The Self in Action
Julián Carrón - Reality becomes evident in experience
(Music: “Anyone” by Demi Lovato; “You Burst Into My Heart” by Mina).
Daniele Nembrini: Thank you, Julián, for being here with us again this year. The purpose of San Michele has been, remains, and will continue to be the creation and facilitation of an experience of freedom. The Foundation exists to promote the integral realization of the person, accompanying and supporting—through the rediscovery of religious meaning as the criterion for personal action—that natural propensity for self-fulfillment, the summit of which is freedom, understood as the full satisfaction of one's desires.
We know well, after years of working with you, that what liberates is experience. A person is free if they have an experience. In short, we could say: the path to truth is an experience. You have challenged us greatly on the path of “the religious sense” in recent years, echoing Giussani's provocation: “I am not here so that you may take the ideas I give you as your own, but to teach you a true method for judging the things I will tell you.” This is not just one method among others; it is the method, because experience is the emergence of reality into human consciousness. It is reality becoming transparent.
As we approach Christmas, we heard a song that said, “Send me someone.” We will always be grateful to you, Julián, for being that “someone” for us, an unmistakable sign of His Presence. That is why we asked you to work with us on the title chosen for this convention: “The Self in Action: Reality Becomes Evident in Experience.” Thank you, Julián.
Julián Carrón: If you listened closely to these songs, you will have recognized that they could only stem from the experience of those who wrote them. And everyone could see the impact the songs had on them as they listened. This introduces us—better than any words we could say—to the fact that we simply want to become aware of an experience we have already had.
I was recently invited to an international conference designed to inspire a “generative ecosystem” in the face of today's challenges. I was struck by the fact that the organizers identified awareness as the urgent need of the present moment for a new paradigm to change society. Strangely, the subject who is supposed to bring about this change was not taken for granted, as is usually the case; it was stated that this subject needs to be generated—that is, its awareness, its self-consciousness, needs to be awakened.
I began my speech by emphasizing that, regarding the purpose of that event, there was no more effective summary than these words by Dostoevsky: “The essential thing is... for man... to become confirm himself.” [1]
But I was equally struck by the fact that, in the dialogue that day, it was taken for granted that one cannot truly know reality. Why? Because “narrative is everything.” Despite a clear awareness of the importance of consciousness, we still risk succumbing to the power of narratives, precisely because “narrative—in the end—is everything.”
1. The Challenge of Narratives
A few days later, the event organizer wrote to me:
“I would like to express my sincere thanks. Your speech brought an essential theme back to the forefront: the need for authentic contact with our innermost selves, the only place from which true choice can arise. You gave voice to an idea that is as simple as it is revolutionary: without awareness, we remain prey to the stories that others tell in our place. As you said, embracing the sense of incompleteness is what makes us capable of loving, of being free, and of not succumbing to the dominance of external narratives. A profound message that traces a path of responsibility and hope. Thank you for reminding us that awareness is a daily, personal task that can never be delegated, a message that resonates deeply with the heart of our educational research.”
This episode drew my attention to a crucial issue for all of us, especially regarding the education of young people who live in this world burdened by “narratives.” Today, their dominance is such that it seems impossible not to fall prey to them. We recognize this risk when events occur—especially those that hit close to home—that test us to the point where we find ourselves struggling to untangle the jungle of interpretations and versions of the facts.
It is an epochal challenge. It concerns young people, but it concerns us all. The power of narratives acts as a detonator for today's weak conscience and the existential insecurity we find ourselves in. This is exacerbated by the disruptive evolution of high tech and the new technologies available to everyone.
“We played with relativism thinking it cost nothing,” says Luciano Floridi, one of the world's leading experts on ethics and the philosophy of information:
“The ‘brakes’ against false and invented things, nonsense, propaganda, and fake news are too weak. What I imagine could happen in the future is, on the one hand, a recovery, which would be positive; on the other, a sort of habit of saying ‘who knows,’ a bit of skepticism, a bit of cynicism. ‘Maybe vaccines are good, maybe they're bad, but you know what, I don't know, who cares.’ In short, a sort of disengaged indifference, which pulls out, which avoids epistemological commitment in saying: ‘Yes, that's how things are.’ Or ‘No, look, it's the opposite.’
