By Giancarlo Cesana

It is very hard for me to give this talk in front of all these people, because I am afraid that feelings will get the upper hand. However, I cannot speak coolly of the things that mean the most to me. I was asked to introduce explicitly the connection that exists between the title we have given it and the Meeting itself: Iíll do that right now. The Meeting appearsñalso in the newspapers, especially with the great attention that it is attracting this yearñas a bubbling cauldron, because it deals with everything, the most varied themes that interest man in some way. If a cauldron is bubbling, it means there is a fire burning under it; the entreaty that makes up the title of the Meeting is the fire burning under it. Even if one might not believe this about us, who are in charge and could seem to be leaders and intellectuals like the others, it cannot be denied that this fire is the factor that sustains the Meeting for the kids who come here as volunteersñnot only the kids, to tell the truth, but also businessmen, professionalsñpaying their own expenses for a week.

Blue T-shirts

Sunday morning, when we began and the preparations were going on all around, I was seated there on the steps waiting for a TV interview, where the ranks of volunteers, all wearing blue T-shirts, were also seated. In the space in front of the steps, there was a girl who very carefully and energetically was washing the floor. Looking at her, I said to myself, ìThis is what the Meeting is!î I wondered, ìWhat does ëall of life asks for eternityí mean to this twenty-year-old girl who chose to come here and serve in the most humble way? What does it mean for all those who come here and instead go up on stage? What is it that makes these persons commit themselves in this way?î It must be a very strong entreaty that sustains the willingness to appear just as it sustains the desire to serve. What I am about to say is the result of this reflection of mine, and I shall start from a bit of a distance, taking two completely different approaches.

The first is a ìbiologicalî approach. The human being who lived the longest reached 120 years. The average life expectancy, especially in the most developed countries, is growing longer: for men, it is 76 years; for women, it is almost 80. In either case, it never goes beyond 120 years. Thus, we are creatures with an expiration date; we have inside us an unrelenting clock that at a certain point brings down the curtain. Recently, however, in some very simple creaturesñnot only unicellular (that is, consisting of a single cell)ñscientists have succeeded in modifying the biological structure so as to increase their lifetime significantly, but in any case the life remains very brief and simple. Thus there has been an emphasis, more journalistic than scientific, on a progress in which life could be indefinitely longer.

The second approach comes from my memories of when I was in high school and studying St Augustine. I would get shivers when I tried to imagine eternity as the absence of timeñjust as St Augustine says. I would get shivers because I could not manage to pin down, I could not manage to understand how the concreteness of my life, with all its problems, its needs, could expand to become ìforever.î I felt that this indefinite expansion of life had something dizzying and frightening in it, like a condemnation to exist, a condemnation to my conditions of existence. ìI have to live like this forever!î Oh Lord! What does this mean?

Happiness asks

for eternity

Thinking about what to say hereñI have been thinking about this for a whileñI got a new idea, at least for me, and one that is liberating: eternity does not have to do with lengthening life, this life, or it has to do with it only in a very minor way. Incidentallyñas I said also the other day on television, in reaction to the debate that was going on among the various scientists who were thereñit would be a real shame if they succeeded in lengthening the life expectancy to 150 or 200 years, and then one had an accident at age 15, or were shot at 17, or became a soldier. Just think: nothing would be resolved, because human limits are not only biological. The Gospel says (roughly), ìThe greatest evil does not come from what enters the mouth but from what comes out of it and arises from the heart.î Perhaps scientists will succeed in modifying our biological structure, but what about the soul? It is paradoxical that the same people who have engaged themselves so completely in a total liberation of the possibilities of research for increasing life expectancy, for modifying life, for bringing health, are the same ones who support euthanasia so decisively. It is striking that the fight for life is at the same time a fight for death. Manís limit is not only biological. If we can modify biology (however, much less than is thought, we are very far from the dreams that are normally talked about), how can we modify the soul? I made a distinction between biology and the soulñwhich are, after all, one sole thing, because we are one sole thingñsimply to clarify what the terrain of research is, and what the terrain of something other is. We wonít say what other, also because we donít really know, we donít really know who we are. From biology and from the soul comes pain, and pain does not ask for eternity, pain asks that time pass. Eternal pain is called hell, thus eternity must be something else. What I tried to tell myself, to tell myself concretely, is what this word might mean, and certainly there is an aspect that distinguishes it more than any other: eternity is not asked for by pain, but by happiness. Happiness asks for eternity. In front of the woman you love, you say, ìforeverî: her gaze, her eyes, her body ìforever.î You would like her never to go, you would like to be always together. Happiness asks for eternity.

