Julián Carrón
As we begin this new year, let us ask for the power of the Spirit, aware of the need we have, aware of our boundless frailty.
Hymn: Come Holy Spirit

Giancarlo Cesana
We are all still feeling the effect of the Pope’s address in Regensburg, with the often violent protests that it aroused, both among Islamic fundamentalists and among the liberals of the New York Times, as well as the “politically correct politicians” of Europe, including the Italian Parliament, who refused him their solidarity. As I heard Carrón say, “Freedom is a rare commodity” (this can be the case even amongst us), and we are justly indignant at this. However, we should not forget, we cannot fail to keep sufficiently in mind that we have been at the Rimini Meeting this year that was dedicated to the question of reason, the same central theme developed by the Pope, in the course of which we said that reason needs God, the Infinite, because human reason is God’s creative intelligence. Without faith, reason does not subsist, and, vice-versa, faith must give reasons for itself.
The reason the Pope’s address aroused such discontent–both among the “anti-democrats” and the “super-democrats”–is that the Pope told the anti-democrats that you cannot do what you like with God, while to the super-democrats he said that God has to do with everything. If God has to do with reason, then He has to do with everything–with money, with politics, with culture, with everyday interests.
Now, reason can certainly be explained in words, but above all it is documented and can be seen in a life more in tune with reality, like that which struck the managers of our friend Ugo’s firm. Here I quote the first of a series of testimonies at the Diocesan Diaconia, during which we prepared what I am saying. These managers, whom he invited to the Meeting, were taken aback by the humanity, the experience, the way of being that they saw there. Reason is documented as relationship with reality, as a particular way of living that we take for granted. Now the first thing we should not take for granted is what we are. As Fr. Giussani says in From Utopia to a Presence,1 we run a great risk of not being original, but reactive, as if what happens suddenly awakens us from an anesthetic. In other words, we are absent minded until something suddenly happens that brings us to our senses; and we are not the ones to bring about the change, but what happens brings about the change. Now, a purely reactive Christianity–Tiziana said–is an anesthetic, that anesthetizes the wound we have inside us, the urgent question that made us followers of Christ, followers of the Church and of the Movement, followers of the humanity with which God got involved with us. God got involved with our humanity so as to help us–as Tiziana said again–not to cheat with our heart, not to let us get anesthetized, not to let us “turn away,” not to let anyone take away what we are entitled to–to be protagonists in the world in which we live; not to cheat with the positive promise of life, despite all the difficulties of life and of our heart.
As Karl Popper, the philosopher of science, said, when discussing the theory of the experimental method based on the pure observation of phenomena: observation is not enough for the progress of science. There are people who observe and see nothing; they don’t see what happens. Jesus says the same thing in the Gospel, when He speaks of the rich man who asked to send Lazarus back from the dead so that his brothers could have the chance to change their lives on seeing someone coming back from the dead. “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, then they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead.”2 So there are people who observe and see nothing. An intuition is needed, a human genius (Carrón spoke of this at the Responsibles’ International Assembly3) that sees what is before the (apparently blind) eyes of everyone. A person of genius, Fr. Giussani always told us, is the one who sees and makes others see what is there, but that others cannot see.
We need humanity, that humanity that comes if we “‘learn Christ’” (Eph 4:20)–as the Pope said at the Audience on September 6th: “… therefore, not only and not so much to listen to his teachings and words as rather to know him in person, … for he is not only a Teacher but a Friend, indeed, a Brother.”
An atheist girl told our friend Claudio, “What I desire most is humanity,” and a taxi-driver, more prosaically said, “I like your Christianity because it is a Christianity that makes me feel better,” that is to say, that makes you a man. In the same audience, the Pope observed, “It should not be forgotten that according to what Mark writes, Jesus chose the Twelve primarily ‘to be with him’ (Mk 3:14).”