I fear that we are heading in this direction, a bit like Pontius Pilate, a bit like Don Abbondio, bewildered by the enormous noise and confusion that truth and falsehood end up generating when they clash. I fear that many, lacking guidance and reference points, will decide, at best, to suspend judgment. [...] If we could activate antibodies in this direction, it would not be too late. It is certainly not too early. We should do it now.” [2]
If we succumb to this “disengaged indifference,” we will be at the mercy of any ideology, any narrative. Because, as Hannah Arendt taught us, “ideology is not the naive acceptance of the visible, but its intelligent dismissal.” [3]
But what antibody must we activate so as not to be overwhelmed and condemned to confusion? Our commitment to reality is the only way to avoid being “bewildered” by narratives or delegating our judgment to others. We must never forget what Benedict XVI reminded us:
“Human freedom is always new and must always make new decisions. They are never simply made for us by others—in that case, we would no longer be free. Freedom presupposes that in fundamental decisions, every person, every generation, is a new beginning.” [4]
Without this commitment, it is inevitable that we will be at the mercy of the power of narratives. On a macroscopic scale, we see that geopolitical dynamics themselves are pervaded by them.
Often, however—to avoid personal commitment—we succumb to the temptation highlighted by T.S. Eliot in Choruses from “The Rock”: “They constantly try to escape / From the darkness outside and within / By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.” [5] We want to spare ourselves the burden of freedom.
We dream that something from “outside” will take the place of our responsibility as human beings. But no system, not even the most perfect one, can spare us our freedom. “Man,” says Benedict XVI, “can never be redeemed simply from the outside.” [6]
We understand why this challenging historical moment has become—even more so than when Giussani said it—the time of the person.
2. It Is the Time of the Person
“When the grip of an adverse society tightens around us to the point of threatening the liveliness of our expression, and when cultural and social hegemony tends to penetrate the heart, stirring up already natural uncertainties, then the time of the person has come.” [7]
But what is the person, so fragile in the face of this tsunami? Where does his consistency lie? Ultimately, this is the decisive question. “What is urgent,” says Giussani, “in order for the person to be, in order for the human subject to have vigor in this situation in which everything is torn from the trunk to make dry leaves, is self-consciousness [as Dostoevsky said], a clear and loving perception of oneself, charged with the awareness of one's own Destiny and therefore capable of true affection for oneself, freed from the instinctive dullness of self-love. If we lose this identity, nothing will help us.” [8]
Precisely because we live in a society like the current one, the only barrier to the power of narratives is an “I” whose self-awareness allows it to live in this context without succumbing to the siren calls of power.
This does not mean returning to “dreaming of systems so perfect” where narratives do not exist. Narratives are inevitable because—since reality is a sign, as we study in The Religious Sense—freedom is played out in the interpretation of the sign.
But does this mean that all interpretations are equally true? We can only discover this through self-awareness or, as we said before, when we reach “the most intimate part of ourselves.”
And how can we reach the most intimate part of ourselves?
It is a question of method. Here Don Giussani comes to our aid again when he states: “One of the synthetic, capital points of clarity of thought [...] is that the solution to problems does not come about directly by addressing the problems, but by deepening the nature of the subject that addresses them.” [9] By becoming increasingly aware of the subject that addresses them.
How do we deepen our understanding of the nature of the subject—which is us—of our self, in order to achieve clarity of thought? How does our awareness of ourselves grow? As he told us—and this is the title you have chosen—we discover it not by reasoning within ourselves, or through introspection (which is always an image of ourselves), but by catching ourselves in action.
Therefore, “if man becomes aware of the factors that constitute him by observing himself in action [...] it is necessary to observe human dynamics in their impact with reality, an impact that sets in motion the mechanism that reveals the factors” [10] of our person. For this reason—it is one of the most evocative phrases we can hear—“an individual who has had little impact with reality [who has been little challenged by circumstances, by life], because, for example, he has had very little effort to make, will have [I am sorry for those who want to spare themselves everything!] little sense of his own consciousness; he will perceive less of the energy and vibration of his reason.” [11]
It is not through introspection that we become aware of our most intimate selves. We usually remain on the surface, floating in the images we have. Only those who accept the impact of reality, because they want to be truly aware, can understand the importance of experience in unmasking false narratives, in a world where narratives have taken the place of experience itself.