In happiness are both the experience of and desire for eternity. Thus, eternity is a phenomenon that begins not in the hereafter, but in our human experience now. Indeed, the Pope, in his message to the Meeting, does not wish ìatemporalityî for us. That is, he does not wish for us to enter into a timeless world, but he wishes us fulfillment, completion; he wishes for us to be happy. Why? As Fr Giussani has insistently taught us, completion is the encounter with a correspondence, with a someone, with a something that fulfills the desire of your heart, that fulfills you. Happiness is completion and completion is someone who fulfills what you are waiting for, what you desire. You werenít even thinking about it, but suddenly you encounter it and it completes you, it brings you what you were seeking.

Neither flies

nor mosquitoes

Why is this completion so important? I always remember a talk Fr Giussani gave to a CLU [CL university students] Responsiblesí meeting more than fifteen years ago. He gave a very harsh diagnosis of the condition of youth, saying that the young people of then (and of today) seem to have been radiated by Chernobyl: externally they are the same, but inside they are sick. Their energy for affection is depleted; they have been emptied of their capacity to recognize things and to become attached to them (because intelligence is the capacity to attach oneself to something of valueñit is not simply the recording of reality like a computer or a television can do). And with this diagnosis, this pitiless diagnosis, at a certain point Fr Giussani asked, ìHow can we get out of this situation, from where can we pick up again?î Then he answered his own question, ìFrom the encounter,î from the encounter with someone who corresponds to your heartís desire. Why is this so important? Because if you encounter someone who responds to the desire of your heart, you understand that you are not in this world by chance, but that you are here in the world for someone; the world is made for youñthe world is not chaos, reality is not chaos, you are not a phenomenon tied to chaos. We are not even like a mosquito, or like a fly, or a worm. We are not in the world by chance, and the experience of happiness testifies this to us.

Forever

The world is made for us, the whole world: ìIn the experience of a great love, everything is event in its sphere,î said Guardini. In the experience of a great loveñthat is, in the experience of a total and gratuitous welcomingñeverything becomes event. I always offer this example: imagine a boy who has to do cleaning work, not for a week at the Meeting, but every day, like some kids I know who sort trash, eight hours a day. They put their hands into the trash bin and decide that the plastic goes in one place, the paper in another, etc. Imagine that a boy like this falls in love with a girl who teases him, teases him for a year, then at a certain point on a Sunday night she suddenly says, ìYes!î to him. Imagine how this boy goes to work on Monday morning! It is not trash any longer; the world has changed, and not just one detail, all of it. The world is made for him, and even that job is an occasion made for him. Eternity is introduced because an order is introduced, something that lasts, ìforeverî is introduced, correspondence, will, someone who loves you. What we look for and feel at the origin, as Fr Giussani says, is introduced: the inexorable positivity of reality.

Fr Giussaniís example is a wonderful one: imagine if you were born at the age you are now, if you came out of your motherís womb at the age you are now. Opening your eyes, you would be amazed at the beauty, at the event of the beauty of the world that opens before your gaze. Or rather, your gaze would open to the reality that you have in front of you, and you would be struck by this event that instead, normally, seems usual to you.