The aim of the Movement is to have us stay with Jesus. We ourselves, through our friendship, need to stay with Jesus, not adapting to each other with deferential tolerance and therefore political calculation (because deferential tolerance is a political ruse; it convinces nobody), but in a continuous comparison of our life, as Cesare said, that makes us look beyond what happens and not to what we already have in mind, what we think should happen, as Fr. Mauro added.
Raffaello said that Christianity is not the good and indisputable religious inspiration of those who then pick and choose what they want from life, like in a supermarket–first of all, because life is not a supermarket, but above all because Christianity is a judgment full of affection and mercy, and precisely for this reason it is an invitation to change (we cannot stay together without changing) or, more correctly, to use the Christian expression, to be converted. In order to support us in our frailty, God proposes just this: to be together. He proposes a tangible unity with the current of His friendship in the world–the Church, the current of God’s friendship in the world.
There is one last difficulty that constitutes the central core of the question I leave to Carrón. Why is it, as Michele observed, “that after many years of Christian life–at times, not all that rarely–in us adults instead of begging or entreaty, what grows more is pretension?” And Fabio asked, “Why is it that while remembering the phrase of Fr. Giussani’s mother that he so often repeated, we often say, ‘What a beautiful world!’ and yet find it so hard to say, ‘How great God is!’?”–we find it so hard to acknowledge that it’s not we who have created the world, and that everything is given us.
In this connection, it is worthwhile quoting a short piece by Oriana Fallaci from her book Un Uomo (A Man), that Fr. Giussani also cited: “The bitter discovery that God does not exist [she was an atheist] has killed the word destiny. But to deny destiny is arrogance; to affirm that we are the only maker of our existence is madness–if you deny destiny, life becomes a series of lost chances, a grieving over what has not been and could have been, remorse for what we haven’t done and could have done, and we waste the present making it another lost chance.”4
So there is not only hesitation in saying, “How great God is!” but even in saying, “What a beautiful world!” We are asked to say this every day, from the moment we get up, because how can you start your day without loving the world? We need God; we need His friendship.
We are here today seeking the tension of this begging.

Carrón
A doctoral student in one of America’s finest universities told me what happened to him recently. He got the best grades of all the students because of the way he went about his work. The professor who was giving him his results, normally reluctant to express his congratulations, told him that after many years of teaching he had never seen marks so high. Many of his colleagues would have literally jumped with joy at such a fact, but he was totally unmoved, as if the news was unable to take hold of his whole “I,” because of a difficult moment he was going though. His professor was so surprised that he asked him if he was alright. As I was listening to him, I thought of Jesus’ phrase: “What use is it for a man to gain the whole world, if he then loses or ruins himself?”5 It’s right here, in cases like this, that life appears in all its thirst for an answer; here is truly revealed the nature of the “I,” of the heart, which is need for totality. “Quid animo satis?”6 This morning, as I remembered the episode, I thought, “Who are You, Christ, who are You who, if You are not here, all the rest, even the whole world, is not enough?” Because Christ is not something added, not even the most important thing. He is something else again, the cornerstone, the keystone in which you find that correspondence that makes life worth living.
That episode helps us understand truly what life is all about, what the drama of life is–the options are Christ present, capable of capturing our whole heart, or nothingness, because nothing is capable of capturing it, nothing corresponds like Christ. This is how we understand the need we have inside–what we call “reason.” Reason is not something abstract, it is this need for global meaning that we have inside us, so much so that we can gain the whole world and not be satisfied.
If reason is not an intellectual question, but this need for global meaning that we have inside us, then the discussion aroused by the Pope in Regensburg is not a question for experts (philosophers, thinkers, opinion makers), but something that affects everyone and that affects everyday life. Over the last few weeks I kept thinking of something I have repeated a number of times: we have done something really fine, defending the Pope from the attacks against him and distributing his address. Lots of people were grateful for this gesture, with the thousands of copies offered in the universities, in various environments and in the parishes. We found the vast majority of people keen to accept the leaflets, and not a few came back to ask for more copies. This battle is absolutely in line with our history, because Fr. Giussani started off in the Berchet High School with this fight in defense of reason, this need for global meaning that constitutes us.