3. Reality Becomes Transparent in Experience
Giussani puts the most important tool we can have into our hands to avoid being dominated by any narrative, in whatever context we live: “Reality becomes evident [not in narratives, not in chatter, not in abstract reflection, but] in experience.” [12] Therefore, “the starting point is experience.” [13]
Let us start from experience. When someone treats us unfairly, no narrative can convince us that we have not been treated badly. Or can it? When someone says they love us, but we see from their actions that they are using us, no declaration of love, not even the most ardent, can deny what we are experiencing. “If we feel hot or cold,” says Newman, “no one will convince us otherwise by insisting that the thermometer reads 15 degrees. It is the mind that reasons and gives its assent, not a diagram on a piece of paper.” [14]
We could continue to give examples like this until the end of time to show what seems to be the most obvious thing: reality becomes transparent in experience, not in our thoughts.
An astute observation by the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, Hans Urs von Balthasar, can help us understand the importance of starting from experience, especially at this moment in history when a kind of skepticism prevails about the ability of experience itself to unmask narratives:
"Those philosophers are therefore right who advise students who find themselves uncertain and lost when faced with the problem of truth to first throw themselves into the current, to experience, grappling with the waves, what water is and how to advance in it. Those who do not risk this leap will never experience what it is like to swim, and so too those who do not dare to leap into truth will never attain the certainty of its existence." [15]
Because truth and reality can only be recognized through experience.
Nothing can challenge the power of narratives, our worries, and our reductions more than the awareness of the value of experience in unmasking their falsehood. We understand why Giussani insists so much on saying that “experience is the key word of everything: anyone who does not start from experience deceives, wants to deceive himself and others; man can only start from experience, which is the place where reality emerges in a certain way.” [16]
A friend told me that his son—like many, a bit cynical about life—had a car accident. He asked him, “But when you rolled over twice, did you realize it? Usually you lose perception…” And he replied, “No, no, I was very conscious!” “And what did you think?” “Look, I just screamed at the top of my lungs: I want to live!!”
Suddenly, all his skepticism about life had been swept away by experience.
“I want to live!” This is the ultimate expression of the self. At that moment, all thoughts, limitations, and fog were overtaken by what was happening. These are moments that happen when man is stripped of all superstructures, of all the worries that usually clutter his mind. And the true self emerges: the desire to be.
When reality enters into experience, it has the ability to purify our gaze—with an unexpected event that strips us bare, like an accident that suddenly clears away all the “fog”—and it becomes crystal clear what the self is, the person that each of us is: the desire to be.
In an instant, the image we have of life is overturned by experience.
How many times has it happened to you, between husband and wife? You are in the kitchen—I always use this example—side by side, and you feel the other person is a thousand miles away! You feel distant from the person who most awakened your desire to be. It's not that you aren't physically close, but you feel the other is very far away, because heaviness, fog, stupidity, superficiality... stand between you. Imagine—as I always challenge married couples to do—that the person who fascinated you so much, and who now feels so far away, had a heart attack right now—God forbid! All the fog would be swept away in an instant.
This speaks to the value of experience. As C.S. Lewis writes:
"What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs appear. You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you. The universe rings true wherever you fairly test it." [17]
Experience never deceives. We have no power over it! First you are surprised, and then you realize that you are surprised. But you have no power not to be surprised.
Therefore, experience has the power to unmask our images, our thoughts, our reductions, our ideologies.
We can then go along with it or not, denying the evidence, but experience itself does not deceive us. And we know it; we know when we walk away looking the other direction instead of following the experience we have had.
