Witnesses of Hope

English. Spanish. French. German. Italian.

Julián Carrón - In a searching dialogue with volunteers on the front lines of human need, author Don Julián Carrón explores a radical proposition: that true hope is not a wish for the future, but a concrete certainty in the present—a "foothold" that allows us to face suffering, failure, and even death without despair.

Please be advised that the following text has been transcribed, translated, and edited by the staff of the cultural center Epochal Change from the original video of the event, which can be viewed by clicking on the Italian Link above.:.The author has not reviewed or revised this transcription. The editorial staff of Epochal Change has worked diligently to ensure that the original meaning, wording, and tone of the dialogue are accurately and faithfully represented in this English edited text.

Francesca: Thank you for choosing to join us tonight for this moment of reflection. How did the invitation to Don Carrón, who has roots in the life of our associations, come about?

We thought that in this Jubilee Year, it would be fitting to create a moment of reflection on the theme of hope, which touches us daily in all the areas where we are active. Don Carrón wrote this book during the COVID-19 pandemic: “Is There Hope? The Fascination of Discovery.” I read it then and picked it up again recently because there are so many ideas in this book that concern us in our daily lives. In fact, he writes, “The impact of the harshness of reality has brought out more clearly our human need.”

We can affirm this every day because we are constantly faced with situations that demand such a response from us. The present, with its upheavals, has uncovered the fragility of the life structures we had taken for granted. Every day, we are faced with people for whom nothing can be taken for granted. It is a humanity that is almost stripped bare; everything needs to be rebuilt and revitalized.

There is a sentence in the book that struck me: “There is no vaccine that frees you from the difficulties of life.” In short, there is no vaccine for poverty in its broadest sense. It is a poverty that affects us all closely. I believe we all know Casa di Marta, where an immense daily work of service is carried out. But then there is the urgency of meaning. He writes in the book: “Every man comes into the world with an urgency of meaning, of destiny, of the absolute, which at a certain point emerges within him and with which, willingly or unwillingly, he is forced to confront.” I ask you to help us confront this urgency of meaning.

I start from this provocation. The meeting with Don Carrón was conceived this way because we have strong practical experience; we thought of involving more volunteers who live this reality, starting from their concrete experiences, to address the many challenging issues raised in this book.

However, before we get to the explanation of what hope is—given that the book is titled Is There Hope? with a question mark, and we want to get to the bottom of this—I would like to ask you: in a few words, what is this hope for you?

Carrón: Yes, we are all facing the challenges of our time. The title of this book actually came from a conversation years ago with a group of university students. We wanted to address this very issue, thinking especially of them and their peers. Instead of limiting ourselves to a definition, we asked, “Is there hope? Is there hope for all the challenges we face?” This was even before the recent political crises; it was about the everyday challenges we all encounter.

Then came this “tsunami,” and we saw these dangers rising from the depths of the human experience we were all going through. Faced with an enormous, global challenge—who could have imagined, just a month earlier, that the world would come to a standstill, that we would all be forced to stay at home? Faced with such a powerful provocation from reality, we all felt our inability to cope with the scale of this ordeal. What then arose in so many people, from all walks of life and all faiths, even in skeptics, was the question: “But is there hope?”

And why this question? Because we were faced with something that was beyond our power to solve. We were afraid of the scale of this challenge, with all its personal, social, and economic consequences. So, the more the magnitude of the problem emerged, the louder the question became: Is there any hope? Is there any foothold that will allow us to face this without despair?

Francesca: The foothold...

Carrón: A foothold that cannot be something we create ourselves. Each of us, as we wrote in the book, saw the walls come down. We saw attempts to resolve the situation with phrases, like the now-famous expression “Everything will be fine,” as if to encourage each other. But deep down, we were all convinced that this could not constitute a real foundation for hope. We express these desires so spontaneously, so humanly, because we see that the scale of the challenge is greater than our energy. We were looking for somewhere to place our hope. But is there anything we can hope for that has the consistency, density, and depth necessary to counter the threat hanging over us? This is the request for a point of support to face the situation.

Francesca: I really like this point because it speaks to the present. Our culture leads us to think of hope as mere optimism, as the idea of a future we cannot know. In fact, there is a phrase of yours that I wrote down: “A certainty in the present with which we can face everything without fear.” Certainty in the present is the foothold.

Carrón: Perfect. You have identified a crucial issue. To face such a threat, an image, an idea, or a phrase is not enough; we need something in the present that allows us to look at reality without fear. This is why the image of a frightened child often comes to mind. What responds to his fear? Not a phrase, not advice, not a definition, but a presence. It is the mother's presence that represents certainty, the point of reference for finding hope in something present. Without this presence, the child would be at the mercy of everything else. Think of Pascoli's two orphans, who huddle together for warmth. Being orphans, having no adult to give them that point of reference in the present, they had to support each other. But in the end, fear won out.

Francesca: I experience this in my role as a mother, too. When a child calls you and you answer, “I’m here!” you often don’t have the answer to their question or the solution to their need at that moment. But you are there, and that is the most you can do.