But it is not enough to have made this fine gesture, though we will go on making it. We cannot get off so lightly, because the Pope’s indication is something that affects us first; it’s an indication for us. For we cannot succumb to this paradox–defending a just conception of reason and then, in day-to-day life, go on using another, using a conception in contrast with that which the Pope defended, a rationalistic conception of reason, in contrast with the one we have defended.
That this is not merely a possibility can be seen in what was said earlier–that it is often easy for us to say, “What a beautiful world,” but we find it hard to say, “How great God is!” This shows that we often use our reason just like everyone else. You have only to ask yourself when was the last time you said, “How great God is!” when looking at some part of reality (not while doing meditation or saying Morning Prayer!). When was it that, on looking at some aspect of reality, or while taking part in some event or gesture, you didn’t stop short at appearances, but were astonished at Him who generated it. Why do we say, “What a beautiful world,” detached from, “How great God is!”? It is a use of reason that stops at appearances; it is a rationalistic use of reason. It’s not that we never say, “How great God is!” but we say it as something stuck onto reality, not a way of looking at reality.
So, we cannot merely defend the Pope, limiting ourselves to giving out copies of his address; we defend the Pope by following him–by using reason according to its true nature as need for global meaning. This is what can make us and others understand the importance of what the Pope said.
What difference is there between living reason according to its nature and living it in a rationalistic way? We have to understand the difference, otherwise, as I was saying, though we defend the proper conception of reason, we actually live reason like everyone else. The difference can be seen in the way we live things and circumstances. Often, while defending the proper conception of reason, we drown in reality, we suffocate in our prison, the prison of the circumstances, of our job, of our family, like everyone else, and so we don’t really defend the Pope. True defense of the Pope is witnessing to everyone, first and foremost to ourselves, that a true use of reason makes life different, more in keeping with reality; it makes us breathe in reality, because it corresponds to the needs of our heart.
In evidence of this, I’ll read you a letter: “I have been married for a year and I am expecting a baby toward the end of November. I have been off work since August and as a consequence the rhythms of life have completely changed. The days seem more and more empty, not just of things to do, but–what I find hardest–empty of meaning, too [even if you are home instead of at work, you are need for meaning]. Often I get up in the morning already fed up with a day that promises to be sterile, arid, and often boring inside these four walls. The only thing left to occupy me is the course of specialization in education, which couldn’t be more frustrating. So I have little to do, and what little there is annoys me. I often reach the end of the day empty and sad. What surprised me is that my husband has been living with the same feeling of sadness and sterility for some time, since he lost enthusiasm for his job, because the circumstances have changed and he has no longer any taste for what he does from morning to night. How painful it is to realize that it took so little for us no longer to feel that fullness that the Movement had brought into our life! This shows that the problem lies not in what we do, whether it be little or much, since the outcome is the same–a deep-seated dissatisfaction. We know that the problem is not primarily to try to change the circumstances, but to answer the questions that this period has brought out dramatically: who or what can fill my day? [This is reason, this is the need we carry inside us.] Where am I going, and with whom? Translated, this means: what do we mean when we speak of living reality intensely in day-to-day circumstances, however good or bad they may be? In view of the Opening Day, I wanted to ask you these questions.”
We cannot drown in the circumstances. This letter was not written by an outsider, but by one of us. Perhaps many of us identify with it, though the particular circumstances may differ. This makes us understand why it’s not enough for us to defend the Pope; rather, the problem the Pope brought up touches us first of all.
This is why last year we addressed the question of education. We are the ones who need to be educated, to be introduced to reality as a whole. And I hope that we don’t confuse this with being experts in the theory of education, even if it be Fr. Giussani’s theory, because what we need cannot be reduced to this. We need people who are educated to live reality in its wholeness, people who are able to introduce us–by sharing their life–to the sense, the meaning of reality. This is what we set as the theme for the Rimini Meeting: reason is need for the infinite. So it is not enough just to switch “cells,” to use Kafka’s expression again,7 or to wait for the circumstances to change–these will always be limited. “Reason is need for the infinite and it culminates in the sigh and the presentiment that this infinite be manifested.” Reason cannot be satisfied by what it sees, the beauty of the world; it is need for something else, for the infinite, for the greatness of God, without which it cannot subsist. We find this sigh, this longing inside us, this human urge, this intuition that the infinite should reveal itself.