"Today's age, today's dominant culture, has renounced reason as knowledge, as recognition of the evidence with which reality presents itself in experience, that is, as positivity. And it has renounced affection for reality, love for reality: it has renounced love because, in order to recognize reality as it emerges from experience, the shock we feel must be accepted [it is not a given! Not even the most obvious shock, because a moment later we can look away]. But man does not accept reality as it appears and wants to invent it as he wishes, he wants to define it as he wishes, he wants to give it the face he wants." [18]
Each person can then verify for themselves the decision they have made. It is like when someone does not want to look at the symptoms of an illness: they can sweep them under the rug, but sooner or later they will reappear! And we too must verify when we sweep the symptoms we don't want to look at under the rug. Experience does not deceive us. Is it better to have a disease with symptoms or without symptoms, only to discover it when there is nothing left to do? Everyone must decide for themselves.
What can facilitate our embrace of reality as a whole? We catch it in experience; we are somehow facilitated in recognizing and embracing it in experience... When, for example, we see a radiant person arrive at work, we immediately ask them, “Have you fallen in love?!” Nothing more simple than a fact can make that piece of reality, which seems heavy and exhausting, so different: it makes everything different, suddenly.
What we all wait for, as we heard in the cry of the song Anyone, is a fact so significant in its scope that it frees us from all our limitations and allows us to embrace reality as it is.
Something needs to happen.
4. Christmas: Liberation from Narratives
This year we arrive at Christmas in specific historical circumstances that can help us understand its significance. Christmas is the celebration of the most significant event in history: God became man, became flesh. Yet even such a crucial event does not escape the “law” of life: the reality of this event becomes transparent in experience.
Indeed, perhaps precisely because the Mystery understands the nature of our person like no other, He chose to submit Himself to the only way humans have of knowing: experience. This is why I am always amazed when Giussani states that “the most important thing I have said in my life is that God, the Mystery, has revealed himself, has communicated himself to human beings in such a way as to become the object of their experience.” [19] Otherwise, there could be another interpretation.
Being aware, as few others are, that reality becomes transparent in experience, Giussani never ceases to be amazed at the method chosen by God to communicate Himself to men and free them from any ideology. “The presence of something Other is necessary, the presence of an Other, the presence of a man who is more than a man: God who came into this world” [20] precisely to free us from the power of all our images.
And how does He do it? It is impressive. Unlike any ideology—which uses the tools of power to try to convince us—God enters history in the least ideological way imaginable, becoming a defenseless child—a tiny sign—but a child capable of making Himself the object of experience. It may seem insignificant, a method too fragile to have an impact on reality, yet it is revolutionary if we observe the reaction that His birth generated in the powers of His time as soon as the news was heard: the Slaughter of the Innocents.
He had just been born, and already the powers that be were trembling.
With no power other than His Presence, He challenged all power. And He offered—to anyone who welcomes Him—the opportunity to verify the liberating power of His historical Presence.
For this reason, at a time like the present, when we are so challenged by ideology, Christmas can take on an even more significant meaning. We can avoid reducing it to a ritual or a habit, seizing the opportunity to verify its true capacity for liberation.
In order to verify this, however, we must allow it to enter into our own experience. Because “Christianity, being a present reality, has as its instrument of knowledge the evidence of experience.” [21]
Few things have made me understand the significance of the Incarnation in unmasking ideology as much as what happened some time ago to a Catalan girl. She was steeped in nationalist ideology due to her history, family, and social influences. It was during the days of the 2017 independence referendum in Catalonia, and this girl said at a meeting with other young people: “My friendship with a friend from Madrid [this fact was already shocking] helped me to wake up, to come out of my skepticism, to judge everything we are experiencing.” It was the same day that her parents had locked themselves in the school so that they could vote in the referendum the next day. “This friendship is helping me to live, to understand myself.”
In total chaos, what helps her understand herself is her relationship with a friend. The night before, she and other Catalan students had arrived in Madrid and were welcomed into a parish. They arrived in a place that, according to them, ‘oppressed’ them, with a certain fear of seeing “how the other kids would look at them.” But during dinner, the unexpected happened: an embrace of everyone's life, an unthinkable unity, starting from a single heart that desires, suffers, and seeks. To the point that the girl found herself thinking, “I wish my parents were here! I wish all my friends could see this!” A seemingly insignificant fact amid all the propaganda. She closed her speech by saying, “After these days with you, after what I have heard about my heart, about my desire, about Christ, I can no longer say that I am different from you. I am one with you.” [22]
Only daring to “jump” into the water, as Balthasar said, for the sake of friendship with that friend, convinced her. She could have remained entangled in her thoughts. All she needed was to experience it for everything to become clear.
