Experience

According to Francis
Learning from what happens to him, personal witness, prayer “full of memory”... Father ANTONIO SPADARO, the author of the famous interview of the Pope, explains why, for the Pontiff, faith finds a continuous confirmation (and reveals its strength) in reality–and in our capacity to “discern.”

by Davide Perillo

“Reflection, for us, must always start from experience.” The phrase is there, on page 118. We had already read it, in the famous interview for America Magazine. But now the text is back in circulation, this time in book form (La mia porta è sempre aperta [My Door is Always Open], Rizzoli; it will be released in English in 2014) with an elaboration of context and background. We return to it with Fr. Antonio Spadaro–47 years old, editor of the Society of Jesus’ magazine, Internet and literature expert, and “second most famous Jesuit in the world,” as he was nicknamed after the scoop of that dialogue, which took place in three stages and was published contemporaneously all over the world–taking the occasion to go deeper into this theme. It is fundamental for following the Pope, as well as for reading Evangelii Gaudium, to realize why “[i]t is impossible to persevere in a fervent evangelization unless we are convinced from personal experience that it is not the same thing to have known Jesus as not to have known Him” (266). “Personal experience”–faith can find its confirmation only there, in reality. It is only by thoroughly judging what happens to us, comparing it to our truest needs, that we can become aware of the radical difference that Christ brings to life.

Why is experience so decisive for the Pope? What does it mean for him?
Pope Francis is not a person who loves to focus on concepts. He does not start from clear and distinct ideas in order to then apply them; he always starts from contact with those he has in front of him, be they individuals or groups. On the one hand, experience is a category rooted in his spirituality, in the Jesuit formation: in St. Ignatius’ pedagogy, the starting point (to which one then repeatedly returns) is always the context and experience. The Pope said it clearly in Evangelii Gaudium, but he had reiterated it in the past, as well: reality “is,” while an idea is the fruit of an elaboration that always runs the risk of falling into sophistry, detaching itself from reality–even to the point of totalitarianism, if the idea wants to impose itself on reality. For the Pope, reality is always superior to an idea. This is one of his four fundamental principles for reading reality. Therefore, if a reflection can be made, it is only in the light of experience–and only after this reflection comes the evaluation which launches the action. On the other hand, the Pope’s pastoral experience is worth much to him. It is the concrete faces of the people he has met who have, in a certain sense, converted him to experience. During his work in Buenos Aires, for example, the importance of this direct contact with people matured a great deal. It is not an intellectual category; it is experience itself that moves him to start from experience, not to mention another aspect.

Which one?
Belonging. Experience, for the Pope, is not only the individual kind, but also that of a people: the Church. To feel a belonging to a people has an incomparable value for him. After all, God reveals Himself to a people, not to an individual. Therefore, the experience of faith is always contextualized within a belonging. Subjectivism is out of the question.

Even when the Pope speaks of faith as something that is born from the “wonder of encountering someone who is waiting for you,” there is a powerful reminder of this aspect: it is an event, an objective fact that can be known only through experience...
Certainly. But the concept of objective is never to be understood as absolute or detached. What guides reflection, and then action, is the awareness that Christ became incarnate. In the interview that he gave us, the Pope clearly states that discernment is not carried out on ideas, but on stories. There is no inert objectivity; there is always an objectivity that becomes face, story, experience. The objectivity is Christ. The novelty is the Gospel. This is the point. Everything else comes later–not because it is unimportant, but because there is an absolute priority: the announcement. And the Gospel is called to be proclaimed to everyone, in whatever situation he finds himself living.

But doesn’t this also imply the fact that man–in any situation, and above and beyond the differences among cultures and traditions–has within himself a criterion that permits him to judge and to recognize this objectivity? There is an event that establishes itself in history–the announcement of Christ–but there is also man’s heart, which is capable of perceiving this uniqueness, because he is waiting for Him. The Pope is also pointing to this, I think.
Yes. There is something within man, an openness, that the Pope identifies with a wound. And this openness implies the fundamental desire for God. This concept of the wound is to be understood as a profound plea, inscribed in the heart of man. And the Church substantially addresses itself to a humanity that perceives, feels, experiences this wound.

