A Passion for the World

Two thousand five hundred university students at the Palalido in Milan for the Opening Day. Letters from some friends after the tragedy of September 11th. Fr Giussani’s remarks. The miracle of the grace of an Other makes it possible to affirm that life is something positive

BY CATERINA GIOJELLI

Perplexity. That’s the only reaction possible to the inscription in huge block letters above Fr Pino’s head: “A Passion for the World.” It was the usual gray Milanese afternoon and once again we, the usual pioneers from the universities of Milan, were waiting in the silence of the Palalido. Two thousand five hundred students were waiting, because lately we have been told that history is changing. Because in too many of us, the contagious enthusiasm of the beginning of every year has been replaced by that nasty state of mind that is diffidence, the same lack of confidence as when you attempt to take an examination knowing full well you can’t pass it. And yet (unshakable hearts throbbing with trust), we go to the exam anyway.

“A passion for the world”: right, but what world? This is the question that arises at the sight of this theme chosen for the Opening Day. It seems there are so many worlds outside us and in us; so many worlds and all of them suddenly frightened, confused, and paralyzed in the face of an event that does not seem to bring anything good, that seems to be only evil, absolute evil. “We are in a tunnel, we are living inside a nightmare and cannot see any light showing us where the exit is,” Eugenio Scalfari had written a few days before in La Repubblica. The world: the worlds of old, tired men. The world: trivial worlds, and even if we are only twenty or a little older, we are not immune from this wound, a practically mortal one. We have heard this before, but this time there is something more. It is that what we have tried in one way or another to avoid this September comes into the game.

This world
We have tried, I have tried, to avoid. As usual, of course, but this time it is truly impossible. One thing is immediately evident in the concreteness of the testimony of our friends in New York and in the tenderness of Fr Giussani’s comment (see “Word Among Us” in this issue). That world is exactly this world, the world in which I live, and it is very precise, concrete. What witnesses to this moment in history, of my age and my experience, are not sociological theories or doctrinal catechisms, but the dozens of letters that Fr Pino continues to quote and reread. These are letters from students like me, who live and face their world; that is to say, my world, the one that we have around us, and that expands to the edges of the universe. It is the world that embraces me now and expands to embrace the instant and the eternal in just the same way. This is the same world in which the possibility of so much evil is as concrete as the certitude that what defines our horizon is something positive, and is a world in which the last word on life is not given by the fragility of our actions but by the grandeur of obeying an encounter with our whole being. It would be beautiful always to remember where the root of our being lies, even within the temptation to let ourselves be overcome by uncertainty, by confusion. This same human temptation casts doubt on who we are, builders and destroyers, mortals yearning for infinity, and on for what we are. With our whole being, with our usual and ineradicable original sin, with our naïve self-defense and the bitter awareness that we cannot do it. With our mad love for ourselves, a powerless love in the face of the need to be consoled by a voice greater than we are. Fr Giussani’s voice comes from the loudspeakers. It is sweet to hear him speak of an immense peace that comes to him at seeing us all gathered together; this is enough to give value to our being here. We may sometimes feel tired as we follow our companionship, as Giussani urges us to do, but it is a completely different thing to hear that you do it for the world, the whole world, this world that is in a tunnel and can’t see the light. I don’t know if I see the light, but Fr Giussani’s tender gaze makes it simple, beautiful, and possible to live following him.

Twin Towers
The images of the tragedy in New York have filled our eyes and confused our minds, but something in me became clearer when, one morning, my father drew my attention to the Traces’ cover: alongside that rubble in New York was placed a crucifix Congdon painted many years ago, which seems to be precisely a wounded Twin Tower, right when it begins to melt and sink down, merging with the humanity, all the humanity inside it. Who knows what Congdon saw in that moment, but my parents tell me about the time when I was a baby in the cradle and they took me to Gudo to see him. He was there, serene and humble. I think of the Companionship that marked his life in such a profound way, of the passion for the world that radiated from that farmhouse in Gudo. That passion for the world (that passion that has names and faces, and in them has a Name and a Face) was there, on September 11th; it was right there, and was the most concrete aspect of that slaughter, the most precise, the least confused, and our American friends tell us about it without indulging in emotion. A tight news report, as it were, of circumstances, names, situations, precise times, places: my mind goes to the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. There are few feelings and lots of facts. And they are moving because of this: they move us emotionally and move us physically. Like the gaze that Fr Giussani left with us.

