation... If there is no room for freedom, we can only suffer them. I don't think that's the case: I think there is always—in any situation—a space for freedom.
Added to this is the fact, as you said, that it is as if we do not treasure experience, and this makes the situation even more dramatic because we do not perceive it as a new opportunity for ourselves. This is where education comes into play. If someone starts over in any situation... I always think of an example that is familiar to everyone—because we are so familiar with this passage—which is the parable of the prodigal son.
He was there, stuck in his situation. If there had been no other possibility, he would have been condemned to suffer it for the rest of his life. Instead, that too is an opportunity—as I see happening so often today—in which, “coming to his senses,” he perceives his ultimate irreducibility, which still leaves room for freedom. He thinks: “In my father's house, people live well, while I am dying of hunger here.” He is not condemned to suffer the situation. We are not condemned to any situation because there is always this unique possibility of freedom.
Freedom is not voluntarism, it is not moralism, it is not something that requires who knows what capacity for energy. No: it is simply recognizing a presence. “In my father's house, they live the high life.” And we cannot ultimately shake this off because of our experience.
We are not starting from scratch. We cannot distance ourselves from our father, as I have said many times, quoting Ferdinand Ulrich, without “carrying” our father within us. For this reason, ultimately, we cannot erase him completely. We can erase him from our images while we think we can manage on our own, but it is not possible to erase him completely. There, the choice of freedom arises again: whether or not we want to leave room for something else, for this native openness that is never erased; it may be damaged as much as you like, but it is never erased. This is the concept of original sin that is so often invoked to confirm that freedom is not possible. No, original sin, according to the Catholic conception, is not the destruction of the self. The self may be damaged, but there is always room for freedom.
CE – You're saying something that strikes me deeply. We all know what it means to be in a situation where we feel condemned. There is death, isn't there? There is also physical death.
JC – Perfect! Yes, death...
CE – You say we can wipe the slate clean, but we always start from the fact that there is that tiny possibility of recognizing... Whereas we generally wait for something to happen that will resolve the situation, for a miracle to happen; you, on the other hand, say: everything depends on our ability to pay attention.
JC – In my opinion, everyone has to verify this for themselves. Because when someone says it, most of the time they think, “It won't happen. I'm not capable.” And so they convince themselves that they are not capable, you see? That's why I told you about a personal experience: when I found myself in circumstances I couldn't get out of, I tried to relieve myself of my responsibility by shifting it onto the circumstances. At first, this gave me a feeling of relief; I felt relieved of responsibility.
As Dostoevsky says in The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, men “fear and flee, for nothing has ever been more intolerable to man and human society than freedom!” Therefore, one always looks for someone or some circumstance on which to unload one's freedom. And so, if this is the case, all that remains is to continue complaining for the rest of one's life. But even complaining gets tiresome. At least, I get tired of it.
If someone wants to continue complaining—congratulations!—let them decide for themselves what experience they want to have because, as Giussani always says, the test is experience. I have seen with my own eyes people who, in certain situations, had tried everything, had tried to get others to tell them what to do, and could not get out of it because they blamed everything on circumstances... At a certain point, becoming aware of themselves, they began to say “I” in that very situation.
And everything changed. Without anything changing in the circumstances. Because change is in the “I.” The prodigal son did not have to wait for something to change first. No. It was his awareness of himself. The more stuck you feel, the more you cannot reduce yourself to that situation. The gaze that sees the desert does not belong to the desert. It is a reduction that we make of ourselves: we conceive of ourselves as part of the mechanism of circumstances. Okay, I have no objection: everyone can decide to stick to their impression as long as it lasts.
Because only when one sees the possibility of freedom does one begin to be grateful for being free: one no longer perceives it as a condemnation, one no longer experiences it as a burden for which one is still responsible because one does not have the energy to react. No. They begin to see that there is still a possibility. And what passion God has for our freedom! If this were not so, we would become weaker and weaker. As often happens: one blames everything on circumstances, but in the end solves nothing. One is always worse off because one becomes weaker and weaker, limiting oneself to enduring the situation.
For this reason, those who try to spare themselves the effort of living cannot grow in self-awareness. The prodigal son gained self-awareness by living. Otherwise, we cannot understand, we cannot feel all the vibration of our reason, of our freedom, which remains intact—damaged, but intact. I am amazed, for example, by someone like Marracash. I give this example because it struck me.