The Pope himself starts from this wound. When he says, “I am a sinner,” it means that, in order to define himself, he draws from the most radical experience that a man can have: his limit. And we know that we cannot pretend with respect to this fact–experience is ruthless in this regard...
Absolutely. Ultimately, the experience of faith, and of adhesion to Christ, is given precisely by the recognition of being a sinner. A person who doesn’t feel this wound, who denies it, becomes nearly impermeable to the Gospel.

It is very striking how this dynamic between the heart and reality becomes a font of continual knowledge for the Pope. In a certain sense, he speaks almost exclusively about things that he has discovered by living. What he says is often linked to episodes that he witnessed in his life: the faith of his grandmother, the day of his vocation, the nuns who cared for him... to the point of opening a catechesis by talking about Noemi, the sick little girl he had met shortly before. Why?
Indeed, because he always refers to experiences that have happened, that have precise faces. These are what help him to reflect and to think. What he says is always the fruit of something that is written on his skin–in his life, in his history. Even the saints are precise “faces” for him. He doesn’t believe in what he almost jokingly calls “harmonized energies;” he believes in faces. This is a hermeneutic category for understanding everything that he says. If one interprets his teaching with the category of the idea, of abstract affirmations, then he ends up off-track.

But what enables this availability of the heart, for which one learns continually? He’s the Pope–he would have the right to think that he “already knows enough,” especially about faith...
Humility–which for him is not an ascetic virtue, but is first of all a way to approach others and reality properly. It is an availability to experience, which in Francis is very rooted. Where does it originate? I don’t know exactly. But certainly, from what I understand, it has to do with the fact of having experienced the contrary. It is interesting, for example, that he continuously asks forgiveness, not for the sins of the Church, but for his own. When he talks about having been appointed provincial as a young man, at age 36, and he says that he regrets having been brusque, or almost aggressive, with regard to reality and to others, in part because of inexperience, then he is substantially saying that he experienced firsthand the effects of a closure to experience. This, too, made him docile, over time. Then there is a second issue that becomes method: discernment–which, let’s not forget, is a cornerstone of Jesuit spirituality.

He explicitly states,  “Only in narrative form do you discern, not in a philosophical explanation”–that is, by starting from experience, and not from ideas. But what is discernment, exactly?
We see it in the way in which he is leading the Church. Many people maintain that the Pope has a sort of program, of clear and distinct ideas to put into practice. I don’t believe that this is the correct vision. The Pope is profoundly rooted in the terrain of concrete experience. He doesn’t live in a bubble; he has a clear perception of what there is around him. But when he acts, he continually rereads what he does in his personal prayer and in the dialogue with others. Thus, he goes forward–in a process that, indeed, we can define as spiritual discernment: searching for and finding God’s will, a little at a time. The most correct vision of his action is: “By walking, one opens the path.” He better understands where to go in the moment in which he starts to walk. It is not the practical application of theoretical presuppositions–it is a dynamic vision.

Which presupposes another aspect: the Church, as a living reality, in some way also becomes aware of itself by living and reflecting on its history. In the dialogue with you, the Pope cited St. Vincent of Lérins: “Thus even the dogma of the Christian religion progresses, solidifying with years, growing over time, deepening with age.” And in Evangelii Gaudium, he says, “The Church is herself a missionary disciple; she needs to grow in her interpretation of the revealed word and in her understanding of truth.”
 Can we say that, for Francis, experience is a decisive method of knowledge for the Church itself, as well as for the individual believer?
It is the experience of the Christian people that becomes words. Think of the idea of the questionnaire sent to the dioceses as an introduction to the Synod on the family. It was spoken of as an “opinion survey,” but in reality it responds to this logic: it is a gathering of the life of the people of God, the lived experience. This is more useful than starting from documents and theoretical presuppositions. The people of God is invited to interrogate itself, to reflect upon the experience that it has in the light of the Gospel. Then, this is clearly not sufficient on its own–it is preparatory for further reflection. But here, too, it is ultimately the method of Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises. Discernment is the fundamental basis of judgment. It is feeling and tasting things interiorly. It is not a project of the exclusively rational type, in an abstract sense; it is from within that one experiences how to go forward. And a direction to take emerges, which is not just the fruit of our capacity to decide, but of the Spirit.