We still have to complete this journey; we can see this in the difficulty we have in using reason in a proper way. But we have a whole year ahead of us! The difficulty our friend spoke of in that synthetic phrase (“It’s easy for us to say, ‘What a beautiful world!’, and yet we find it hard to say, ‘How great God is!’”), is documented in many circumstances.
This summer, we invited Sotoo, a friend of ours, to the Responsibles’ International Assembly in La Thuile (as you can read in Traces).8 We were all there listening to him and, as he came to the end of his witness, he acknowledged that, for him, the place he was in at that moment was like heaven. I was asking myself how many, before the very same thing, have discovered in themselves the same experience that he has. Many people told me they were moved that day, so at the end of the assembly I asked, “Many of you have told me you were moved, but how many of you have said ‘You’ to Christ?” It’s the same thing. We can say “What a beautiful world!” or, “It’s great to be together,” to the point of being moved, but how many reach the point of saying, “You,” of saying His name?
The day before yesterday, I was invited by a group of GS and the same thing happened. They, too, had defended the Pope, but one of them said, “But I drown in my chemistry lessons.” It’s the same thing again.
Now, how can we get out of this difficulty, the difficulty we have in acknowledging Him present–in other words, in using reason according to its nature as the capacity to become aware of reality in all its factors? Without this, unless we acknowledge it, unless we get to the point of saying “You,” we don’t breathe. So how can we learn to use reason properly? We don’t need a strategy, we don’t need to attend the philosophy faculty. The Pope stated clearly what the aim of his address at Regensburg was. Here are his words: “… broadening our concept of reason and its application.” How is this broadening of reason possible?
Listen to what Fr. Giussani says in the Preface of At the Origin of the Christian Claim: “What makes us grow and broadens our mind is not abstract reasoning [so it’s not an abstract strategy that broadens the mind, that makes reason expand], but finding in humanity a moment when the truth is attained and uttered.” It is a fullness of humanity before our eyes. Fr. Giussani goes on, “This is the great inversion of method that marks the passage from the religious sense to faith–no longer a search full of unknowns, but surprise at a fact that has happened within the history of mankind.9
It is only surprise at a fact that is able to broaden our reason. It is an event that educates us; it is taking part in an event that is constantly able to take us beyond our own measure. It is because we experience the Mystery present that we use reason according to the nature of the Mystery, as the Pope said. But this requires not only the religious sense, but faith, too; a present event is required.
What educates us is an event. It is fundamental to help each other to understand this. So our meetings are gestures, not simply words. What broadens the mind is not an abstract argument, but taking part in an event (this is why I hope that you will not go away, but stay here for the Mass, because the Mass is part of the gesture). It is not a matter of ability or cleverness. We are poor wretches. It is only by letting ourselves be involved in a gesture as beggars, going to Communion as poor wretches, to receive strength from an Other, that we can breathe, for Christ came for this, to facilitate this use of reason, to broaden it.
“Soon afterward he journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ He stepped forward and touched the coffin; at this the bearers halted, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you, arise!’ The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, exclaiming, ‘A great prophet has arisen in our midst,’ and ‘God has visited his people.’”10 Why do they think of God? Why can they not stop at what they see? The event before them will not let them get bogged down in their own measure. This is what facilitates the broadening of reason, to the point of recognizing God, of glorifying God.
Now this is the definitive method. In all circumstances we can verify the Christian faith, because the Christian faith is not the prolongation of Christ’s words–if there is faith, it is because the event of His presence goes on happening amongst us. Either Christianity is an event in action, or it has changed its nature–in other words, it is no longer Christianity. It’s not just a matter of using the expression, “Christianity is an event.” It is not an event because I say so, it is an event if it happens. We cannot get out of it by using formulas or labels–it is a present event.