After his normal, human attempt to escape the poverty into which he was born, he achieved a success he could never have imagined. At a certain point, it is as if he shifted and said, "I would give the Rolex to the kids, and then I would ask them, 'Did it change your life? (...) Success and money are useful at the beginning, they help you get out of nothing (...). From then on, you need something else entirely. You need yourself. You need to understand who you are and what you want to do with your life.'" Marracash can say that, someone like him can say that. And can we continue to waste time with all our excuses? Everyone must decide for themselves because there are things that cannot be explained; they can only be witnessed, discovered in others, or you can wait... to discover that you cannot reach your destiny without freedom because only then do you understand that it is for yourself, you perceive it as an answer to yourself.
CE – So, let's start with the questions.
Intervention – Also in chapter twelve, there is a point that says: “Man, in his freedom, affirms what he has already decided from a hidden beginning” (p. 170). Then it says that the alternative in which man almost insensibly gambles is: “Either you face reality wide open, with the wide eyes of a child”—and thus “embrace all its presence, welcoming even its meaning”—or “you face reality defensively, almost with your elbow in front of your face [...], calling reality to the court of your opinion, and then in reality you seek and admit only what is convenient for you” (p. 170).
This passage struck me deeply, partly because two things happened to me this week that made me think. It really is a fine line between one and the other. The other night, for example, my son had had a day with a few unexpected setbacks, school stuff... and then he came home and said to me, “Mom, what a pain, the warning light came on in the car, I have to take the highway... Is life always like this?”
He was weighed down by these little unexpected events. I said to him, "Yes, it's full of things that don't go the way you want them to. The point is how you face it: whether you dwell on the effort and then suffocate in it—obviously I was thinking of myself when I said this—or whether you try to get through the effort and see that even there—in the effort!—there is a chance for enjoyment."
Then I said to him, “I'll get dressed and take you.” And we walked part of the way together. At one point, he said to me, “Mom, let's at least spend some time together!” When we got back, he didn't have that heavy look on his face that he had at the beginning. The second thing happened at work. There's a big acquisition in the works, and the deputy general manager often calls to update us. But he always has a tense, very tired look on his face. At the end of the calls, he always quotes someone famous.
Last time, he quoted St. Augustine: “Hope has two beautiful children: indignation and courage. Indignation at the reality of things, and courage to change them.” I was struck not so much by the quote itself, but by the fact that he was looking for support, something to keep him going in the face of the hard work he's doing. So I wrote him a few lines, thanking him and telling him that it is precisely reality that awakens us, provoking us and putting us back in the game, but not as a result of will or personal ability: reality puts back into play the desire to discover, to build, to know.
Then, however, I compared what I had said to my son—to get through the hard times—with the fact that this man was going through his own hard times, but it wasn't enough for him. He had the face of someone who wasn't enjoying anything. And I don't want to have that look on my face. I want to enjoy things, even when they're hard. So I ask you: what allows us to truly enjoy things even when they're hard? What allows me to move forward with an open mind, with a burning question, and discover something for myself that allows me to enjoy even that hardship?
JC – We always think that phrase—“Man, in his freedom, affirms what he has already decided from a hidden beginning”—is an exaggeration. When I first read it, I too thought, “But Giussani is exaggerating! How can freedom have already decided?”
Until I found it in people. I remember a boy at school when I was still in Madrid: I started talking about Jesus—I had written the word “Gospels” on the blackboard—and he immediately asked me, “But you don’t think that the Gospels tell us anything true about Jesus, do you?” “Why?” “Because Christians wrote them!” So I said to him, “So, for you, the best thing would be suspicion.”
And he said, “Of course, I'm not naive!” And I said, “Ah, you're not naive... So this morning, when your mother put your latte in front of you, you said, ‘I won't drink it until you guarantee there's no poison in it.’” I still remember his reaction. He got angry and shouted, “How dare you say that?! I've been living with my mother for 16 years!” And I said, "You see? That's the difference. You don't suspect anything when you're faced with your latte.
But you do when you're faced with the Gospels. Why? Because you've been living with your mother for 16 years, which doesn't even allow you to be suspicious. But with the Gospels... you don't have that, and the first thing that comes to mind is suspicion." That was the end of it. Two weeks passed. We read some passages from the Gospel together, recounting miracles, amazement, healings, and teachings, and I said, “Imagine those who were with Jesus, who began to see all this, day after day, for weeks, months, years... What would your reaction be?” That boy—the very same one—raises his hand and says, “I would be careful.”
Since then, I can no longer read this sentence by Giussani without thinking of him: the “hidden departure” was there, visible. So, each person must discern in his own experience whether he has this openness or not. Whether they have already decided—in that very first, subtle, almost imperceptible twilight of the impact with reality—whether to open up or close themselves off. Giussani writes: “The alternative in which man almost imperceptibly gambles” (p. 170).