The Pope insists a great deal on the temptation to “tame the frontiers,” leaving oneself with a “lab faith”–that is, something abstract and static that no longer offers instruments to judge reality, and that leads to an “autism of the intellect.” Where is the origin of this risk for him?
Pope Francis is averse to ideologies–totally. Actually, one of the worst risks that he sees is precisely the ideologization of the Gospel, which happens especially when one reads it through other categories. Instead, for him, the Gospel is read with the Gospel; it is an absolutely original, unique experience. It cannot be reduced with the use of extraneous methodologies. From here comes his aversion for politicizations, hegemonic temptations, and so on. We should not be on the frontiers in order to convert the frontiers to our own plan, but in order to live there, to experience the frontier itself. It is not a logic of annexation, but of comparison, of challenge.  

Otherwise, you end up bringing everything back to something that you already know.
Certainly. When he says to “open the doors of the Church,” he doesn’t mean first of all that we need to let people enter–he wants to throw open the doors so that the Lord can go out. Sometimes we close the doors so well that, in the end, Christ remains caged inside... Instead, the Church is a treasure that should be placed at everyone’s disposal. Evangelii Gaudium is woven throughout with this reminder.

Another powerful aspect in his reminders is faith as witness. “Today too, people prefer to listen to witnesses: they ‘thirst for authenticity’ and ‘call for evangelizers to speak of a God whom they themselves know and are familiar with,’” he writes in the Exhortation (150). Here, too, experience becomes fundamental: the path to truth is a relationship, something that can be experienced.
He himself is a Pope who communicates a message by witnessing to it. He speaks of the value of poverty by living simply and of the value of prayer by praying. He tries to unite the gesture to the word. Essentially, he wants to get out of the logic of preaching, of the word as such, in order to show. Thus a gesture becomes even more powerful. Ignatius says that love is demonstrated more in works than in words. It is a dimension that drives one to action.

There are other points in which experience seems to be a decisive factor for the Pope; first of all, in his educative method. In the interview, he cites an episode in which, in order to interest his high school students in literature, he started to make them write, and ended up involving Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges in the relationship with the class.
Well, here we could talk about the risk of education. To proceed like this is truly a risk, because it always entails the possibility of misunderstandings. But in this case, for example, he ran the risk because he realized that it was the best way to create a bridge of contact between the experience of literature that he wanted to communicate, and that which his students had. And the only path was to go to meet them–to start from their point of view, their intelligence and curiosity, and to read the profound need that was inside this request. By entering into literature with their  questions, he emerged in the end with kids who were open to literature as a whole and even authors themselves. Yes, in some way, experience is also the heart of his idea of education.

In the book, you emphasize that even when he talks about art, about his preferences–Hölderlin, Manzoni, Caravaggio, Mozart–the Pope always starts from life, not from an intellectual discourse. “Life is the test of words,” he says, citing Manzoni. It is a good definition of experience...
For him, art is not closed in the aesthetic sphere, autonomous with respect to the rest. The novel, art in general, is an integral part of life, including spiritual and pastoral life. In this field, he moves with great ease and flexibility. So, in order to explain hope, he started from Puccini’s opera, Turandot. I thought that I hadn’t understood correctly... We would have introduced the discourse by saying “for example”–we would have, in some way, opened a parenthesis. Instead, for him, discourse is fluid–there is no separation. This struck me. The Pope’s aesthetic entails a relationship with the work of art in which the work radically shapes perception. De facto, to enjoy it means to have an experience of life as a whole. When you read a novel, you live an experience of life–you don’t just have a pure experience of intellectual enjoyment. It is an observation that offers many possibilities for development.

One final consideration: prayer, or more precisely, his personal prayer. The Pope defines it as “full of memory, of recollection, even the memory of my own history or what the Lord has done.” Is praying, too, an experience for him?
Yes. His prayer is not abstract–it is an observation of facts and a recognition of where the Lord acts and has acted. He said this in his Exhortation, as well: only the encounter with the Lord can give “the joy of the Gospel,” not an ethical decision or adherence to an idea. For example, he has this moment of adoration in the evening, around 7:30, which is pure contemplation and silence. It’s curious that it isn’t in the morning. Of course, he does pray in the morning, quite a bit: Morning Prayer, Mass... But this special moment is in the evening. It means that he puts his day in front of the Lord and prays about what he has lived–in other words, about his experience.