Rimini
The
Destiny of Man he
Is, if He Changes
Gathered together in Rimini were 26,000 people,
and others
by
satellite connection from all over the world, to listen to Julián Carrón’s
lessons on man and his destiny, a homily by Bishop Rylko, and addresses by Fr
Giussani. These were three days to delve more deeply into a consciousness of
the Event that changes one’s life, in light of Fr Giussani’s letter
to John Paul II and the Holy Father’s reply
by Carlo Dignola
It is as though Christianity always started over
again with a surprise, and then slowly declined into a scruple; and in the end,
things–even if
they are done with the best of intentions–don’t add up. Even the
disciples of two thousand years ago, right after the Crucifixion, had started
thinking about Jesus as a beautiful dream that had become impossible. They had
heard, to be sure, the women say that the stone at the tomb had been rolled away,
but not even they really believed it. Jesus had ended up like a criminal hanging
on a pole: “It seemed as though evil had had the last word.” Nostalgia
had already set in. There were the disciples–maybe ex-disciples–of
the Nazarene on the road to Emmaus that evening, but it is as though the Church
had not yet been born. And then, unexpectedly, they encountered Him. And later,
beside the lake, with Him cooking fish; then Thomas in the upper room sticking
his finger in His side… Only then did they begin to understand who He was.
Today, the problem is the same: “It is not that someone belongs to an organization,
and then believes in the Risen One,” said Fr Julián Carrón.
Either he encounters Him on the road, or he doesn’t encounter Him.
The policeman at Atocha station
Madrid, March 11, 2004: 201 dead, 1,427 wounded. Among the witnesses that morning
outside Atocha station, there was a policeman who belongs to CL. “In that
moment,” he recounted, “I saw Evil; I had the impression that it
really had won.” And yet, also in that hour of devastation, in front of
bodies torn to shreds and the smell of death, “I experienced a good presence.” The
Risen Christ either exists or He does not exist. There is no middle ground.
Fr Pino asked the question straight away on Friday evening, addressing the 26,000
gathered in the four auditoriums of the new Fairgrounds in Rimini, while the
last arrivals were trickling in: “Why are we here? For a gathering? For
the meeting of an organization?” The Pope had expressed the wish, in his
letter to Fr Giussani for CL’s fiftieth anniversary, that each person might “refer
back to the originary experience from which the Movement arose, renewing the
enthusiasm of the origins.” The Fraternity Spiritual Exercises did just
that, to the point that, by surprise, after the lesson given by Julián
Carrón on Saturday afternoon, Giussani impulsively–befitting his
character–tuned in. While applause drowned out his voice, he said that
what he had heard Carrón say was “the most beautiful thing I have
heard in my life. The clearest invitation.”
Fifty-eight countries were linked directly by satellite, together with those
on every continent who will participate in the retreat by making use of the tapes.
Albania joined in this year. Telegrams of greetings arrived from the Pope and
two Cardinals, Christoph Schönborn and Angelo Scola. After the events of
March 11th, Claudio Chieffo wrote a song in Spanish to Mary, Reina de la paz.
To help everyone learn it, the lines ran across the screen.
Systematic reduction
The theme of the Exercises was there at the back of each auditorium, written
on a beige panel: “the destiny of man,” without capital letters,
as though it were a discussion that had always been going on, and yet becomes
more impelling as the years pass. Carrón presented both lessons on Saturday,
the morning and the afternoon sessions. Taking his cue from the bond uniting
knowledge and affection, he said, “Reality, as it emerges from experience,
moves man’s consciousness because it calls it inevitably to what he was
destined for. Without this affectus–this counterblow, this imprint–it
is not true that you do not know anything, but it is like a picture that does
not leave an impression on a photographic plate or an image in the eyes of a
dead man.”
The problem is the systematic reduction of the question. Our culture–“but
not without our own connivance,” says Carrón–divides us from
this “loving knowledge,” simply because it has a kind of “instinct,” because
it intuits that facing the challenge of reality is “uncomfortable”–as
Professor Giovanni Reale has written–because it would end up taking us
where we did not intend to go. But once this gap is inserted, this hesitation,
we end up in the arms of idols. And today, at the beginning of the twenty-first
century, we realize that ideology and idolatry can suddenly be close to each
other; nihilism can certainly offer nausea, as it has done for decades, but it
can also promise a false paradise.
The only thing that re-establishes the order of this dynamic is the fact that “destiny
has happened to us.” Carrón does not talk about the past. “The
encounter with someone makes us feel his vibration, as never before.” And
when it happens, this is “a point of no return.” “It is like
tasting Spanish Patanera ham,” he joked.
Radical positivity
There is an ultimate risk, however, which is the one of saying, with Kafka, that
the goal exists, but there is no way to get there. “We need this present
destiny to be our traveling companion.” Otherwise, “sooner or later,
our ‘I’ decays.” That Christ is Lord “is seen from the
fact that the people of God exists.” The certainty, Carrón says,
is based on the offering of “a form of life” which authority makes
stable.
It is not even necessary to be Christians to realize this. It can happen also
to a Muslim like Abdulkadir Abdi Farah, a Somali, who noted something strange
in a colleague. Curiosity led him to a School of Community, and then to Rimini. “Ever
since that moment, something has changed,” he said. “My hope has
been reborn.” Here is where Giussani couldn’t hold back any more,
and called the Fairgrounds, where the Retreat was being conducted. He said that
the very victory of Christ over death is the outcome of a radical positivity
in the approach to reality, which was easily perceived in Carrón’s
words. He said that this positivity is “infallible.” He asked us
to call him again, to let him take part, because “this is the companionship
that saves the world.”
Sunday morning, after Mass, he linked up with Rimini again. “May the Lord
enlighten us in everything He allows us to do,” he said, “so that
we may see that man’s life is completely positive.” This is precisely
the strongest impression of this year’s Retreat. Not even “the dark
of sin will dim the way” as the song of our friends from New York, Nazareth
Morning, says.
The Telegram from the Pope
To Rev. Msgr Luigi Giussani
On the occasion of the Spiritual Exercises of the Fraternity of Communion and
Liberation on the topic of “The Destiny of Man,” I am happy to extend
to the numerous participants my cordial good wishes and the assurance of my spiritual
closeness. While it is my hope that this timely meeting may contribute to a deeper
knowledge of each person’s belonging to God and to stimulating each one’s
faithfulness to Christ, man’s Redeemer, for a generous commitment to the
work of the new evangelization, I invoke a great outpouring of heavenly favors
and send to you, the responsibles of the Fraternity, and all those present, a
special apostolic blessing.
IOANNES PAULUS PP II
April 17, 2004