Carrón: Exactly. And to continue with what you were saying about the present, one of my favorite thoughts on hope is that to hope, “you need to have received a great grace.” That is, a great grace in the present that allows us to face not only the present but also the future. This is why we say that hope is born as a consequence of faith. Faith, hope, and charity are connected.

Why did Christians begin to speak of hope? In the ancient world, before Christianity, people could not find a sufficiently stable and secure foothold on which to base a hope that could challenge even the greatest threat: death. Christians found a presence so exceptional that they were fascinated by it. This presence did not avoid suffering; it even faced death. However, it did not end in the tomb. The last word was not death, but resurrection. Consequently, the resurrection became the adequate foundation for facing any challenge, even death itself.

So hope springs from faith like a flower. For this reason, when it comes to hope, each of us must ask: does the hope I have possess an adequate foundation to challenge any aspect of life, even the greatest challenge, which is death? Because when it comes to death, statistics do not lie. This is why, when the resurrection is denied—as happened in Athens when St. Paul spoke about it at the Areopagus—people turn away.

The resurrection is what turned St. Paul's life upside down. He had placed all his hope in fulfilling the law, even though he knew he could not follow it perfectly. Then, he found himself before Someone who, after being laid in a tomb, had risen. This led him to upend his entire way of thinking. Everything he had previously perceived as a gain, as a point of support—his adherence to the law—he replaced with hope in the living and constant presence of the risen Christ. From there, Paul says, we can “hope against all hope.” We can face any risk because we have a present foundation.

Francesca: Present. So the measure of hope is not the future but what we live today.

Carrón: Exactly. The foundation is in the present; otherwise, there is no future. But precisely because this foundation has such great consistency, having even passed through death, we can also have hope for the future. And therefore, we can look death in the face. Imagine what this meant when we saw the number of COVID-19 deaths growing day after day.

I remember a girl who struck me deeply. Her mother had just died, and she had not been able to accompany her to the cemetery. She was very distressed about this. So I said to her, “Is the reason for your hope accompanying your mother's body to the cemetery? Or is the real question whether Christ is risen? Because whether or not you accompany her body, what does that matter to your mother compared to the truth of the resurrection? It is this truth that can truly help her.”

Francesca: This year, we had an experience of death that touched me deeply: a guest at our soup kitchen was found dead in his home. I was very struck by this because at first, I thought, “We failed. He died alone.” We found out maybe two days later. Yet, in reality, his funeral became a testament to the certainty of the resurrection. Seeing all the people there... Although our culture often associates a lonely death with a story of abandonment, this was not the case. It was not like that at all.

Carrón: That's true, but even all the people who attended that funeral could not bring that man back to life. Otherwise, we are like Pascoli's orphaned brothers: we are together, we give each other some support, we sustain each other with our solidarity, but we are unable to give effective hope to the person who has died. The problem of hope challenges all our attempts to resolve the issue. Sometimes one hopes to be remembered. But what good does it do for people to remember me if I can no longer live? It is not a particularly interesting consolation; it is a meager one. This is why hope is so fascinating: it challenges everything.

Francesca: Well, thank you. Let's move on. I'll pick up the discussion on our immense commitment to “doing.” To help us, I have prepared a reading... if I can find it. Please be patient. The risk of activism is a theme addressed in the book. I will read just a few sentences to introduce us to the heart of the matter:

We can avoid the cry that comes from our humanity by throwing ourselves frantically into action, committing ourselves to the point where we no longer have time to think about our real needs. We can blame our lack of serious commitment to our humanity on “doing.” In activism, the things we do, the things we are involved in to seek satisfaction, become the supposed meaning of life, but this is not the true object of our esteem.

This passage touches me deeply because I feel responsible and constantly question myself. Faced with a world of solidarity that is so active and committed to “doing,” I feel a duty to stop for a moment and ask us all about our deepest human needs. I would like to hear Roberto's thoughts on this. Thank you, Roberto, if you can join us.

Roberto: Yes, I hope the microphone is working. Reading the book, this point struck me deeply. I am a nurse by profession, so I experienced the two waves of the pandemic on the ward. I realized afterward that I had built a wall to prevent myself from being overcome by the emotional turmoil, which would have otherwise overwhelmed me. This wall manifested itself in “doing”: I just kept my head down and carried on at full speed. That way, you get to the end of the day tired and you don't think anymore. The problem is that if you keep your head down, you don't look people in the face.

After that period, I read this book. I was very struck by Pascoli's poem about the unexpected. I then started volunteering at the clinic with Antonia. Here too, as Francesca said, I encountered the unexpected. Everyone who arrives is an unexpected event. And often, to deal with these unexpected events, we fall back into just “doing,” so as not to let ourselves be touched by these human dramas. My question is this: how do you keep the wonder of the unexpected alive? How do you prevent things from fading into mere routine?

