THE FACTS ANSWER

WE MERELY FOLLOW THE

REMAINING OPEN TO THE POSSIBILITY THAT IT CAN OCCUR MAKES US DISCOVER MANY THINGS ABOUT FAITH, AND ABOUT OURSELVES.

BY JOHN WATERS

The most striking thing about the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin was the way it showed how the Mystery operates beyond and around the logic of the world we think we know.
Take, for example, the story of the exhibition organized by our friends in the Movement in Dublin, first seen at the Meeting of Rimini last year. “Through the Eyes of the Apostles: Life Transformed by a Presence” was the big hit of the Congress, a truly transforming event witnessed by perhaps 8,000 people over six days. Most people emerged from the exhibition deeply moved by what they had encountered and they were determined to learn more–about Fr. Giussani, and about this way of seeing that he has taught us, about the experience of Christianity as a Presence which imposes itself, changing the very meaning of things.
Bringing the exhibition to Dublin had been an “impossible” idea, one that first occurred simultaneously to several of us when we visited the Meeting last year. This “impossibility” was dissolved at the insistence of the Mystery. We merely followed the signs, gently pushing doors to see if they would open.
It is truly remarkable to see the operation of this different way of thinking in such a clear, focused set of conditions, where there is one coherent and immediate objective. We remained open to the idea that the initiative might succeed or fail, might happen or might not.
In the end, it happened in a way that exceeded our wildest dreams about it. The idea, as our new friend Raymond reminded us, took root like the smallest mustard seed, in the affection and openness which have been cultivated out of the intuitions and elaborations of Fr. Giussani, and we were enabled to see this magnificent tree reveal itself and grow before our eyes.
This, we were shown, is how things really happen. This is what “faith” means. Nothing of what Fr. Giussani has bequeathed us is hypothetical, or theoretical. It is a way of enabling to happen what otherwise might appear to be miraculous.
In the wider context of Irish society and its present condition of faith and hope, the Congress had, I believe, a momentous–if for the moment subtle–impact. The Apostles exhibition played an important part in this also. What we had hoped for was that we could construct a place where the Mystery might take over the impossible task of engaging the pilgrims at the level Giussani had told us was possible. All I can say is that, within the outwardly bunker-shaped exhibition space, something emerged to transform those three-dimensions into a resting-place from the everyday bunker of which Pope Benedict had spoken in the Bundestag nine months before.
The exhibition became a kind of anti-bunker, to which the pilgrims were drawn, as though space and 2,000 years of time had been condensed.
The Congress had begun in a mood of pessimism, arising from the current situation of the official Church. The attitude of the Church’s Irish leaders since the announcement that the 50th International Eucharistic Congress would be held in Dublin suggested that this was something they would prefer not to have to undertake. Please, they seemed to plead, take this cup away! The timing was wrong; there were too many unresolved issues; it would inevitably lead to a further backlash. This pessimism was, in worldly terms, understandable, but excluded the possibility of truly exceptional occurrences.