“New knowledge arises from adherence to an event, from the affectus to an event to which one is attached, to which one says yes. This event is a detail in history,” but “it has a universal claim,” which gives reason to everything. “Thinking starting from an event means first of all accepting [...] what I really am and the conception of the world that I have.” [23]
Therefore, to the extent that Jesus enters, He begins to clarify us to ourselves. But if He does not enter our experience, we cannot recognize Him adequately, as this example of the girl shows.
We discover in history whether the Event of Christ remains contemporary or whether we have subsumed it into the abstract universal of ideology.
I will conclude with two examples from the early days of Christian history. The case of St. Paul and the community he founded in Galatia is significant. Paul was a Pharisee, as we all know: the dominant mentality in Palestine at the time. His Pharisaic faith had led him to become a persecutor of Jesus' followers precisely because of his fidelity to the law, to the mentality. No one could have convinced him to change his mind. Only one event, his encounter with the Risen Christ, made possible what no one could have believed: that he would become a disciple of the One he persecuted.
What made this change possible? The experience of the living Jesus.
With this new faith, Paul began to proclaim the Risen Christ and created the communities we know, to which he addressed his letters. But, as we know, not everyone experiences the consequences of the encounter in the same way as Paul. Some Pharisees who converted to Christianity wanted to subject the newly baptized to the law, and they brought their way of understanding Christianity to the communities founded by Paul, such as that of Galatia. Suddenly, the Galatians found themselves faced with two different narratives of the Gospel: that of Paul and that of the Judaizers.
After writing that there is no other Gospel than the one he proclaims, with Peter and the pillars of Jerusalem [23], what weapon does St. Paul have, beyond this statement, to challenge the Galatians? Experience.
And so he challenges them with these not-so-gentle words: "O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your very eyes that Jesus Christ was crucified! I would like to know only this from you: is it by the works of the Law that you have received the Spirit [the newness of life that you see vibrating within you] or by hearing the word of faith? [You see it in experience]. Are you so lacking in intelligence that, after beginning in the Spirit, you now want to end in the flesh? Have you suffered so much in vain? If only it were in vain! So, does the one who gives you the Spirit and works wonders among you do so because of the works of the Law [is it your performance in fulfilling the law that has brought you the newness of life that you see in yourselves?] or because you have heard the word of faith?" [24] That is, because of the living encounter that has awakened your whole person.
Faced with what we might today call the “narrative” of the Judaizers, St. Paul appeals to nothing other than their experience of freedom. They have all the elements—in their experience—to judge the two “narratives.”
When tested by the Galatians, St. Paul can offer only experience. And he says to their faces: "Christ has set us free for freedom! Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery [the suffocation of the law]. Behold, I, Paul, say to you: if you are circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I declare once again to anyone who is circumcised that he is obligated to observe the entire Law. You who seek justification in the Law have nothing to do with Christ; you have fallen from grace.“ You have missed out on the best, congratulations! Because ”it is not circumcision or uncircumcision that counts, but faith," that is, the newness of life, faith that becomes life in reality.
Then comes the coup de grâce: “If I still preached circumcision, do you think I would still be persecuted?” [25] The fact that he is persecuted is proof of his freedom from the law and from circumcision.
In this way, he simply invites the Galatians to submit reason to experience. Just as each of us does.
After all, Paul does nothing more than what we see Jesus doing before him, constantly challenging the experience of His disciples. And that is what makes Him credible. He does not want them to believe without reason; He wants each one to adhere to the experience they have had. Therefore, after all the miracles they have seen, the extraordinary signs He has performed, many are exalted and want to make Him king. He could have been satisfied with this: “They already recognize me, what more could I want?” But Jesus does not fool us. He looks at them with a unique tenderness: “Man does not live by bread alone!” [26] As if to say: if you only have this bread, which has satisfied your hunger, you cannot have life... The bread you received yesterday is not able to satisfy the hunger and thirst of your heart. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” [27] Life, life! A life that can be called life, a life that lasts.