As I have said on a number of occasions in various settings, I am really astounded at how many events have happened amongst us over the past year. But I need to acknowledge them, I need that “human genius” Fr. Giussani spoke of, and that we recalled at La Thuile, that poverty of spirit that makes us let ourselves be struck by what happens. We are often concerned with other things, and not open to accept what happens; our thoughts or our opinions seem more useful, more intelligent than what happens. But reality is stubborn and, as Pavese said, “the most resolute thought is nothing compared with what happens.”11
Here is what happens when a person is willing to be struck: “I would like to thank you because these days have been a privileged occasion for me to grasp better to whom I belong.” The writer is a university man. “When we are with you, this comes out more and more clearly. Some weeks ago, I began to study again At the Origin of the Christian Claim and I was struck by what Fr. Giussani said in the Foreword: ‘What makes us grow and broadens our mind is not abstract reasoning, but finding in humanity a moment when the truth is attained and uttered.’ This happened to me. I have grown, I went away more expert in life, in myself, not because I learned something new in the argument, but because I met someone who introduced me to this absolute novelty. Now I am more certain that the only road is this sequela, curious to discover, to know and to fall more in love with Christ, through those who, in reality, make me meet Him as a living reality. Thank you for the education you offer me–it is the only way not to succumb to nothingness.”
Here is another letter, written at the end of the CLU Équipe[CL university leaders’ meeting]: “Dear Julián, I came here expecting a change and, right from the start, I understood that the challenge you threw to us the first evening had me in mind. At dinner the first evening, and then in the introduction, you said that we were here either to go home better ‘functionaries,’ or to go home more certain that the road we have embarked on is that on which the fulfillment of our thirst for the infinite really happens. Today, as we approach the end of this Équipe, I have to admit that Christ is winning, winning because He doesn’t stop taking the initiative, He doesn’t stop calling me to acknowledge His present presence. While you were speaking to us this morning, I felt the recoil of Christ’s being present, the recoil of a Presence I can relate to in every instant. I was particularly struck by the last phrase in the assembly, when you said that in the name of Christian morality I can do the most immoral thing–not let myself be attracted by Him. I couldn’t use my nothingness as an objection, because He is. It is a miracle to be able to say this, and all my aridity was unable to oppose it. As I left, I felt that the silence was mine, profoundly mine, because I wanted nothing to be lost and to go on relating to Him. Even outside the hall, as I was speaking with my friends, I wanted to speak every word without taking my heart from His presence. Now I want every instant of my life to be silence–memory, relationship with Him.”
Why does someone want to live silence, not want to lose this relationship with Him, but want to live in memory? Only because Christ corresponds like no one else to the desire, the needs of the heart. That this goes for everyone, even those who were not at La Thuile, can be seen in this letter a girl wrote to her friend: “I rang you just to tell you this: I am re-reading Memory: Method of the Event, the text of the Responsibles’ International Assembly. I feel a total correspondence, to the point that every so often I have to take a break because I cannot hold any more. In these moments, I understand, as I was told, why Jesus revealed Himself over time–the disciples would not have supported the weight of that Presence all at once. In some moments, I can touch my limitations and God’s greatness with my hands.” Something that happens makes you touch God’s greatness with your hands. Far from just thoughts!