Everything is in the “almost.” It seems like nothing. But it is in the “almost” that the whole game is played, so much is the space that freedom leaves to each of us. After that, we see this in people, in our children, in our employers... You gave your son a glimmer of hope to verify this possibility because if life continues to challenge you with ever new unexpected events, there is the possibility of growth. In this case, you spared him the effort by accompanying him. But you gave him a glimpse that not everything is as it seems, that you can also go through hardship and find something good in it. But you can't spare your employer because it's not in your hands.
I always think of the Quadratini who cannot afford to spare themselves the effort. I think of Laura, who cannot exempt her husband and herself from the effort. If she, as she has always testified, had not embarked on a path that allowed her to face circumstances differently, if she had not done it for herself, we would not have been able to look at her and realize that she is not stuck. We can therefore stop saying that there is no way out. Because we are constantly faced with this possibility. In your case, for example, you were able to spare your son the effort. Your boss, no. Laura cannot exempt herself, in front of herself and her husband.
But in every circumstance, there is always something that does not depend solely on external factors. It is our awareness of ourselves. So when we say “I,” what do we mean? I saw that boy, in the face of everything he was hearing—the miracles, the stories, the words that had moved those who had encountered them—he did not change his position!
He did not move because he had already made a decision. His “secret departure” was already underway. Help had come to him, but it was useless. We too can have support, but we can reject it because of our “secret departure,” because nothing can definitively resolve the issue: freedom is always dramatic.
For this reason, we can sometimes spare ourselves something, as you did with your son, but if you do not give him the opportunity to verify that there is room for freedom even when nothing can be spared him, in the end he will say: “You are able to solve certain things... but that is not enough to face all the unexpected events of life.”
If we do not take advantage now of the time and freedom we have to introduce our children to this level, and if we do not wait for them to verify it for themselves, we are not doing them a good service, we do not truly love them, and we are not giving them the tools that Don Giussani gave us to face life.
This is the challenge: the more one realizes what is at stake, the more one desires to educate or offer the tools so that others can face life.
Intervention – I wanted to ask a question. When I find myself faced with many circumstances that are happening, I feel my heart vibrate, resonate. But I also realize that my heart resonates with what already interests me: with my projects, my obsessions—call them what you will. On the other hand, I am sincerely interested in verifying whether what struck me is the Mystery or just one of my obsessions, one of my projects.
But I can't figure out how to do that, except by following up on what happened and seeing if my humanity blossoms. So, a priori, when it happens, I can't tell whether I'm following one of my obsessions or the Mystery that is happening. It also bothers me when people talk about their projects as if they were evil. Because for me they are a resource. But, you see, I would like to understand: with all the risks involved, should I go after what happens, what I perceive...? Because otherwise I risk censoring myself. But this involves enormous risks.
JC – You decide whether you want to follow what happens and makes you more and more yourself, or whether you decide to follow only your own rules. It's a choice that no one can spare us because everyone sees and has the ability to judge where life flourishes, as you said.
That's why, at certain moments, you can't go on arguing: once you see that life flourishes by following something, if you've verified it—provided you don't conclude that, in the end, it's just an apparent flowering—who's stopping you from going along with it? But the point is that this is always new. And to answer you, I was struck yesterday by something I read about Benedict XVI, published in Il Foglio. The scandal, he says, is what makes us object—like Judas Thaddeus—“Lord, how is it that you have to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”
As if to say: I understand that before the Resurrection you had to fulfill the Father's plan, but now that you have won... why did you not reveal yourself to everyone, so as to leave no doubt? Benedict XVI says: “The Risen One should not show himself only to a small group of chosen ones, but should also go to Pilate, should also go to the high priests, to the Sanhedrin, and thus, with his powerful presence, should make it clear to everyone that He is the risen one [we can think so too], and leave no doubt, he should win precisely by the power of his presence.”
We have in mind this resounding victory that leaves no room for anything else. “We too are tempted to say the same,” says Ratzinger, “but God is different.” Why? “God leaves us freedom.” Even after his victory, even after the Resurrection, “he leaves us freedom and waits for us [attention] on a journey of seeking.”
He adds: “On this journey, he offers us a place where he shows himself, so that we can be sure,” as you said. And he concludes: “Let us pray to the Lord that he will help us to walk with him and thus to see him and be certain.” Not even the disciples, after the Resurrection, were spared the journey of verification. So how can we think that we will be spared? It would be a false security. A security that has not been verified in every aspect of reality.