Carrón: We can talk about it, because the important thing is that this doesn't become a lecture but a sharing of our experiences. Listening to you, I am reminded of an effort I myself had to make. We all run the risk of activism as an attempt to solve the problem of hope. Since we are unable to face certain realities, we fill our lives with activities, thinking this will solve the problem. I would say that when one succumbs to this activism, one must take stock and ask, “Does this activism fill my life with hope or just with fatigue?” The beauty of life is that one can make these attempts.

Each of us, when faced with challenges, tries to respond with the best of intentions. One doesn't throw oneself into activism for no reason; it is an attempt to respond. Sometimes it's hard to deal with everything—with unexpected events and dramatic changes constantly happening. So you prefer not to look, to escape in many different ways. The decisive question for me is that whatever attempt you make to respond to a challenge, you then have to come to terms with your own experience.

You see if it gives you peace or if you simply wake up the next morning with the same questions you left there the night before. This makes life dramatic, but at the same time, it doesn't allow us to deceive ourselves or pretend things are working when, deep down, they are not satisfactory answers.

And I don't think we should be shocked if we make these attempts. The only decisive issue for me is loyalty. When you make an attempt, you must then be loyal to what emerges from your experience. Because experience shows when we are not at peace. And so one begins to ask: “If this isn't the answer, and I am just distracting myself instead of finding a solution, where else can I look?” And so the search continues to see if one can find a foundation in the present that allows one to face life head-on.

Otherwise, we live constantly with the sword of Damocles—the unexpected—hanging over our heads, never finding peace. Today it’s for one reason, tomorrow for another. We cannot avoid the unexpected; reality is always greater than our philosophies and our fantasies. It challenges us with ever-new, unexpected events. There is no hope unless we are equipped for any eventuality.

I don't want to just put on a brave face and pretend a problem is solved when I know very well that it isn't. I want to be loyal to experience, to be true to myself. The difficulty, so often, is that by looking for answers that are clearly insufficient, we end up settling for them. It's as if, in the end, we give up and say, “Let's face it, there's no hope.”

Roberto: Exactly, and so we continue to struggle more and more.

Carrón: In this regard, I am struck by a phrase from the famous rapper Marracash, who says that activism fills time, but not emptiness. Brilliant phrases like this show how a person, if they are honest with their own experience, does not delude themselves. They don't confuse filling time with activities with filling the void with hope. They are so honest that they do not deceive themselves, because they want to truly live.

This allows us to continue on our path and not get stuck. When we feel this deep human need, it means there is a path we have not yet discovered. Since we haven't found the real answer, we think activism might be the solution. But when we discover it is not, we find ourselves at a crossroads: either we resign ourselves and say that there is no hope, or we open ourselves to something yet to be discovered.

Roberto: And find the desire to do so.

Carrón: The need for hope remains, even if we have tried to stifle it with activism. It is as Pavese says: if no one has promised us anything, why do we wait? We wait because waiting is part of our human nature. We may have lost our way or found inadequate answers, but that doesn't stop the waiting. It's like saying, “I don't know if hope will come, but I want to be ready when it does.”

Francesca: If I may, a point Roberto made really touches me: by throwing ourselves into “doing,” we risk forgetting the people in front of us.

Carrón: Perfect. And that's another consequence. If you throw yourself into “doing,” you end up not even looking at the people you're doing it for. When the challenge exceeds our capacity, we try to avoid it. We prefer to avoid the unexpected, especially when the solution is beyond our energy.

All this helps us understand that for hope to be adequate for human needs, it must have a consistency that allows it to stand up to any unexpected event. Think of what happens to Roberto and his colleagues. How many doctors or nurses, faced with a patient who has no chance of recovery, prefer not to enter the room?

And so patients die alone. Because courage, energy, medical science, and nursing training are not enough to face such a great challenge. They are not enough, and many of your colleagues will tell you they cannot enter certain rooms. You end up forgetting the very purpose of your work, which is to help those most in need. And why? Because to face this, you need a foundation that gives you the hope necessary to face any threat.

Francesca: You have to be capable of this, and that is the heart of the matter.

Carrón: This becomes even more evident when we think about what you doctors and nurses have told me. The first wave of the pandemic was an extraordinary display of generosity. You told me that you had never felt so united, like one body—doctors and nurses driven by an enormous desire to respond to that challenge. And then, over time, all of this faded.

One of you told me something that amazed me: “After what we had been through together, that unity generated in the face of the tsunami that overwhelmed us, we would find ourselves in the corridor and hardly even greet each other anymore.” That's impressive. We're not talking about a generous idea or sentimentality, but about people who risked their lives for months, with all the proper protective gear. Yet it's as if that entire experience wasn't enough to create a foundation, a way of life that could withstand the test of the everyday.

Francesca: Yes, that reminds me of some volunteers I recently met who were applying to work at our facility. The second thing they said was, “We don't want to have any contact with people. We're willing to fold clothes, wash floors, and prepare meals, but please don't put us in contact with people.” Clearly, we mustn't judge.

