Book launch

Hope in Westminster
cathedral hall
The second volume of Is It Possible to Live This Way? Hope by Luigi Giussani was presented in London on July 2nd  by Fr. Julián Carrón and the Rector of the diocesan seminary, Msgr. Mark O’Toole.

“Always wonder!” This is at the heart of Fr. Giussani’s proposal, according to Msgr. Mark O’Toole, Rector of the Catholic seminary of the diocese of Westminster, who, together with Fr. Julián Carrón, presented the second volume of Is It Possible to Live This Way? on July 2nd, in the elegant Westminster Cathedral Hall of the Catholic Cathedral of London, to an audience of 200 people.
Msgr. O’Toole began his presentation acknowledging that he was a “novice” to the works of Fr. Giussani and desirous to “listen and hear of your experience.” He introduced Fr. Giussani’s work in the light of Dickens’ novel Hard Times, which described the devastating effect on young Louisa of the education her sociologist father Thomas Gradgrind gave her, teaching her to “stick to the facts!” and exhorting her to “never wonder.” In contrast, O’Toole said, “Don Giussani’s reflections in this series of books… might be described as an invitation to each of us to always wonder!”—an exhortation to a “proper use of reason,” which then “becomes a window that opens up for us a whole other horizon.” O’Toole saw this as the basis for Fr. Giussani’s ability to dialogue with anyone. Noting the historical context in Europe in the period when the Movement took form, Msgr. O’Toole underlined that “Don Giussani shows that we must all return to the very core of Christianity and the encounter with Jesus Christ.  In this, he echoes—in praxis and in concrete life—those great theological thinkers of the resourcement that led to the Second Vatican Council.  We find an echo of the theology of Danielou, of  Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, of Hans Urs von Balthasar, of the young Cardinal Ratzinger.”
 Touching upon the humanity of authors such as Pavese, Mauriac, and Leopardi, Fr. Julián Carrón then asked, “Is there a real foundation from which we can expect that our thirst for happiness will be satisfied? The current situation, in which everything seems on the verge of collapsing before our eyes, makes this question even more urgent. Is it possible to hope?” One help in answering comes from Charles Péguy: “In order to hope, my child, you must be very happy; you must have received a great grace.” With this affirmation, the great French poet “is poles apart from any attitude of presumption,” continued Fr. Carrón, “because he acknowledges that the possibility of hope is founded not on anything we’ve built ourselves, but on a grace, that is, on something given. This grace is what makes hope reasonable.” By this he means “reasonable hope” as defined by Benedict XVI in Spe salvi. Before closing the evening, Marco Sinisi, responsible for the local CL community and moderator of the presentation, invited those present to the School of Community. “We didn’t want to simply present a book,” he said, “but to propose to everyone the work that flows from it.”