EDITORIAL

At a fork in the road

There are moments when the impact of reality becomes more violent. Think of the barbarities surrounding the case of Eluana Englaro,* the thunder of war in the Middle East, the grip of the economic crisis. They seem to be placed there on purpose, all together, to shake us with their reverberations. In these cases, the normal effect is a reaction and, in many ways, this is rightly so. It’s a good sign, because it means that the heart isn’t numb. But is this reaction enough to fill the heart? Is it enough for facing reality deep down, for freeing us from fear, for hoping? Within those blows, so violent as to make us feel sick (how can you not feel sick, before the case of Eluana?), isn’t there something more, a deeper challenge?
We have to look at our experience, in order to realize this deeper challenge, starting out precisely from what happens. Defending life is very right, and indispensable, a battle to be fought with all the weapons at our disposal: laws, culture, newspapers, education (especially), and even street protests, when useful. Everything. But that “everything” isn’t enough for us. Defending the principle of life isn’t enough for us to live, just as affirming with words the mysterious and infinite value of suffering isn’t sufficient for facing suffering. Defending the family, another good battle to be fought head on, isn’t enough for us to live our marriage well. “Everything” that we can do should be done, and the battle should be fought head on. But it’s not enough. In order to truly understand what’s at stake, we need someone who lives to the fullest, who makes us see the fullness of meaning in even the worst illness, who shows us the boundless beauty of a vocation and the fascination of educating children, who makes us discover in these circumstances a correspondence to our heart that was previously unthinkable, and who helps us meet the One who makes all this possible, the Only One who can make it possible, because we ourselves aren’t capable: Christ.

We need Christ, and witnesses who make Him present. As Fr. Julián Carrón said a few weeks ago to a group of CL responsibles, when we acknowledge this, “life challenges us and becomes a fascinating adventure, because it introduces us more and more to the meaning of reality.” This reality is a continual challenge, a collection of challenges to acknowledge Him present, occasions to verify our faith and see hope flower. Any battle, all our battles, put us before a fork in the road, even before the alternative between victory or defeat–are we certain or not of His presence, of the good destiny we’ve encountered, of what we’ve seen and touched with our lives? If the answer is yes, we can “hope against all hope.”

All this may seem like just a “spiritual discourse,” a spiritualism incapable of withstanding the violent impact of reality. Actually, it’s exactly the opposite–first of all, because it doesn’t make you abandon the battle, but rather, it makes you enter the field with even more will to fight. It makes you enter into the heart of problems with more acumen, taking into account all the factors. Even more important, it frees you from fear, making you certain and thus free, because hope, the one hope, is only born from the certainty that He exists.

*Eluana Englaro, in a coma for 17 years since a car accident when she was 19, died on February 9th, 72 hours after she was deprived of water and food. Considered the “Terri Schiavo” case of Italy, this event has been the subject of searing political debate.