Another person, who wanted and attended our visit to South America, wrote to me: “Before you arrived, I asked myself many times what I wanted, after all, from your visit, what I was expecting, and the only answer I was able to give that really satisfied me was what Fr. Giussani had said in ‘It seems to me they are not looking for Christ.’ What I wanted was this. Fr. Giussani affirms, ‘If you could carry with you the content of the awareness of all the past days, of the years spent in the Memores Domini or in the “verification” or in the Movement, I don’t know if you wouldn’t feel covered with shame […] if we were to realize in that moment that we have never said “You.” [We can ask ourselves this–when was the last time we said, “You,” with all the awareness and emotion we are capable of?] Lord, You are the One I love [St. Augustine said]: “What does man desire more than the truth?” What is the truth? A man who is present, a man who is present: he cannot be squandered or washed away by the pretty and jolly appearance of the companionship of faces that should be a sign of Him! This happens when you really say “You” with all the awareness of your “I”–the more you are aware of yourself, the stronger, greater, truer, simpler and purer is your devotion to Him.’ Your simplicity, your clarity, your affection, your way of constantly challenging reality, seeking a verification in it, have truly won me over and made me understand once again the preference and the fullness of the life of Jesus, the life Jesus has us experience every day, and now there is all the desire that this beauty accompany my life and that of all my friends who have seen it.”
In this way, each one of us can become a companion for others. It is not a question of being good (and we will not be), but of letting ourselves be drawn along by His presence. This is what enables us to look at everything, even what doesn’t look nice. “After the Fraternity Exercises, we lost our third child, in the third month of pregnancy, but reality did not correspond to my desire. Where was the infallibility of the heart you spoke of? Where was I going wrong in wanting life for my child? I didn’t like being told that this had happened for the best. My demand for life and truth [reason, the need for meaning] remained unsatisfied, and I made this demand, I shouted it out, I shouted out my limitation to my friends–my Fraternity group, my School of Community group. Little by little, more and more clearly, like the first hint of the sun rising in the morning that slowly but inexorably becomes light, Christ’s face appeared to me, His presence revealed itself to me. As you said at the Exercises, ‘We must not look away and be distracted: I can look at the dead body of my father and say, after all, “Reality is Christ, there, Christ is there.”’ I had to look hard at the pain in my heart in front of this child who is no more in order to perceive that the correspondence you were speaking of is not the fulfillment of the desire that my child live, but it is beyond this, in the revealing of Christ’s face in my life. After all, no child can fulfill my heart, only Christ can do that.”12
So we understand why Fr. Giussani from the start said, as you can read in Dall’utopia alla presenza, “The problem is not the community […] but me. We don’t need something that changes my actions, but something that changes my person. What is at stake is my life vocation, a conscious, stable identity; and the stable method of life is unity in yourself and unity with others. Unity of self is found in unity with Christ. A stable and conscious identity lies in my relationship with Christ. Since ‘Where there is no temple there shall be no homes.’ This means that finding unity in yourself coincides with the maturing of your unity with Christ; and unity with the others is a consequence of this, a mere consequence of this. But unity with Christ is conditioned [as we have seen] by the way in which this Presence [becomes present] becomes tangible–by the body in which it is revealed [taking part in a gesture, in the life of the community], in other words, the life of the community in as much as it realizes the mystery of Christ. So, following the community is the method by which we increase our relationship with Christ [because Christ came precisely for this], and therefore [increasing] your own identity and the unity with the others.”13
We have to remind each other every day of the fact that is among us and motivates our unity. This is what increases our judgment, our stable consciousness, our conscious and stable identity.
“What touched me most this year, since I was not worried about defending a role, was the search for the essential. Over the years, I had always sought other people’s approval, as in a reality show, I wanted other people to see how good I was at what I was doing. Then, privately, I was dissatisfied. I lived for other things, filling the void with other things; I was never fulfilled. The friendship with Giorgio, my wife’s love for me, the mere following of the Movement this year, filled me like a glass is filled, drop by drop, and in the end I was filled to the brim and overflowed without realizing it. One of Giorgio’s latest outbursts left a phrase impressed on me: “Where is your consistence [a conscious and stable identity]: in what you do, or in What has taken hold of you?” After La Thuile, I came back wanting to live more and more what is essential and not because I want to join the Cascinazza, because what is essential for me is what happens. That is why I liked the meeting at La Thuile, because for the first time what first came to my mind was not ‘Now I am going back and I must be invited somewhere or to some Fraternity,’ but I began to want to be where I am and say, ‘Jesus, let me see You, and not close my eyes; let me acknowledge Your presence and be aware that this is why we are together. Help me to acknowledge Your presence in my life.’ I have felt a certain enthusiasm other times, over the past years, but it was merely euphoria, not a judgment. Now I can say that it is a judgment, rooted in the conception I have of myself.”