Faced with this challenge, everyone abandons Him. Because if one has not understood the nature of the problem—of hunger and thirst—one cannot even understand the significance of what Jesus is saying.
Even the disciples are faced with the alternative: to leave Him or to remain with Him. And they must decide. But Jesus does not spare them the challenge either: “Do you also want to leave?” [28]
Here, their entire experience comes to light: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” [29] words that fill life. What experience had they had of His person to be able to respond as Peter did? Because in his experience, what he had heard Him say came true: “I have come [not to dominate you, but] so that you may have life and have it in abundance.” [30]
A fullness of life is the only access to truth. Without fullness, narratives have an easy time of it. Finding no obstacles, they take over the field and easily influence us. It is not a question of intelligence, nor of voluntarism or performance. All this is not enough to stop their influence. Only fullness sets us free. Without it, we are at the mercy of everything.
Only fullness can unmask any narrative, because it is the only antidote to the cage of narratives: reality becomes transparent in experience. And when a “tsunami” comes—any provocation of reality that challenges us with all its power—we see people who are surprised to find themselves free from narratives. They are not confused, because the narratives are unmasked by the experience of fullness that Christ has allowed them to live. As Peter and Paul testify to us.
Merry Christmas to all.
___
1 F. Dostoevsky, Letters on Creativity, Feltrinelli, Milan 1991, p. 89.
2 A. Gisotti, “In conversation with Luciano Floridi: ‘There is a need for ethics and love even in the age of Artificial Intelligence,’” L'Osservatore Romano, October 25, 2025.
3 H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Edizioni Comunità, Milan 1996, p. 649.
4 T.S. Eliot, Choirs from “The Rock,” BUR Rizzoli, Milan 2010, p. 89.
5 Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, § 24-25.
6 L. Giussani, “È venuto il tempo della persona” [The time of the person has come], edited by L. Cioni, Litterae Communionis CL, no. 1/1977, p. 11.
7 Ibid., p. 12.
8 Cf. A. Savorana, Vita di don Giussani, BUR Rizzoli, Milan 2014, p. 489.
9 L. Giussani, Il senso religioso, BUR Rizzoli, Milan 2023, p. 139.
10 Ibid.
11 L. Giussani, In cammino. 1992-1998, BUR Rizzoli, Milan 2014, p. 311.
12 L. Giussani, L’autocoscienza del cosmo, BUR Rizzoli, Milan 2000, p. 275.
13 J.H. Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, cit., p. 119; Italian translation cit. (modified here), pp. 1145-1147.
14 H.U. von Balthasar, Theologik, Bd. 1: Wahrheit der Welt, Johannes Verlag, Einsiedeln 1985, p. 13; Italian translation by G. Sommavilla, Verità del mondo, vol. 1 of Teologica, Jaca Book, Milan 1989, p. 29.
15 L. Giussani, L’autocoscienza del cosmo, op. cit., p. 274.
16 C.S. Lewis, Sorpreso dalla gioia, Jaca Book, Milan 1982, pp. 199-200.
17 L. Giussani, In cammino…, op. cit., p. 253.
18 L. Giussani, L’autocoscienza del cosmo, op. cit., p. 164.
19 L. Giussani, In cammino…, op. cit., p. 254.
20 L. Giussani, Avvenimento di libertà, Marietti 1820, Genoa 2002, p. 190.
21 Cf. J. Carrón, The Origin of New Knowledge. Notes from a conversation with a group of Spanish leaders of CL, in Huellas, November 2017 (https://www.clonline.org/storage_files/conversazione-carron-madrid.pdf).
22 L. Giussani-S. Alberto-J. Prades, Generating Traces in the History of the World, BUR Milan, 2019, p. 90.
23 Cf. Gal 1-2.
24 Gal 3:1-5.
25 Cf. Gal 5:11. For further information: J. Carrón, “Event and Knowledge in Saint Paul,” talk given at the Rimini Meeting, August 25, 2009 (https://www.meetingrimini.org/eventi-totale/avvenimento-e-conoscenza-in-san-paolo/).
26 Mt 4:4.
27 Jn 6:53.
28 Jn 6:67.
29 Jn 6:68.
30 Jn 10:10.