Carrón: It's simply an observation that when someone is unable to face another person, they prefer to deal with things. Sometimes I joke with friends, “Why don't you become a librarian?” Moving books is preferable because they're not like kids; books don't complain, while kids always get into trouble. I understand that, but it shows once again that we lack something in the present that allows us to face others. This is our culture; I'm not saying this to judge, but simply making an observation.

Francesca: Yes, but it is precisely from that challenge that something can arise, as we have seen.

Carrón: Perfect. Something can arise if you don't censor or justify this limitation, but instead leave the door open to the possibility that something unexpected might happen—something that could lay the foundation for hope. Then your hope no longer depends on your resources to deal with the problem but on the fact that you have a foothold that is unassailable, even in the face of failure. Because, so often, we don't have the ability to stop certain diseases, change family situations, or resolve certain problems.

We are faced with truly challenging situations. But the issue is not so much solving the problem as it is these people finding themselves before someone who, in looking at them, communicates hope; someone who does not see only disaster, who does not consider every problem a pathology or every difficulty a defeat. What does it take for each of us to be able to look at any person without reducing them to the label they have already given themselves? If we have something to communicate, we can offer hope even to those who no longer expect it, regardless of the outcome of their illness.

I have friends who accompany each other through illness, even to the end of their lives. There, victory does not consist in everyone being cured but in seeing everyone become capable of facing even death with hope. The question, therefore, is not to “solve” the problem in that sense. The real solution lies at the root: the certainty that death is not the last word on life, that illness is not the last word on life.

It is a question of meaning. We need a meaning that allows us to look at death, to look at illness. And many who arrive angry, embittered, or cursing end up being introduced to a place where hope grows. I have met people who, even knowing they are at the end, greet us with surprising peace. They might say, “Next week I won't be here physically, but I'll connect online to participate in Mass.” They don't say this because they are cornered, but because they have found a familiarity with a joy that testifies to the victory of hope, even when illness has not been defeated.

Seeing hope win—not only when things are going well but also when death is knocking at the door—is what makes a place a true oasis of hope. Otherwise, if the only hope were healing, most would stop coming, because so many do not survive their illness. But what fills them with hope is having found a meaning to live for.

Francesca: Indeed, it is curious how in everyday language, when we talk about terminally ill patients or people in desperate situations, we say, “There is no hope for them.” But it is precisely the opposite that we must affirm: we must be a place of hope. Precisely where common sense says there is no hope, that is where hope must be born.

Carrón: The point is that the desire for hope needs something to sustain it, like finding people like you in a place like this, who look at others with hope. This means you have found something in the present that allows you to look at them that way. But what about those who haven't? As Manzoni said, “Courage cannot be given.” So where can such boldness, the ability to look at others in this way, come from?

Francesca, this is the question for the many collaborators you have here. We need to help them face this question because it can be an opportunity for their own lives. When they come here, they are faced with tragedies that, as we were saying, they would prefer not to see. Instead, finding themselves in a place like yours, where there are people who have hope, can be an opportunity for them—not because they hear a speech about hope, but because they see hope in your eyes.

I was very struck by something I read recently by Cardinal Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict. He says something that I would like to read because it expresses this point very well:

"In the current world situation, it has become very difficult for individuals to understand the reason for faith, to make it their own and to take it as a guide for their thinking and living. [...] We need, first of all, examples where ethical experience—the experience of volunteer work, such as religious work—arises because we see it lived by others. I think that the most important thing in ethics is not to learn theories, but to see exemplary models of a reality that opens up the possibility of recognizing it."

Seeing you, and the many who come from schools to lend a hand, can be this experience. In this sense, the decisive factor is witnessing a successful life. A life lived well, in front of everyone, is communicated this way. It is examples, witnesses, that show us the way. We should pray that there will always be more people like this, from whom we can learn what is essential for facing the unexpected.

This place, therefore, can be a place that generates hope, because when others see you, who have hope and do not refuse to look at people as they arrive, with all their difficulties, they see the possibility of facing what they would not be able to face alone.

Therefore, this dialogue and this experience you are having are an opportunity to understand that hope is not communicated only with words on an evening like this. This is simply an occasion. You communicate hope much more by living it, in the way you look at others.

It is like those sick people who live with hope: other patients, perhaps angry with life, see them and receive hope by seeing them live. Not from healthy people making speeches from the outside, but from others who are immersed in their same situation and live it differently. Then they begin to desire to live as they see others live. They may not know how to achieve that peace, but seeing it in others, they desire it—the desire to live even an incurable illness with that same hope.

Francesca: Which then becomes joy.

Carrón: Perfect. Because, you see, your experience can be very similar. You are faced with the unexpected, with many people arriving in very different situations. How many young people, you told me, come to volunteer from schools, even from the eighth grade! This can be a place where hope is communicated, sometimes much more than in many explicitly religious places. Because there, perhaps, they receive a definition, but as Ratzinger said, hope is communicated more through people in whom they see it embodied.

Francesca: That is, we cannot limit ourselves to theory.

Carrón: Better not to, otherwise... (laughter).