Purity of oneís gaze

The event is not something that has to happen; the event of beauty, the event of fulfillment is not something that has to happen, because you cannot live for something that has to happen. It has already happenedñpresent perfectñit has begun and continues. The problem is then the purity of oneís gaze: the purity of oneís gaze is the capacity (the grace!) to grab the occasion, the circumstance that strikes you, the shove you are given, that makes you understand what you were made for, that makes you feel everythingñeverything that is present, everything you live, everything that existsñas being for you, as being the opportunity of your life. Eternity lies in happiness, and happiness is the event that we want to live. I say event because it is something that does not depend only on us, it has to happen, or rather, it has happened (however, we can say that it has to happen as an entreaty, almost a demand, as is demanded in The Brothers Karamazov: I want to be alive when the wolf lies down with the lamb, I donít want to be dead. If I am dead you have to resuscitate me and let me see the fulfillment and happiness for which I exist).

The experience of fulfillment leads us to the desire for ìforever.î It is the engine of life, because if someone lives this experience, he can face anything, he is not afraid of anything. It is the event that we desire even if ìit is foolishness to tell ourselves this,î as Montale said, in the so carefully prepared journey of our life. Why is it foolishness to tell ourselves this? It is as though we did not have the courage to enter truly into what is bigger than we are, into what makes us up even if it is bigger than we are. It is as though we did not even have the courage to enter truly into ourselves, into what we were made forñas Fr Giussani says, into the nudity and poverty of those questions that make up our life and for which our mothers made us.

We are arrested by the limit, and with the limit, we are arrested by the calculation with which we attack this limit, with which we think we can approach it. Life is all a calculation; fear makes us calculate. And it is not only a case of calculation, but also a reduction of oneís gaze, in the sense that we look only at what we can control and we do not see the rest. It is a fear, a non-awareness, a non-consciousness, even more than a moral problem that makes us not accept and not adhere, because being stopped by limits and calculations is stupid. Once again it is Fr Giussani who says, ìWhen you are thirsty, satisfaction does not lie in having drunk, but in drinking.î You would like to drink always, always. I remember that another time he said, ìMan is born hungry, he is not born satisfied; the first thing he does is cry, cry out.î

The step of perfection

When you are thirsty, satisfaction does not lie in having drunk, but in drinking. The limit exists and is filled by the mercy of God; this is almost an end. I have always been struck by the story of the man born blind, whom they brought in front of Jesus, and asked Him, ìWhy is this man blind from birth? Did he sin or did his parents sin? Why is he so wretched?î What a great number of people we know about whom we can ask, ìWhy is this one so wretched, so unfortunate? Who went wrong? Where is the error?î Jesus replied, ìHe is blind not because of his sin or the sin of his parents, but so that the glory of God may be manifested.î He was blind because he was supposed to meet Jesus! Do you understand? The miracle was supposed to happen. The limit affirms God: it affirms God, affirms Eternity, there can be no other answer. In fact, the real man, if he does not find God, invents Him, and the littleness of the god he has encountered is the measure of the pettiness of his life. He is blind not because of his sin and the sin of his parents, but so that the glory of God may be manifested, so that it can be seen that God is great. The limit exists and is filled by Godís mercy because (as Fr Giussani said at the Retreat) God wanted nothingnessñman who is so little, so limitedñto love Him, to become one with Him, to become like Him: ìWho is man that You care for him? And yet You have made him a little less than Yourself.î God gave us life, we are creatures, we are limited, we find rest in Him. Blessed be this limit that makes us up. Fr Giussani has always said: the limit is the step on which perfection is constructed, it is the step we use to move toward eternity.

Thus, every pain, every deathñwhich are certainly not something to be wished, because pain and death in themselves are something terribleñdo not have anything at all to say. Rather, they negate everything, unless you have lived salvation, unless you have lived happiness, unless you have lived the encounter with the One who saves you. Then they are not taken away, but can be lived because they can participate in the sacrifice of Christ, which God allowed in order to affirm the Resurrection, the resurrection of the body. I was struck greatly as I read Most Rev. Angelo Scolaís book, which I presented here, by a paragraph in which he says that the Catholic challenge is not over immortality, but over the resurrection of the body: I shall see you again, even if I understand St Thomas very well.

