...Christianity is not something verbal, something that belongs to the sphere of words. Neither is it a doctrine or,...a message. It presents itself...as a fact...as something that happened, as much more than a verbal message that was written down and that would count as a doctrine, or even a system. Msgr. Giussani does not speak of Christianity but of what he calls the Christian fact. ... what we are dealing with in Christianity is not a doctrine, but a person who must be taken as such and for whom one must make space in one's life. To convey this idea Giussani uses a splendid metaphor describing how the birth of a child forces the entire universe of a family to reorganize: "When a child is born into a family, it is clear to the parents, to the grandparents, to the whole family and to friends that this is a fact. There is nothing to dispute: a new bed is needed. Perhaps another bedroom; we have to give thought to how to take care of the new arrival; we are concerned about feeding, clothing, and protecting him or her; we get up at night if he or she needs us. The shape of daily life is transformed by virtue of this fact...Christianity is a fact in the very same way. It entered history just as a child enters the house of a husband and wife. Christianity is an irreducible event, an objective presence that desires to reach man; until the very end it means to be a provocation to him and to offer a judgment of him."
A Generative Thought, edited by Elisa Buzzi, Chapter Two: Christianity: a Fact in History, p.35
Within this psalm lies the meaning of the definition of man's life - his relationship with the one who creates him. The whole cosmos reaches for a certain point of evolution, at which it becomes self-awareness: that point is called "I". The "I" is self-awareness of the world, of the cosmos, and of oneself. The cosmos is the context in which the relationship with God, with the Mystery, lives.
The Psalmist asks, "Lord, what is man that you keep him in mind, that you remember him?" Among all the beasts and little creatures of the cosmos, man is one-hundredth, one thousandth, one then thousandth. But the greatness of man, the honor and glory of man, lies in the fact that man, the individual man, is in relationship with the Infinite. To live what man is, to realize his person, man must grasp everything God has done. Happiness is the final end of this process, the process of penetrating the eternal.
The Psalms, Luigi Giussani, pp. 18-19
