Dialogue on Charity, Part Two

This is the second part of my dialogue with Fr. Giussani's thoughts on charity, love, friendship, and Christ. Although each part can stand alone, it may be helpful to read this in conjunction with Part One, written on Jan 4th of this year. The Bold print is his text, the Italic print is my reflection.

b. Friendship

 Using friendship as one's point of departure and as the final goal, with all the ambiguity that this encompasses, is also incomplete. 

Ambiguity...What ambiguity? The ambiguity of making too much out of friendship? I never thought about it, but it seems true that making friendship the be all and end all of one's life ("one's point of departure and...final goal") warps friendship. It goes from beautiful to ugly, though it may keep the same name. The beauty of friendship is the love that takes friends out of themselves towards their common passion. Friendship implies an acceptance of the other as the other is, and the sharing of yourself as you are, while each goes beyond the individual self towards that which entrances them both.  But if  friendship is narcissistic, if I have to buy into your lies and delusions in order to be accepted by you, or you have to swallow mine to be my friend, then at best our so-called friendship is just an arrangement of convenience, convenient complicity, not a mutually enriching sharing of selves. Somehow, love for the true, good and beautiful, love for what is greater than we are, is integral to friendship.

Friendship is a correspondence that one may or may not find: it becomes the road to our destiny, but not the end itself. 

Correspondence...again, a word that I did not associate with friendship, but yes, it describes the way two or more genuine friends fit one another. There is a correspondence, a mutuality, a trusting, open communication that cannot be foreseen or planned. They share what they see and in doing so, each sees opens the eyes of the other a bit more. When friendship happens, it is a surprise, a mysterious, beautiful gift.  Another provocative idea: "friendship"becomes the road to our destiny".What does that mean?  I can say Christ is the "Way", or road to our destiny. So, somehow friendship means we are involved not just with each other, but with a Love and Truth that are greater than we are? In that sense, we who are friends are pulled toward a Love that is our final end. Is that what Giussani means?

2   To freely go out to others, to share a little of their life and to put in common a little of ours, enables us to discover a sublime and mysterious thing (one understands in doing it). 

Exactly what "sublime and mysterious thing" is it that we come to understand "in doing it? Maybe this is the response to what I was just asking about the "road to our destiny". It seems to be going beyond ourselves,  the freely willed, freely given, gift of ourselves in friendship, that is "sublime and mysterious", because there is nothing artificial about it, nothing coercive, or manipulative. It is given unconditionally, and it is sublimely beautiful in the reciprocation.  I think that is what Giussani means.

It is the discovery of the fact that precisely because we love them, it is not we who make them happy. Who is the reason for everything? Who made everything? God.

 

We find happiness in the gift of friendship, in the entering into it. But we didn't make it happen. God did, when we went beyond ourselves.Or perhaps more accurately: his Spirit opened us to one another so we could receive his love in our sharing, even though we thought we were in charge of the process.

So Jesus is not only He who announces to me the truest word, who explains the law of reality, He is no longer only the light of my mind: I discover that Christ is the meaning of my life. 

Again words that have so much packed into them. How does Christ explain "the law of reality"? What is "the law of reality"?  The law of the gift. I am gift. My life is gift. At every moment I am receiving the gift of my being. To enter into the reality that I am, I have to give myself away. Christ does more than illuminate and inspire me with his truth. Self gift is what I am meant to be, and the more I give myself I will find that I have more to give. Not because I am inexhaustible, but because the Divine Giver who made me replenishes what little I give of my weak limited self, and makes me capable of more giving. 

The witness of those who have experienced this value is very beautiful: "I will continue to do charitable work because of all my sufferings and all of theirs have meaning."

The value is in the giving, whether it is reciprocated or not, whether it brings immediate joy or not, whether it makes me feel fulfilled or not. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. The result is beyond our control.

Hoping in Christ, everything has meaning: Christ. 

What matters is that our going beyond ourselves, our self gift, is what conforms us to him. This means that whatever suffering we go through in loving and giving of ourselves will bring us to the fullness of joy in Christ. 

I discover this, finally, in the place where I do charitable work, precisely by means of  the final powerlessness of my love; it is the experience in which the intelligence discovers wisdom, true culture. 