This is what broadens reason and make possible a stability, a stable, conscious identity, and this makes inter-religious dialogue possible, as the letter published in Tracce witnesses. 14The letter is from two Italian mothers who met two Chinese mothers as they were taking their children to school. They eventually became their friends and the Chinese mothers said, “We don’t know Christianity, but we sense that it is a true road, fine for our children.” (They were preparing to have them baptized.) In order to recognize what there is among us, it’s enough to be free of prejudices. As Michele, from Bologna, writes, “I was invited to Rimini for a competition in political culture for university students, organized by the Italian Mazzini Association. As I had expected, the environment proved immediately hostile, [because the advertisement said that] since men must grow without conditioning by anyone else and in particular by the Catholic Church, which shapes people’s awareness by means of their religious schools and interferes with the choices of the State. Since I was not there for an ideological battle, I wrote in my essay simply what I have learned in my experience under the guidance of the Movement–that a clear educational proposal, as well as the freedom to criticize it, is fundamental for the formation of free people. I gave the revolt of the students in France as an example of what happens if no one takes the responsibility of making a precise educational proposal. Some weeks later, something happened that I would never have expected. I was called by the organizer, who told me that I had come in first in the competition. I went at once to her house to collect the prize and I was struck when she told me that the jury (the Grandmaster of an Italian Masonic lodge was among the members) was very pleased with my essay. When I told her I was a Catholic, she was taken aback and said that it was paradoxical that such an antireligious association should have given the prize to a Catholic, of all people. Two weeks later, I gave her The Risk of Education as a gift, and she said that despite her distance from the thought of Giussani, she would read it. The reason I wrote this letter is to tell you how I found in my experience that the education Giussani gives us corresponds completely with the nature of man and his desires, so much so that a jury of that kind acknowledged my essay as the more reasonable and the more human. So I am full of gratitude because I realize that what I wrote didn’t come from my own merit.”15
Even others acknowledge this! I hope we begin to acknowledge it, too. This is the task that is waiting for us this year.
In conclusion, we have good news to announce: the Pope, Benedict XVI, has acceded to our request for a meeting with him next February 10th in the Paul VI Auditorium, Vatican City.

Notes
1 Cf. L. Giussani, Dall’utopia alla presenza [From Utopia to the Presence], Bur, Milano 2006, p. 52.
2 Lk 16:31.
3 Cf. Memory: Method of the Event, supplement to Traces Vol. 8, No. 8 (September), 2006, pp. 8-10.
4 O. Fallaci, Un uomo, Euroclub, Milano 1980, p. 151. (English edition out of print: A Man, 1980, 1981.)
5 Lk 9:25.
6 Cf. A. Gemelli, Il Francescanesimo, Edizioni O. R., Milano 1932, cap. XIII.
7 F. Kafka, The Zurau Aphorisms of Franz Kafka, to be released on December 26, 2006.
8 Cf. E. Sotoo, “A Son Coming Home” Traces, Vol. 8, No 9, (October) 2006, p. 36
9 Recent edition in Italian, p VI.
10 Lk 7:11-16.
11 Cf. “Il tormento di Pavese, prima che il gallo canti,” in La Stampa, August 8, 1990, pp. 16-17.
12 Cf. “The Infallibility of the Heart” in Traces, Vol. 8, No. 8 (September) 2006, p 6.
13 L. Giussani, Dall’utopia alla presenza, op. cit., pp. 8-9.
14 Cf. “Battesimo cinese,” in Tracce-Litterae communionis, no. 8, September 2006, pp. 10-11. (Not published in the English language edition).
15 “Vincere il premio,” in Tracce-Litterae communionis, no. 9, October 2006, pp. 12-13.