Francesca: I'll take this a step further regarding how to be present with people. There is another point that touched us deeply, which is “knowing how to stay.” You write, “Knowing how to stay is the very essence of care. The words ‘I am here’ make care human, because they mean not abandoning anyone.” For this, I would like to call on Antonia. Antonia, we would like to explore this question further with you. You are also a nurse, as you mentioned.

Antonia: Yes, along with Roberto, I am a nurse at Casa di Marta. Unlike Roberto, who still works, I am retired and have been volunteering here for a few years. Regarding this “knowing how to stay” and starting from experience, I would like to tell you about something that happened to me some time ago.

For many of our guests, Roberto and I are a point of reference; many have no one else, and for them, coming to chat, even without a real physical need, is very important. Some time ago, an experience touched me deeply. One of our guests, whom we had known for a while, kept coming in to have his blood pressure taken, sometimes two or three times a day. I saw in this man a somewhat lost, vacant look. More than once I said to him, calling him by name, “Look, there's no need to have your blood pressure taken so often; it’s practically perfect.”

One day, however, when we were alone and there was no one else in line, this man burst into tears. I looked at him, remained silent for a moment, and then asked what had happened. He told me his story. He was from Egypt and had been in Italy for many years. A few days earlier, his 18-year-old daughter had died of fulminant hepatitis. This man was desperate. He poured out all his suffering.

His outburst didn't last long, and it left me quite confused. My question is this: when faced with such great suffering of the heart and soul, how can I give hope to this person? And how can I have hope myself in such situations? When there is a physical problem, we can often solve it: we give medicine, apply a bandage, and the issue is addressed. But when we are faced with such immense suffering? Perhaps the most important thing was simply to stay there at that moment, and that's what I did. But at the same time, it troubled me deeply.

Carrón: This is a crucial question. As you can see, the problem of hope is not “mine” or “theirs”; it is one and the same. You find yourself facing this challenge. The great advantage for those who, like nurses, face this world and its problems is that it puts our backs against the wall. And this, for me, is not a misfortune. It is easier to be a librarian, as I said before, or to enjoy retirement, as you and I could do.

But when you are faced with the challenge a person presents, you are the first to benefit. This question forces you to ask yourself, “What would I do? What would I say if this were me, someone dear to me, or even just this stranger who comes to have his blood pressure taken?” It is an opportunity to set out on a journey to find a foundation for our own hope because if we do not have it for ourselves, we cannot give it to others. As a priest, from the very first village I was sent to, I became aware of challenges that overwhelmed me on all sides. It is a very human experience.

I have always seen that the situations life places before you are opportunities to stop sweeping problems under the rug. For me, it has always been a gift. I couldn't pretend not to see; I couldn't avoid confronting it. I was “forced” to set out on a journey. And only if you accept this “compulsion” can the moment come when you discover you can face that suffering. I don't think you could have brought that man's daughter back to life, but you could give him hope.

I remember a situation from years ago. A Pakistani man had worked for years in a Gulf country, exploited and mistreated by one of his countrymen. When he arrived here, he found himself in a place similar to yours, a soup kitchen. One of the volunteers addressed him by name and asked, “Meat or fish?” The man burst into tears. One might think he was just being sentimental or that this gesture was obvious. But not to him. A man who had lived for years in submission, treated like a thing, had built a shell that made him almost insensitive. But in that look, he perceived a recognition of his dignity that reawakened his sense of self-worth. He was moved.

We cannot resolve his past, but we can be, in the present, the person who offers him a different perspective. Your guest did not come because he needed to check his blood pressure, but because he needed a relationship. Many of my friends who deliver food parcels realize that, at a certain point, people no longer just need the parcel but the relationship that has been created.

Antonia: Indeed, a bond was formed with this person.

Carrón: That is what remains.

Antonia: Exactly. He kept coming, obviously not for his blood pressure anymore, but to talk, to chat a little. Until one day—and I still remember the joy in his eyes—he told me he finally had the money for a plane ticket and was going to visit his wife and other children in Egypt. A really beautiful relationship developed with him.

Carrón: You see? The way you stay creates a bond that goes beyond need. You touch a level of sharing that lasts a lifetime.

Francesca: What seems to have happened to Antonia, and to many others, is that when faced with the truly unexpected, the grace that came your way was also a test for you—a test of your own consistency.

Carrón: These encounters are the best opportunity for communicating hope. Exactly. You begin to realize what you carry within you, even when doubts assail you, as they did in the question you asked. Sometimes we only realize what we carry because life does not spare us these encounters. At first, they throw us into crisis, but then they help us become aware.

Like that volunteer who asked the Pakistani man, “Meat or fish?” It seems like a simple, polite question. But to be able to ask it with that look, it is necessary that two thousand years ago the Word became flesh and came to dwell among us. Certain words, certain looks, do not arise from nowhere; they only happen if there is a foundation that allows us to look at another in this way.

