INSIDE america

A Knowledge of Man,
for a Knowledge of God
The importance of Christ cannot be recognized unless we have an adequate grasp of the “human problem.” A compassionate and honest look at the desires that make us human is the necessary context for recognizing Christ when we encounter Him

During the past few months, I have had the privilege of directing retreats for priests in various dioceses around the country, and in spite of the difference in regions, Church history, social configurations, and pastoral situations, the reaction of most of the priests has been the same: they are interested in what I emphasize, they are even enthusiastic about it, considering it a “new” way of appreciating the nature and value of their ministry, but they wonder, “How do I know that what you are proposing is in full agreement with what the Church teaches?” A key point of interest is the insistence that the importance of Christ cannot be recognized unless we have an adequate grasp of the “human problem.” A compassionate and honest look at the desires that make us human is the necessary context for recognizing Christ when we encounter Him. This is why Fr. Giussani says to the priests that in order to be good priests they must first be fully human.
Seeking to address this concern, I remembered the homily preached by Pope Paul VI on the last session of the Second Vatican Council (December 7, 1965). I read to them segments of the speech and no one yet has been able to identify its source. Many think it is Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI, or Giussani himself. When I tell them that this was written almost 42 years ago, they are amazed. How is it that after all these years it sounds so contemporary?
In this address, Pope Paul VI gives his personal interpretation of the meaning of Vatican II and outlines the direction into which he thinks the Council intends to lead the Church.
Here is a crucial excerpt: “The religion of the God who became man has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God. And what happened? ...The attention of our council has been absorbed by the discovery of human needs (and these needs grow in proportion to the greatness which the son of the earth claims for himself). But we call upon those who term themselves modern humanists, and who have renounced the transcendent value of the highest realities, to give the council credit at least for one quality and to recognize our own new type of humanism: we, too, in fact, we more than any others, honor mankind.
“The Catholic religion is for mankind. In a certain sense it is the life of mankind. It is so by the extremely precise and sublime interpretation that our religion gives of humanity (surely man by himself is a mystery to himself) and gives this interpretation in virtue of its knowledge of God: a knowledge of God is a prerequisite for a knowledge of man as he really is, in all his fullness; for proof of this, let it suffice for now to recall the ardent expression of St. Catherine of Siena, ‘In your nature, Eternal God, I shall know my own.’ The Catholic religion is man’s life because it determines life’s nature and destiny; it gives life its real meaning, it establishes the supreme law of life and infuses it with that mysterious activity which we may say divinizes it.
“We can and must recognize in Christ’s countenance the countenance of our heavenly Father–‘He who sees me,’ Our Lord said, ‘sees also the Father’ (Jn 14:9); our humanism becomes Christianity, and our Christianity becomes centered on God. We may say, to put it differently: a knowledge of man is a prerequisite for a knowledge of God.”
Echoes of Fr. Giussani: “I do not love my humanity because I love Christ; I love Christ because I love my humanity.”