The mission
I recall that Abraham’s history begins after the collapse of the tower of Babel. I think of St Augustine writing De civitate Dei after the sack of the Goths when the capital of the empire that had ruled the world was falling apart and people were asking him where the tombs of the Apostles were in this Rome that was desolate, on fire, besieged by plague and sword. The saint replies, he replies to pagans and Christians who are disturbed because it really seemed as though God–the Christian God, Jesus Christ–was not able, no longer able to save man’s life. This is the modern suspicion, that faith makes life less human (“A human devastation occurs when we try to make the infinite enter into the finite,” Corriere della Sera). Augustine does not give in to doubt. Augustine answers by describing what happened to him and describing the attraction that Christ is (all this that is communicated is mission, is that task of education to self-awareness to which Vittadini and Fr Pino constantly call us). The living Christ who saves man’s life, Christ present and lover of life, Christ who conquers negative possibility, life that conquers death. There must have been lots of confusion then too, confusion like what was in the voices and minds of those people running in New York that day, but without a goal, without an aim; like the marathon runner who runs, but without a reason. Our friends told us just this, how their race that day took on a concrete destination. There was a destination, Jonathan’s house, someone’s house, a destiny in the mere emotions of the crowd and the pure emotions crowding the mind. The passion for the world was there, because they and others like them were physically there, they were the passion for the world. It makes the blood and the veins throb to think that this is literally true for us in that piece of the world where we live–home, family, brothers and sisters, university, parents, friends… the list grows long and is not necessarily in the right order of toil and consolation.

Concrete response
Our American friends’ story bit by bit replaces the images of that September 11th. We see not only those terrible towers run through by suicide airplanes, bodies flying through the air, the smoke, the collapse… and then the war, the letters with anthrax, the gas masks… Their words tell of something more human, more true. Therefore, the Beginning Day of our American college friends in Central Park becomes, if I may be allowed the comparison, a concrete and human response to the city’s pain, just as St Augustine’s response was concrete and human–both concrete and miraculous. It is only in the miracle of the grace of an Other that we can, shortly after the catastrophe, affirm that life is positivity and enthusiasm, and that “Monday is the day of the adventurer” (Chesterton). Thus it happens that precisely the limitation (not being able to respond by ourselves) leads us to trust that something positive will unfold in this contradictory and bizarre reality. One day is enough, here in Italy or there in America. There is everything in that day: the attraction that Christ is, the passion for the world, and the freedom of man. It is a passion very much like Fr Giussani’s gaze of tenderness.

Adventurers
Excerpts from letters that Fr Pino read during the CL University Opening Day in Milan, October 18, 2001

The morning that it all happened, New York, the city that never sleeps, was completely stopped: no cars, buses, or subways. The bridges were blocked.
The first reaction was confusion, then grief and anger, and then–for many–the desire for revenge. Many started crying out for peace and tolerance. Many univer- sities–like Yale–organized vigils to commemorate the dead and to ask for peace. At Fordham, a Catholic university in New York, there was a Mass that ended with a Buddhist prayer.
A few days before the attack, Vittadini–who was in New York–spoke to us about education and mission. These words stayed in our heads.
“We must find ourselves once again, that is, find Him who has made us know goodness, the taste for life, for our own ‘I’ as an indispensable factor in the world,” said the Traces Editorial on America.
Thus, we decided to do the CLU Beginning Day in Central Park just a week after the disaster.
Even before it happened, we had decided to use a phrase by Chesterton, “Monday is the day of the adventurer,” which Cesana had used at the August meeting in La Thuile to say that the event which has touched us reaches the university, work, and everything through us, and that within this friendship everything becomes interesting, even Monday. Thus, we pray in the morning, because we do not know how to be an answer for ourselves but know that He came and the answer is there, and the opportunity for us to know this is this companionship. This was the provocation we wanted to launch to our friends. We made a flyer in which we wrote, besides Chesterton’s phrase, “We have encountered something that makes us adventurers on Monday and any other day of the week, that generates in us the desire to go to the university and to face our studies and everything that is happening these days with the certitude that life is positive.”
We went to Central Park not to forget and pretend that life is easy, but to affirm that it is an Other that gives meaning to our lives.
At Beginning Day, Greg said that this judgment is not a fruit of our thoughts, but coincides with an encounter. We have encountered a person, a companionship, that tells us that the world’s evil, our evil, our sin, our frailty are not the last words on life.
Then Sarah, a girl who came there from Evansville, Indiana, told us her experience. “I encountered a company that welcomed me unconditionally, completely, and all I can do is embrace these friends.” For us, seeing her in New York was important: in spite of the widespread fear of flying, she defied everyone in order to come to Central Park to recount the truth about her life. We sang, played, and ate pasta and desserts we had made. Some stopped to film us with their video cameras. Saby and Rich presented some U2 songs, judging them according to our experience.
There were a lot of people: some were invited, others had read the flyer.
A boy who didn’t know us, and who had watched us the whole time from a distance, that evening wrote an e-mail to the address on the flyer, saying, “It seems to me that you are a group of friends who are open to the world. To see that you came to Central Park and did what you did tells a lot about you. I don’t know anyone like this, and this is what struck me.”
We returned to the university, keeping in mind what had happened. We went back to our studies and proposed a Mass in all the universities, during which we read Giussani’s words.
Monica and Paola gave the Traces Editorial to their university religion professor, and told him about our companionship. Now this priest is a great friend of ours and constantly invites his students to the gestures of the Movement.
Immediately after the attack, Vittadini said to us, “Our companionship guides us toward our destiny, i.e., to stand before the truth of reality.” Thus, instead of running away, we try to live our friendship completely.
Stella, New York