Francesca: Thank you. You touched on a subject dear to me: calling people by name. It leads me to constantly question myself about the “poor.” Sometimes, when I meet young people in schools, it seems our work is seen as just a form of welfare toward a “category” of people in difficulty. In reality, this is a wall that must be broken down, with effort, because culture itself leads us to create these categories. By calling people by name, however, we recognize them as our equals; or rather, I recognize myself as poor alongside them.

How, then, do we break down this wall? How can we face even the most dramatic situations, looking at each other as human beings?

Carrón: For one reason only: if we are aware of our own humanity, then we can look at others and embrace all of their humanity. This only happens if you have been tender with yourself. No one can give what they do not have. If we have not done this with ourselves, it will be difficult to do with others. If we have not first received such a look freely, we cannot give it.

So, the real question is: what generates this awareness in us? What allows us to see the full depth of human need so we don't confuse it with material poverty alone? Need is much more than that. It is not just the need for bread, because “man does not live on bread alone.” If that were the only problem, it would be easy to solve. The radical problem of life is not the lack of bread. After the multiplication of the loaves, the people, out of gratitude, wanted to make Jesus king. But He, looking at them with boundless tenderness, told them not to think that this bread could satisfy their deepest hunger. Indeed, focusing only on that bread creates even more dissatisfaction. For this reason, a discourse that does not address the true nature of human need is not credible.

Jesus, on the other hand, has such a passion for our destiny that He does not deceive us. If He did not address the true nature of our hunger and thirst, He would not be a Savior. We would have no hope of finding someone who cares for us, for our hunger and thirst for a fullness that we cannot give ourselves.

For this reason, the question we must help each other with is recognizing the true nature of our need, our demand. We can respond to high blood pressure or material hunger, but this is only a first step. So often, what people really need is a hug, a look, that fullness they cannot give themselves. That is why we are told, “blessed are the poor, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” because only they will be satisfied.

The point is: who came to respond to this hunger? Jesus says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” He did not come simply to respond to hunger for food, but to respond to the thirst for life that is not satisfied by having a full stomach. Most of us, thank God, do not have the problem of material hunger, but we all need beauty, we all need someone to answer our deepest questions. Because things are not enough for us; we can fill ourselves with many things, but we cannot fill the void.

Francesca: The volunteer experience is an opportunity, an answer.

Carrón: But first of all, we must help young people not to think that just because they are responding to a material or social need, the problem is solved. The first thing they can discover by coming here is the true nature of another's need—not so much to solve it but to become aware of it. Because only then will they begin to see their own need. They will have the opportunity to face their own needs as young people because they too, at this age, are beginning to feel that things are not enough.

This morning, during a lesson, I gave the example of the famous American singer Taylor Swift, who, after winning numerous Grammys and breaking every record, asked herself, “What now?” Now that I've won all this, I'm not satisfied. I would give the kids a Rolex just to ask them, “Did it change your life?” It's a brilliant way to make them understand the true nature of need, which is not the need for a Rolex or any other passing fixation. I would give it to them so they could experience firsthand the true nature of their need. Because if we don't want to waste time and reduce people, the most important thing is to help each other become aware of this crucial issue.

This can also be a place where hope is evoked and perspective is broadened. Because there are people like you, like Antonia, like your nurse friend, who look at reality in this way. And then young people can have the opportunity to look at life without reducing it. This is a valuable educational goal you have in your hands, and sometimes you can communicate it better than at school because you communicate it by living it.

Francesca: As I was saying before, it all comes back to us, because the questions we are asked help us to question ourselves.

Carrón: That's why I'm interested. Speaking this evening, I hope that you too understand the significance of what you do, also from an educational point of view. What you were talking about before, culture, is precisely this: helping young people to become aware of themselves. And so, in this moment of discomfort, of failure, in which they are groping for answers, they can learn from your gaze to embrace themselves. We must not think that every shortcoming is a pathology to be solved by a psychologist. Because pills are not enough. We need a gaze that is capable of embracing their humanity.

Francesca: The idea of the pill is that it is the solution. One thinks that...

Carrón: Exactly. But the point is that each person must verify whether the pill solves the problem or increases it, because often it not only fails to solve it but weakens the person even more. After taking the pill, the seriousness of the situation has not changed. It's like someone who doesn't understand the vastness of his glass and complains that no bottle can fill it. When he understands that his desire is so vast and boundless that no “bottle” can fill it, then he will begin to understand himself. Providing these tools to young people is crucial: putting the tools in their hands so that they can understand themselves.

Francesca: In this reasoning about need, about this constant search—“What do I need? What does the other person need?”—I would like to hear from Jessica. Jessica, I would like to hear your thoughts on how this concrete, practical experience also leads to satisfaction.

Jessica: Well, I'll give you an example that sums up the experience of many volunteers at our soup kitchen, which is open every day but is run entirely by volunteers on weekends. For many, serving in the soup kitchen is the best part because there is direct contact. We sit at a table set with hot, ready food. It's the best opportunity to talk; many people tell their stories and confide in us. It's the ideal environment.