To attain certainty of our mother's love, it was not enough for us to experience it once; we had to see it in every circumstance, in every fiber of our life, of our being. And the same is true of Christ: to arrive at certainty about Him, we must let Him penetrate every fiber of our being. And this is done only slowly, on a journey. At that point, to doubt, you have to censor an avalanche of things. Like that boy: when I challenged him about his latte and his mother, he couldn't sustain his suspicion!
After 16 years of living with her. How had he reached that certainty? Because nothing was spared him. So: do we want to embark on a human journey that leads us to this certainty? Or do we want something that, deep down, has already been decided by us, with the pace decided by us, the spaces decided by us, the conditions decided by us? Each person must choose.
Intervention – On this point of certainty: when you said earlier that when someone begins to breathe, they are grateful for this freedom, I sense that you say this with complete certainty.
JC – Of course, because otherwise I couldn't say it. Because I couldn't imagine that it could be like that.
Intervention – Instead, I'll tell you how it is for me, and I'll ask you my question starting from something that happened to me last week. I work for a company where every year they give out performance reviews to see how things went in relation to the objectives. My previous year was excellent, more than excellent, crazy numbers. However, something happened with a colleague, and because it had been a very stressful year, I lost my patience and raised my voice. This got back to my boss. When I had my review and discussed my report card, my boss told me that my performance was excellent, but that incident had happened, which is not good for someone who leads a team. So he said to me, “You have a problem. You are a problem.
You are a problem for the company.” That's how he described me. The discussion lasted an hour, and it was all about this point, where he kept saying, “You are a problem.” I know that incident happened, and it does need to be addressed, but I was upset that he kept saying ‘you're a problem’... I left work, went to the gym in the evening, and as soon as my trainer saw me, she said, "What's that face for?"
The next morning, I had to go on a business trip with my boss. We had to catch a flight at six. I had been feeling upset since the night before. It wasn't that I felt ill, but I was upset; there was something inside me suffocating me, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I left the house at a quarter to four to go to the airport, and I was driving, staring straight ahead, a little sleepy, the sky was dark, the moon was out. And from behind, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a lot of light. I said, “How much light there is in this city of Bari...” I had to turn around to see where the light was coming from, and sure enough, it was dawn, a beautiful sunrise.
And there, for a moment, I remembered the piece from the Community School, where it says that you can stand with your back to the light and say “everything is dark,” or you can activate your freedom, turn around, and recognize that it is not true that everything is dark, but that there is light. And in that moment, when I remembered the Community School, I thought: “Is this what freedom is for?” And I said to myself, “I can use my freedom to remember.” I recognized what it was that didn't feel right, what was troubling me.
And it was the fact that I am not just a problem. Yes, I may have done something stupid, but I am not just a problem, because what defines me is that I am wanted, first and foremost. In remembering this, I really breathed. When I arrived at the airport and found the same boss who had made me feel “brand new” the afternoon before... Come on! We made this trip and I enjoyed it. But—here comes the question—this dynamic that happened to me, at this point in my journey, still clashes with the image I have of what this breathing should be like. It's as if it's still not enough. It's as if this opportunity to remember has not yet become the certain judgment that you just mentioned.
JC – Have you taken a few small steps?
Intervention – The small step I took was realizing this. But this does not become a judgment.
JC – Then keep going, because this will become more and more yours. You see, this is the “step by step” I was talking about before. Without this, one gets stuck on the path. Instead, if one recognizes that one is slowly taking steps, certainty grows. Certainty is this trajectory that allows us to be more and more certain. Everything else is dreaming of a mechanism that is not human. And therefore it will not give you certainty.
CE – The famous girl from the “play” is back...
JC – Hi! Have you turned it on yet or not?
Intervention – No, not yet! Last time you said, in response to me, that we don't read experience and our needs properly, and that we reduce them and therefore also reduce the ‘play’, because the condition for understanding the ‘play’, or the proposal that another person communicates to us, is that there must be harmony. I've been thinking a lot about this in recent months because it struck me deeply. However, I've realized that a lot has happened in recent months—injustices, a certain intolerance of myself, a frenzy of attempts—but I don't think I've fully grasped the issue you were talking about because every time I come back to it, I feel far from understanding it. I wonder if we could delve deeper into this point in particular: how can I reduce the nature of my need so much and interpret the experience with loyalty? Let me give you an example: Laura. I had already heard her speak on various calls; I had heard her testimony. But the loyalty I have seen in recent days, in person, the loyalty to her human experience—even before Alfredo, to her humanity—is something I desire. And yet I feel that within me, even with regard to what you said at the beginning, there is everything you said about freedom. But if I am loyal, while you were speaking, I felt fear, vertigo.