The charitable work done in powerless self-gift helps us see how an environment of goodness and love is created. This "culture" isn't programmable or technologically induced, it is the fruit of love. This seems to be what the apostles did, what missionaries do, what disciple of Christ do everyday. Their self gift proclaims the One who is greater than they, and plants the seed of his presence in the world among different people. In his time, it grows into a sub-culture, then perhaps a culture, an even a civilization of love. 

Dialogue on Charity - Part One

(In reading different reflections Fr. Giussani wrote,  I sometimes dialogue with his text, as a way of getting at the truth his thoughts contain. Often this process illuminates his meaning for me, and awakens more questions. No matter what,  it always gets me thinking in a fresh, new way. The Italic print is my musing and questioning, the bold print is Fr. Giussani's reflection.)

Fr. Giussani, what is the root meaning of charity? I know Christ commands us to love God above all, and neighbors as ourselves, but what does that mean for me concretely? 

 

I am able to understand the word "charity" when I remember that the Son of God, loving us did not send us His riches (as He was able to do), and revolutionize our situation: instead He became poor like one of us. He "shared" our nothingness. We do charitable work in order to live like Christ. 

Your last sentence  makes me sit up and take notice: "We do charitable work in order to live like Christ". I know that Christ "shares our nothingness", as you put it. But I am used to thinking of charity as caring about another, or doing good to another, or fixing situations and making them better. I would never have come up with the conclusion you did, namely that in order to live like Christ we have to do charitable work. I would have concluded we have to go out and start caring for people. 

What about all the needs people have,  what about the obvious need to fix society, to make things better, to eliminate poverty and injustice? Why not start addressing all those needs, instead of living like Christ?

Consequences 1.Charity is the law of being and comes before  natural likes and dislikes, and feelings. Therefore we can "do for others" while lacking any enthusiasm. There may very well be no so-called concrete result. For us the only "concrete" attitude is attention to the person, that is, love for him. All the rest can come as a consequence: like Jesus who only after He manifested his love, performed miracles and fed the hungry. 

Again, you surprise me. I always thought of charity as the "law of doing", not as the "law of being", as you put it.  I probably think that way because we can "be" but not "love". In us humans, being and loving are not one and the same thing. But yes, in Christ being and loving are one and the same. In Him, the act of being, the act of being with us as a man, the act of being present with us in the Eucharist,  - is all an act of love. By being present with us he is loving us, even before He reaches out and does something.

 The rest of your sentence also jolts me:  " 'charity' comes before natural likes, dislikes, and feelings". That's a statement I would never have been able to formulate, and yet it makes so much sense to me once I see it written there. God's charity comes to us, and is with us and in us, even before our natural likes and dislikes, because our existence is a gift of his love, just as our sustenance is. Our lives are tangible, visible, manifestations of his love, even if we are not always capable of "feeling" that way.

 I can operate on the basis of my "natural likes and dislikes",   or my "feelings" of the moment. They are usually what move me to do, or not do, something for others. But you are saying that these natural inclinations don't matter,  my moods don't matter, because these things are not the starting point. Christ is our starting point. I am faithful to Him when I love no matter how I feel.

We must note two initial points which are not usually clear regarding our openness to others:  

          a. Meeting the needs of others: 

This is an insufficient starting point and motive. What is the real need of another? This way of viewing things is unclear, because it depends on what we believe to be others' needs. But what if that which I bring is not truly what the other needs? I do not know what the other truly needs, nor can I measure or possess it. It is a measure I do not possess,  measure that is in God. Therefore laws and systems of justice can be oppressive, if they forget or attempt to substitute for the only concrete reality that exists: the person, and love for that person.

Again, the way you formulate your thought is fresh and new: The real need of the other is something I cannot measure, because the measure is not in me but in God. What I have to do is be open and present to the person instead of imposing my ideology or system on him as a solution to his problems.

          b. Friendship 

Using friendship as one's point of departure and as the final goal of one's action, with all the ambiguity this encompasses, is also incomplete. Friendship is a correspondence that one may or may not find: it becomes the road to our destiny, but not the end in itself.

Again, a startling formulation. Friendship is not the origin of my charity, nor its goal, living like Christ is.  Being open to and present to others may or may not result in friendship. That doesn't matter, because my "success", if that is the word I should use, is not in getting others to be my friend, but live with them as Christ did.