Put like that, it all sounds wonderful. In reality, it's a demanding shift: there are many volunteers, sometimes there are disagreements about what to cook, and you have to respect different religious beliefs and be careful with certain foods, just to give a few examples. Let me tell you about last Sunday's experience: we served 50 meals, and in most cases, they are always appreciated. However, there are also cases where meals are refused or discarded. Sometimes we have found them thrown away outside. As you can imagine, this hurts.

So I asked myself: given that I am making myself available, that I am there for them, should I always expect gratitude? Or rather, does my satisfaction come solely from my actions eliciting the reaction I expect? I cook, so you have to eat. However, I had a situation with a family from Sri Lanka, a father and his son, who perhaps didn't eat the tuna pasta because they didn't like fish, but then they came into the kitchen, moved. The father came crying and said, “Thank you, because today I found a family.” Yet they hadn't liked the whole menu. So the question is: should I always expect gratitude for what I do? And what kind of gratitude is the right kind?

Carrón: Would you like not to depend on their gratitude?

Jessica: Of course, it's nice to receive it. I work hard for them, so I would like some feedback.

Carrón: But would you like to be free of it, or not?

Jessica: Well, of course.

Carrón: Good. So what do we need to experience to achieve this freedom? It's normal for a person to be grateful when they receive something good or a gift. We teach this to children: “What do you say when you receive a gift?” And this can also be an opportunity to help many adults recognize with gratitude the gifts they receive.

But not everyone has had a proper education. Many who come here have such suffering behind them that their relationship with reality is disturbed; this has created a “crust” on them, a reactivity that has many reasons. We have to work with these real people, with their real problems. Poor people, just like us. The question, in my opinion, is whether we can live with such fullness that we are free to give them time to come to understand the value of something, while we ourselves live in a gratuitous and grateful way.

Why can a mother wait for her children to become aware of what she gives them? Because she is a mother. She can accept that they are not yet aware or grateful, precisely because they are not yet mature. She needs a loving relationship that fulfills her emotional life so that she can give her children time to understand. But if she demanded an immediate response from her children, the virtue of patience would not exist. Precisely because she is affectively fulfilled, she can wait for them to make their own way. What experience of fulfillment must we have to wait for each person to make their own way?

Otherwise, in the end, we complain. Do we admit it or not? We go home saying, “They are so ungrateful! They don't even thank us for what they receive for free!” Isn't that true? That's how it is. As a mother, however, you can have a different attitude. But to have it, your heart must overflow with fullness. Otherwise, if a mother has not resolved her own need for fullness, she ends up depending on her child, emotionally blackmailing him or her. We know this well!

Therefore, in order not to emotionally blackmail others, we must first resolve the issue of our own fullness. This is the great challenge of working in a profession like yours. Otherwise, even we, deep down, do things with an underlying complaint, sometimes unexpressed but real.

To be free from the response of others, we need to live a fullness that is itself a gift. We are the first to receive this fullness, a gift so great that it allows us to be grateful and to wait for others. This is what the prophet Jeremiah says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.” Otherwise, we are always measuring. Only those who are aware of having received such greatness can be truly free from the response of others. This does not mean it is not good for others to arrive at gratitude, but we must give them time to reach it through their own awareness.

Francesca: I would like to touch on one last theme: gratuitousness. It is clear that in our experience there is a difference: a mother’s gratuitousness toward her child is part of a natural logic. But gratuitous love for the destiny of another, as you write in your book, risks generating mistrust. So how do you gain trust in the face of such love, to leave behind the logic of need and gratitude and enter into that of gratuitous love?

Carrón: Just think of how many gratuitous gestures God has made toward humankind, and how long He has to wait for a response. Sometimes people have suffered deep wounds. I remember, in a center similar to yours, a boy who had beaten his mother, probably because he himself had been treated violently. I imagined the work the educators had to do with a boy like that. In the face of such trauma, gratitude is not immediate. It takes patience and boundless gratuitousness. I wondered: how much gratuitousness will it take for these young people—so wounded, so damaged in their relationship with reality, with their families, and with themselves—to change their attitude toward everything?

Francesca: So that they can trust that generosity?

Carrón: Exactly. Trust is key. Imagine the educators approach that boy, and every gesture they make is perceived in the opposite way. Why? Because he has lost trust. Once trust has been betrayed, you can't just turn the page. Even when faced with those who come with the best intentions, you have an underlying distrust because you have seen others, who may have come with a similar attitude, ultimately deceive you. Once, twice, twenty times. In the end, you no longer trust anyone. So how can distrust be overcome? Only with boundless gratuitousness and infinite patience.

Francesca: A generosity that reaches the point where you no longer need gratitude. Time is not on our side, so we must move forward. Thank you, Jessica. I'll call on Gabriella. With her, we tried to get to the bottom of a passage that is quite challenging for me. You write: “No one can claim to know everything and to master everything, to be able to predict everything that may happen so as to exclude the possibility of the unexpected. The only truly reasonable position is to leave this possibility open at any moment of life.” Gabriella's experience is a little different from that of pure volunteering.

