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The Depth of need
What do we really need in order to live? And how does faith help us to recognize it? Our daily struggle, which "cripples a man," is forcing us to come to terms with this crucial question, going to the root of an issue that all too often we prefer to avoid, and which Pope Francis is asking us to take seriously.

by Davide Perillo

Saying that every circumstance, no matter what, “is an opportunity for us” could be mistaken for a slogan, or a mantra we repeat to calm ourselves, to give ourselves some relief from the discouragement of living an existence full of challenges. But even under the cloud of the international recession, of the political impasses, of the struggles of work (or not having work), and of the daily battle of each person, we still have a great opportunity to learn something–something about ourselves and about the faith. Hence, the expression becomes something true, because the more the need spreads, the more it bites, and the more it questions us, pushes us to inquire: What is really going on? What do we really need? What can fill this void that is so pervasive, almost annihilating? At the Exercises of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, held in these months around the world, a passage of Cesare Pavese’s Dialogue with Leucò was quoted: “But a man’s life is down there in the valley, in the fields, at home. Beside a hearth and in a bed. And every day that dawns confronts you with the same toils, the same failures. In the end it wears a man down... The everlasting, grinding toil, the effort to stay alive from day to day, the recognition of evil in others, petty evil, as tiresome as summer flies–that’s the life that cripples a man.” What can answer this pain of living that lies at the root of every malaise?
It may be unusual to look at what is happening around us from this starting point, and we might react by saying that it’s not not the moment to change everything, to start over and so on. But it is, first of all, the moment to ask. If there is a thread that ties together much that we see and feel, in such different forms, if there is something that holds together the topsy-turvy politics and the pain of those who have lost their jobs and can’t make ends meet, or are suffering misfortune, it is precisely our need–and often, a strange reluctance to see things as they really are, to look at our need in all its depth.

Attractive truth. In trying to take the first step toward  looking at our need, we are still surprised by the pontificate of Pope Francis, which is exploding in all its novelty, in a powerful beginning that surprised many for many different reasons. Many have offered analyses these first months; they have been struck by the new Pope’s gestures and innovations, and many even ventured comparisons of the speed with which the Church has gained new zest with the political and social stagnation in the Italian Republic.
And  if we read all this in the light of how the Pope’s acts and words answer to the need that we are, then we are even more struck. It is a continuous reminder to look deeply at reality. And it is a course, a real journey, starting with his words to the Cardinals of March 15th: “Let us never yield to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil offers us every day; let us not yield to pessimism or discouragement; let us be quite certain that the Holy Spirit bestows upon the Church, with His powerful breath, the courage to persevere and also to seek new methods of evangelization, so as to bring the Gospel to the uttermost ends of the earth [cf. Acts 1:8]. Christian truth is attractive and persuasive because it responds to the profound need of human life, proclaiming convincingly that Christ is the one Savior of the whole man and of all men.”
For this reason–and only for this reason–can faith be “attractive and persuasive”: because it responds to the profound need of our existence, a need that the Pope shows that he recognizes for himself, as witnessed by his continual request since the first moment he appeared on the Loggia of the Blessings: “Pray for me.” It is a need that requires only one thing in order to be a powerful resource–our loyalty, our not drawing back from entreating: “Let us not be closed to the newness that God wants to bring into our lives! Are we often weary, disheartened, and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up–there are no situations which God cannot change” (Easter Vigil).
This is the challenge. Is it true or not that there are no situations that God cannot change? Is it true or not that every circumstance is an occasion for recognizing the Mystery who entrusts it to us, and therefore “for our maturing,” as Fr. Giussani always reminded us. We must verify if, for this reason, in virtue of this close and continuous companionship God is for us, it is truly possible “not to let them steal our hope,” as the same Pope Francis said on Palm Sunday.

Out of curiosity. It might seem an exhortation, but it’s a provocation, first of all to ourselves and to our loyalty, to go to the root of the need we are; to ask. If we do this, then we can get back in the game. This can be seen, for example, in some evident effects of the Pontificate–in the many “wandering sheep” who are coming back to the faith out of curiosity that is not only intellectual, but has to do with the hypothesis that, perhaps, it can really help us to live. Then there are some who are going down to the roots of this need and come back to take into account another measure, and ask for forgiveness. In these past weeks, there are many priests who have noted a large increase in the numbers of people coming to Confession. It’s not a small thing. But let this be the question: does faith embrace our “life that brings us down” or not? And how? It can be seen in many people whose lives have truly changed direction, opened up, just when they began to ask–for help in getting a job, for the family, in sickness. But behind that help there is much more, as can be seen in the stories we report, that help us to understand why it is not the time to draw back into ourselves, but to ask.