Beyond Emptiness

Understanding that ‘everything is little’ compared to what we desire is not a defeat but self-awareness.
— Julián Carrón
Beyond Emptiness, Rediscovering Desire as a Path to Fulfillment.
Julián Carrón

Julián Carrón - Beyond Emptiness: Rediscovering Desire as a Path to Fulfillment

There is a word that we use a lot and that for many has lost its meaning: happiness. We all want it. We cannot help but seek it in everything we do — at work, in success, in relationships, in purchases. But if we look inside ourselves, we sense that something is off.

We are often led to believe that happiness comes from accumulation: more things, more achievements, more pleasures. But there is a problem, as we well know. Even people who reach the top — with money, fame, and power — often find themselves with an emptiness inside. Why?

Because they come up against — and we, like them — our own irreducibility. They discover that they are made, we might say, in a strange way: nothing they come to possess can truly fill them. Man is the only being in nature that cannot be "satisfied" by anything smaller than himself. And everything we have and control is, by definition, smaller than we are. Understanding that "everything is little" compared to what we desire is not a defeat, as we often think, but the beginning of self-awareness — the discovery of who we are. It is understanding that we are made for infinity, as Pavese said: "What a man seeks in pleasures is infinity, and no one would ever give up the hope of achieving this infinity."

It is precisely to those who do not give up on achieving this "infinity" that Jesus addresses the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are not a list of good intentions or commandments but the only realistic response to the irreducibility of our desire. They are, therefore, the greatest challenge for those who want to live up to their desires — a gamble only for the daring, because it completely overturns the logic of accumulation with a paradoxical proposal. While everyone thinks, "Blessed are the winners, the satisfied, the powerful," the Beatitudes say, "Blessed are the poor, the meek, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst, those who are persecuted." It seems absurd to us, doesn't it?

But there is a profound logic that we sometimes struggle to grasp. The Beatitudes do not speak of misfortune but of the fullness that can be experienced in any situation in life. The "poor in spirit" are not those who have nothing but those who desire the fullness that everything else cannot give them.

Those who mourn are fortunate because their hearts are still alive, not numb, and they can discover the Presence that truly comforts them. Those who hunger and thirst for fulfillment are blessed — truly fortunate! — because they will see the One who can truly satisfy them. Those who are persecuted are blessed because they will understand that right there, in the midst of difficulty, when everything seems to be falling apart, they can discover Christ's power to transform any situation — a difficult day, unjust suffering.

Happiness is not an accumulation to be increased with useless things in response to all our needs for fulfillment; it is a Presence to be recognized. "I have come [this is the great news that Jesus brings us!] that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10). And to bring us this life, He does not ask us to cut out our failures, our tears, our desire for happiness. He invites us to look at every experience and ask ourselves: "What can really make me happy? What can truly fill my heart?"

The Beatitudes are a proposal for those who refuse to settle for a watered-down happiness. At stake is the fullness of life for which we are made — a fullness we cannot achieve on our own.

Who can tell whether Jesus' promise is true? How many of us hear it with a touch of skepticism! Only those who have the courage to put it to the test in real life, amid all the unexpected events we cannot avoid: tears, desire, dissatisfaction, suffering. Today, someone wrote to me saying that the Gospel had shaken them: "I wondered if it was true [like many of us, perhaps]. Isn't it better not to have needs, wounds, injustices? With these questions, I couldn't listen to the Gospel as a mere formality. The wound inside me made me realize that this is a proposal for my life today. I asked myself, 'Can I say that what Christ says about my life, so wounded, is a blessing?' Yes. And as I say this, I begin to cry, because I feel so much suffering inside — but it is true. If I did not need You, O Christ, I would not realize who You are and how much You are everything to me!" Each of us is called to verify the promise of the Beatitudes in the different circumstances of our lives. Only this verification can truly convince us and challenge our skepticism.

IV Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A

Notes from the homily by Julián Carrón, February 1, 2026

(First reading: Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12–13; Psalm 145 (146); Second reading: 1 Corinthians 1:26–31; Gospel: Matthew 5:1–12a)

Julián Carrón

Julián Carrón, born in 1950 in Spain, is a Catholic priest and theologian. Ordained in 1975, he obtained a degree in Theology from Comillas Pontifical University. Carrón has held professorships at prestigious institutions, including the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. In 2004, he moved to Milan at the request of Fr. Luigi Giussani, founder of Communion and Liberation. Following Giussani's death in 2005, Carrón became President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a position he held until 2021. Known for his work on Gospel historicity, Carrón has published extensively and participated in Church synods, meeting with both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

Previous
Previous

The Only Pointing Finger that Creates

Next
Next

The Great Reversal