Gabriella: I work in a Christian-inspired family counseling center; it's not volunteer work, but a public service. I am, so to speak, one of those “psychologists” who can be a bit of a thorn in the side. The educational emergency has made itself felt, and we have received a lot of requests. We offer many services, but what involves us most are the people who come to us for help in overcoming pain, personal fragility, and difficulties they have been carrying for a long time. It is easier with adults because they already have categories and criteria for judging how to face life.

But it's different when young people arrive who don't have stomach aches because they don't want to go to school, but who cut themselves, have addiction problems, or no longer attend school. When there is such extreme distress, it's different. As professionals, we have asked ourselves a lot about how to work with them. Beyond the clinical aspect, which everyone handles with their own professionalism, these situations challenge you every time.

The fact that they come is a miracle in itself; if they come back a second time, it’s even more so. But when you see these kids, they have an endless quest for meaning. ‘Why is life worth living, despite everything?’ Today's kids don't want to grow up anymore. We're talking about serious problems. And we professionals are always faced with this question: ‘How can we help them? How can we give them hope that life is worth living?’ How do we respond, as you write, to their search for meaning, which stems from emptiness and leads them to live in a state of limbo that causes anxiety and distress? How can we tell them, “Look, the sun is shining behind the clouds”?

It's a question that concerns both the worker and the young person. And it's not easy. I'll close by returning to what you wrote about the unexpected. I asked myself: what is the unexpected for me? Off the top of my head, I would say the “problems” that happen every day. But if I think about it seriously, for me, the unexpected is the people who come into the counseling center.

Because everyone has their own story. The only reasonable position is to leave open the possibility of the unexpected, without the illusion of being able to control reality. The person in front of me defies all stereotypes. If I look at them like that, they themselves become “the unexpected” for me—an opportunity to work with them and to allow myself to be questioned. But I'm in trouble if I think I can be their solution because then their freedom begins to frighten me. It's a huge challenge.

Carrón: That's true. When we are faced with these challenges, the first question is: how do we look at them? We often reduce them to pathologies to be entrusted to psychiatrists and psychologists who, in turn, often fail to identify what they are because they do not have the tools to answer that kind of question. I ask myself: what if all these discomforts were not signs of a pathology, but of an ontology?

That is, what if they were a sign of the very greatness of the human person? The ultimate reason is not a pathology but the fact that we do not realize the vastness of that need we were talking about earlier. A need so fundamental that if it is not met, it destroys us. These young people, who have everything and have burned their bridges, experience enormous discomfort because no adult has introduced them to the true nature of their need.

A place like yours is a privileged place where they can be introduced to a different way of looking at things—a way of looking they have never been given. I have always been struck by a phrase from Leopardi, who in his genius grasped the problem: “Everything is small and insignificant compared to the capacity of the soul.” Feeling boredom, feeling a lack, is not a sign of being unlucky but a sign of the greatness of human nature.

And St. Augustine says something similar with extraordinary power: “Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” He wanted to show us the greatness of human nature in the fact that nothing less than Him is enough for its peace and happiness.

We, on the other hand, thought that this need was a defect, not something so fundamental that we cannot live without an answer. And now we are seeing that we cannot live. This is the great challenge we face as educators. If we only touch the surface, we do not resolve the depth of the issue. This is why the educational emergency is not a problem of money or organization but of offering reason and meaning. If we do not respond adequately to this deeper need, we are deceiving them. We create more problems than we solve.

This is why I said that if Jesus had not addressed this issue, he would not be credible. And he addressed it by raising the bar. He said, “Man does not live by bread alone.” And if bread is not enough, what is the answer to this hunger? “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life within you.” And almost everyone left. He was left with twelve. But if he hadn't raised the bar, he would not have been credible, because this is the only decisive question, today more than ever. We can solve many problems, but not this one.

The more difficulties and hardships arise, the more the irreducibility of the person emerges. And someone like Marracash realizes that the further he goes, the more this irreducibility emerges, and that filling time with money, Rolexes, and activities does not fill the void. So he shifts his focus from success and says, “Now what interests me is understanding who I am and what I want.” Do you understand that we are facing an epochal shift?

So perhaps, if we take advantage of this situation to introduce young people to who they really are—to help them understand themselves, what they want, and the infinity of their desires—we will begin to realize what path they need to discover, what unexpected events they must await. Otherwise, we will only increase their discomfort, making the situation even more complicated.

Francesca: I would like to continue, but time is running out. Thank you. I would like to thank and invite our provost, Monsignor Giuseppe Marinoni, to join us. Because now we are getting to the heart of the matter... and we would need another two hours! Thank you. We come to the heart of the relationship between hope and faith. The question is: what does Christianity add? What opportunity does it offer us who are going through this kind of experience?

Monsignor Marinoni: Thank you all. Thank you for this beautiful “walk” we have taken together, a true journey. We were offered a path that starts from a point I really liked: the reference to the fact that hope is a person. And this makes me think of a passage from the Gospel that I find very beautiful, which speaks precisely of hope: the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Carrón: Thank you. Thank you all!