It is evident to me that not only the Twin Towers or Kabul can be destroyed and end up in nothingness, but also–more sneakily and unconsciously–my days, without causing any sensation. The relationships that are given to me, the gestures I live can be like that pile of rubble (shapeless and sterile, to be removed as quickly as possible), because the limitation I am stuck in–whether it is inertia or reactivity in relationships, the presumption of knowing how to solve everything or to slip ably away to get out of being asked for something–in a word, my inability weighs on my heart and normally requires great effort from me to justify or elude it. Unless something happens like what I am about to tell you: an older friend unexpectedly started looking at me with respect, and simply surprises me with requests like organizing the welcome desk, or the poster, or the turns for charitable work, and talks to me about what is closest to her heart. This is irresistible to me because it is living something exceptional in the everyday. The fact, then, that this gaze on me is unconditional and gratuitous and corresponds with what I desire, makes the companionship of these people who are older than I mysterious indeed. I say older not because they are older in years, but because they have the intelligence that comes from following and the judgment that comes from their tie with the Movement. Thus, what enables me to have a passion for my life and the lives of others is that someone else has this passion before me. The One who has the most passion for me is He who made me and put me here, but now His mercy, that gives substance to the nothingness that I am, is revealing itself to me in the embrace of this companionship, an experience that is taking shape here at the university: Mystery and sign coincide. Faces and names come into my mind of people to whom I cannot say, “No,” to whom I can say with tenderness and discretion, “I cannot live without you.”
Anna, Università Cattolica, Milan

I happened to be standing in line with a boy, Andrea, waiting for the professor to call us in. We realized that both of us had to prepare the same course on Erasmus of Rotterdam. The next day we were already friends. After an hour of studying together, he invited me to have a look at some poems he had written. I said yes. Leafing through the pages, I realized that many of them were dedicated to the devil and that he considered him to be like a father. My curiosity aroused, I asked, “Why do you love him so much?” he answered, “I hate God.” This response went through me like a wound, as though someone had insulted my best friend. He looked at me and said, “You hate Him too, don’t you?” Without even thinking about it, I answered, “No, I love Him!” You can imagine his face; I thought I had suddenly lost my new study buddy. But no. A long discussion ensued. At a certain point he said, “God, God… if this God existed… if He existed, I would give him my life, now I would give Him my whole life.” This struck me because, looking into his eyes, I read there a great longing, a desire to be able to give himself totally to someone, so much so that he added, “This is why I give everything to Satan, because I have to give my life to somebody, and if this God that I have prayed to so many times doesn’t answer me, I’ll give it to the devil.” I couldn’t help telling him my story, about the encounter with the Movement and everything that has happened to me. He told me he had more than a thousand reasons not to believe, but he listened curiously to my tale and believed it. Now he wants to meet Giussani and is reading The Religious Sense. Yesterday I saw him again, and he said to me, “I don’t know how to explain it, but even if I have only known you a week, you are one of the three friends for whom I would give my life.”
Paolo, Università Statale, Milan

We were in the front hall of the Faculty Building manning a table, and at a certain point a custodian approached us, whom we know because every so often she comes to recite the Angelus with us. She asked us why we weren’t where we usually recite it any more, and then she burst into tears there, in the middle of the front hall full of our classmates who were trying to enroll, and said to us, “Pietro died.” “Signora, who is Pietro?” “He’s my son,” and she kept on crying. “He was a good boy, he had almost finished his courses, he worked from morning to night, why did the Lord take him, of all people?!” All we managed to say to her was that it is and will remain a mystery why her Pietro died, but that we expected her and would pray together for him. What happened really struck me; first of all because faced with such heart-rending grief, you can’t pretend, you can’t communicate things you don’t feel, you are forced to be true and to be with the person you have in front of you. Then, she came to us, looking for an answer from us, whereas she only sees us fleetingly for a few minutes a day. To her, who are we? In such a dramatic moment, we are called to answer her, and the perception became clearer to me that we are something great for the world, not because of any capacity on our part, but because the Christian event is the answer to the quest for the infinite that is man’s heart, and the relationship with Christ is a relationship among men because there was one Man who said, “Woman, do not weep!”
Fiorella, architecture student, Milan

Finding ourselves so far away from our Italian home, we found ourselves, each of us at different times and in different ways, immersed in a series of circumstances that constantly reawakened an expectation of meaning. The first move for all of us was prayer, “begging not to have been called in vain,” imploring Him who has marked us to reveal Himself in the circumstances we find ourselves facing. In all that we are living (university, work, and social life), we cannot desire anything less than totality. A couple of weeks ago we went to Canberra to see Giacomo and to get to know John Kinder, the professor who, reading Leopardi with his students, started the Movement in Australia. In the unexpected friendship among us there is the opportunity for the cry that makes us up to find a place where it can be answered. We absolutely did not choose each other, but the evidence is that we were chosen, together. The only thing we have in common is the fact that none of us can stay in reality as though nothing had happened. John told us that the only responsibility we have is to live our friendship in the awareness of what it brings.
Giacomo, Maddi, Kain, Prato, Tetta, Zibu; Melbourne and Canberra, Australia