We offer here excerpts
from the talk given by His Eminence Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio during the
book presentation in the huge Buenos Aires book fair, April 27, 2001.
I agreed to present this
book by Father Giussani for two reasons. The first and more personal one is the
good that this man has done me, in my life as a priest, through the reading of
his books and articles. The second reason is that I am convinced that his
thought is profoundly human and reaches man’s innermost longings. I dare say
that this is the most profound, and at the same time understandable,
phenomenology of nostalgia [memory] as a transcendental fact (underline mine). There is a phenomenology of nostalgia, nóstosalgos,
feeling called home, the experience of feeling attracted to what is most proper
for us, most consonant with our being. In the context of Fr. Giussani’s
reflections, we encounter instances of a real phenomenology of nostalgia.
The book presented today, “El atractivo de Jesucristo [L’Attractiva
Gesu],” is not a theological
treatise, it is a dialogue of friendship; these are table conversations between
Father Giussani and his disciples. It is not a book for intellectuals, but for
people who are men and women. It is the description of that initial experience,
which I shall refer to later on, of wonder which arises in dialogue about daily
experience that is provoked and fascinated by the exceptionally human and
divine presence and gaze of Jesus Christ. It is the story of a personal
relationship–intense, mysterious, and concrete at the same time–of an impassioned
and intelligent affection for the person of Jesus, and this enables Fr.
Giussani to come to the threshold, as it were, of Mystery, to speak familiarly
and intimately with Mystery.
Everything in our life, today just as in Jesus’ time, begins with an encounter.
An encounter with this Man, the carpenter of Nazareth, a man like all men and
yet different. The first ones, John, Andrew, and Simon, felt themselves to be
looked at into their very depths, read in their innermost being, and in them
sprang forth a surprise, a wonder that instantly made them feel bound to Him,
made them feel different.
When Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love Me?”, “his ‘Yes’ was not the result of an
effort of will, it was not the fruit of a ‘decision’ made by the young man
Simon: it was the emergence, the coming to the surface of an entire vein of
tenderness and adherence that made sense because of the esteem he had for
Him–therefore an act of reason;” it was a reasonable act, “which is why he
could not not say ‘Yes.’”
We cannot understand this dynamic of encounter which brings forth wonder and
adherence if it has not been triggered–forgive me the use of this word–by
mercy. Only someone who has encountered mercy, who has been caressed by the
tenderness of mercy, is happy and comfortable with the Lord. I beg the
theologians who are present not to turn me in to the Sant’Uffizio or to the
Inquisition; however, forcing things a bit, I dare to say that the privileged
locus of the encounter is the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ on my sin.
In front of this merciful embrace–and I continue along the lines of Giussani’s
thought–we feel a real desire to respond, to change, to correspond; a new
morality arises. We posit the ethical problem, an ethics which is born of the
encounter, of this encounter which we have described up to now. Christian
morality is not a titanic effort of the will, the effort of someone who decides
to be consistent and succeeds, a solitary challenge in the face of the world.
No. Christian morality is simply a response. It is the heartfelt response to a
surprising, unforeseeable, “unjust” mercy (I shall return to this adjective).
The surprising, unforeseeable, “unjust” mercy, using purely human criteria, of
one who knows me, knows my betrayals and loves me just the same, appreciates
me, embraces me, calls me again, hopes in me, and expects from me. This is why
the Christian conception of morality is a revolution; it is not a never falling
down but an always getting up again.
As we shall see, this authentic, in a Christian sense, conception of morality
which Giussani presents has nothing to do with the spiritualistic-type
quietisms of which the shelves of the religious supermarkets of today are full.
Trickery. Nor with the Pelagianism so fashionable today in its different, sophisticated
manifestations. Pelagianism, underneath it all, is a remake of the Tower of
Babel. The spiritualistic quietisms are efforts at prayer and immanent
spirituality which never go beyond themselves.
Jesus is encountered, just as 2,000 years ago, in a human presence, the Church,
the company of those whom He assimilates to Himself, His Body, the sign and
sacrament of His Presence. Reading this book, one is amazed and filled with
admiration at the sight of such a personal and profound relationship with Jesus,
and thinks it is unlikely to happen to him. When people say to Fr. Giussani,
“How brave one has to be to say ‘Yes’ to Christ!” or, “This objection comes to
my mind: it is evident that Fr. Giussani loves Jesus and I don’t love Him in
the same way,” Giussani answers, “Why do you oppose what you think you don’t
have to what you think I have? I have this yes, only this, and it would not cost you one iota more than it
costs me.… Say “Yes” to Jesus. If I foresaw that tomorrow I would offend Him a
thousand times, I would still say it.” Thérèse of Lisieux says almost exactly
the same thing: “I say it, because if I did not say ‘Yes’ to Jesus I could not
say ‘Yes’ to the stars in the sky or to your hair, the hairs on your head…”
Nothing could be simpler: “I don’t know how it is, I don’t know how it might
be: I know that I have to say ‘Yes.’ I can’t not say it,” and reasonably; that
is to say, at every moment in his reflections in this book, Giussani has
recourse to the reasonableness of experience.
It is a question of starting to say “You” to Christ, and saying it often. It is
impossible to desire it without asking for it. And if someone starts to ask for
it, then he begins to change. Besides, if someone asks for it, it is because in
the depths of his being he feels attracted, called, looked at, awaited. This is
the experience of Augustine: there from the depths of my being, something
attracts me toward Someone who looked for me first, is waiting for me first, is
the almond flower of the prophets, the first to bloom in spring. It is the
quality which God possesses and which I take the liberty of defining by using a
Buenos Aires word: God, in this case Jesus Christ, always primerea, goes ahead of us. When we
arrive, He is already there waiting.
He who encounters Jesus Christ feels the impulse to witness Him or to give
witness of what he has encountered, and this is the Christian calling. To go
and give witness. You can’t convince anybody. The encounter occurs. You can
prove that God exists, but you will never be able, using the force of
persuasion, to make anyone encounter God. This is pure grace. .Pure grace. In
history, from its very beginning until today, grace always primerea, grace always comes first,
then comes all the rest.
Blogger: I consider this text in bold italics to convey an intense depth of truth