Letís not get sidetracked in an intellectual discourse on this fact which is Christ as Savior of life, as introduction to eternity. Letís keep in mind that it is the only possibility: the only man who said He is God is Christ. Kierkegaard said that there is a moral duty which you cannot evade, to look at Christ. What alternative do you have? Letís try to live Him and follow Him, because when pain and death are lived in this way and accepted in this way, the most impressive outcomeñwe have seen it, I have seen itñis the fecundity of life. Out of what dies, life springs upñlife in terms of awareness, in terms of friendship, and in terms of change. Eternity is not pushed away by pain and death. Because of the inexorable positivity present in reality, it is not pushed away; because of this correspondence, because of this encounter we have lived, it is not pushed away by pain, by limits, by contradiction, but it vehemently manifests itself as the merciful re-formation of goodness and hope. I have always been struck by PÈguyís description of hope as ìthe child virtue,î between the two grown women of faith and charity. Without hope, the energy of life is missing.

Mystery not unknown

I understand that all I am saying is mysterious, so much so that I believe that what bothers people most is definitions. Mystery: apparent confusion, because mystery is something that you see but do not possess. We built the Meeting on this: the mystery is not the unknown. Maybe it appears to us as confusion, but inside it a friendly presence manifests itself, compassionate about our errors which, by the way, are the major factors of confusion. We do not possess life, nor even ourselves. In fact, the most mysterious aspect we are in relationship with is ourselves, because we did not make ourselves and we do not own ourselves. We are inside this mystery, in contact with this mystery. The consciousness of not possessing, the consciousness of not doing everything by ourselves, is precisely the realistic point of departure from which we can reach eternity. Camus said, ìIt is not by scruples [by calculations] that a man becomes great. Greatness comes, if God wills, like a sunny day.î It is not in our hands.

In any case, the things I have said up to now are not things I have studied. I encountered someone who said them to me and then I was forced to live them.

The Feeling of Things,

ìWhen sleep pulls the plug, the first feeling that should invade us is the feeling of things.î This reflection, so vivid and appealing, is contained in Fr Giussaniís comment about a hymn for Lauds from the Trappist monastery in Valserena, Italy, published in one of his most beautiful books, Tutta la terra desidera il tuo volto [All the Earth Desires Your Face]. What is meant by feeling of things? Manís capacity to be lovingly aware of what is around him. The feeling of things is not an intimist movement of the soul, but a stage in the knowledge of reality. The subject that ìfeelsî is so sensitively transported toward the object, i.e., toward the reality of things, as to assume immediately a position of expectation. Things invade his eyes and his mind; they penetrate with the same shock force as is released at the moment when he opens his eyes for the first time. The heart of this ìobserver,î avid for truth and open to emotion, is as though in a feverish state of alert. The loving feeling of things is also a condition for knowing them, and also the condition for the recognition, in reality, of the value that is desired from the start: beauty. But what beauty is, no matter what countless definitions have been given this word by various cultures, is a very complex topic. And it is not only in the Christian tradition that beauty has been considered to be connected with truth and good. If beauty conforms to truth, it cannot but be in consonance with nature and reason. Thus, for Catholic-Christian thoughtñwhich from St Augustine to Von Balthasar repeatedly deals with the themeñbeauty, ontologically connatural with the creator Being, is reflected in creation, as the splendor of truth. Thus, it takes on consistency and concreteness; it is not an ephemeral, transitory reality. It is something that moves manís freedom ethically. The kinship between ethics and aesthetics is a very close one, and in the contemplation of beauty every moral act is lived more intensely, because ìthe enthusiasm which is born of beauty cannot be compared with that which arises from devotion.î

It is a short step from the feeling of things to the recognition of beauty, since if we look at reality with love, beauty cannot stay hidden. It comes out into the open. A further step is represented by contemplation, a word that has fallen into disuse or has been erroneously applied to spiritualistic processes of sublimation, devoid of any cognitive substance.