JC – Vertigo is not an obstacle. Vertigo can be something that blocks you or something that sets you in motion. When faced with certain reactions, you can freeze or you can overcome them. This is part of our journey of maturation. Because otherwise, if we don't make a journey, any blockage intimidates us, frightens us. But this is the great challenge of growth, of personal maturation: all circumstances are for our maturation. Without this, they seem to be against us, but we know—as we see in what is happening, even this morning—that instead everything becomes part of a journey. But it is a journey that cannot be replaced by a mechanism or automatism. And this is precisely how God respects our freedom. As Ratzinger says: “God is different.” He does not want to win by crushing our person. “God is different. God leaves us freedom and waits for us on a journey of discovery.”
Intervention – Two things. I would like you to tell me what you think. With regard to the question of freedom, I have realized that I feel free when I am at a level where my humanity does not have to be censored. The other evening, Laura said that, faced with Alfredo's illness, faced with the fact that he was very ill, at a certain point she thought, “He's dying,” and she thought, “Maybe I can travel.” Faced with this—which from a certain point of view is chilling, and she didn't have the modesty to say it in front of us—working through it, accepting that she had thought it, she said that even that prospect made her feel suffocated. In other words, even the possibility of freedom—that is, him dying and other scenarios opening up for her—made her feel suffocated. And so she said that wouldn't be the answer either. A bit like when you said about Marracash: “I'd give all the kids a Rolex to show them that it's not enough.” So it seems to me that the whole question of education hinges on what you said earlier, quoting Ratzinger: it becomes a method. I feel educated and truly educate when there is no censorship of my humanity or of the humanity of others. So my real responsibility is to welcome humanity, even my own reaction...
JC – The question is: how can you welcome your humanity without censoring anything—but nothing, nothing—as you saw in Laura? This is only possible if one opens oneself to something definitive. As Giussani says in the previous chapter: “The mystery is clarifying” (p. 163).
If there is no Presence, which is within this original openness, then we must censor something because it is not in our hands. Because we reach a point where we cannot have everything under control. And this shift, which takes place from within the very human journey of experience—as Giussani describes—is the perception of the Mystery, the only thing that can make life free. Otherwise, we are overcome by such fear that we are forced to censor. Only if we leave the question open does freedom find a comprehensive answer so as not to censor anything.
And this is where the game is played: when we find ourselves in certain situations, if we do not censor anything and open ourselves up, then something happens. To return to the beginning: the prodigal son, finding himself in that situation, did not have to censor anything to be free. It was precisely his not censoring anything that made him free, even to open himself up to another possibility. It was he who decided, freely.
So, we can try in every way to make the numbers add up, but there is something irreducible in us that leaves room for freedom. And each of us must see how we play it. And what the consequences of our choice are. It is not ‘true’ because we decide it, or because someone else decides it: ‘It is true if it is true,’ as I always say. We see it happen in our choices: when a choice frees us or when a choice, in order to be able to uphold it, forces us to censor something about ourselves.
A choice that requires you to deny something about yourself is not free because you are already subject to the concern of having censored yourself. All it takes is for it to come back to your mind, and you're back to square one. This is why Giussani's insistence on “denying nothing” always amazes me. Because if you look the other way, even if only in one aspect of your life, when you go to sleep or when you wake up—and you don't want to think and distract yourself with other things—sooner or later you find yourself there: on your bedside table, or in some crack of life, the question you censored returns. There is no full freedom, nor fullness of life, without my being able to look at everything. As Giussani says at the end of chapter ten: if I have this Presence in my eyes, which I have arrived at through the full use of reason—I am You-who-makes-me—then I can enter “any situation of existence,” without exception, “with a profound tranquility, with a possibility of joy” (p. 148).
CE – Thank you very much, Julián, because in the face of the mess of every situation, you remind us that the way out is to recognize our greatness. And that the Mystery is—as you said before—passionate about our freedom; for me, this is a failure because I myself am not so passionate about my freedom.
JC – I believe that without Giussani, I would never have been able to become aware of this. For me, this is the essential part of the charism. Because he can tell us these things only because he offers us the path to rediscover them. If he hadn’t given us the whole path, the whole journey to verify it, if it had been just a statement, it would have remained “a toast to the sun,” which would not have given us certainty. This is why I am always grateful to him, because Giussani offers us all the tools to make our own way, to verify it, and thus to make us aware that it is possible. And all this results in the growth of the human person, of my consciousness. Let us never forget: the strength of the subject is not in sparing oneself this or that, in exercising every day or going to the gym. The strength of the subject is the intensity of his self-awareness. Have a good day, dear friends!
CE – Thank you, see you next time!
