Il presente volume è un’opera miscellanea che raccoglie precedenti pubblicazioni dell’Autore.

L’“Introduzione” è stata appositamente redatta dall’Autore nel febbraio 1995 (Rizzoli, 1995, pp. 7-18. Con traduzioni). Il testo è stato successivamente riproposto senza variazioni con il titolo “Non si impone ma corrisponde” in 30 Giorni (7-8, 1995: pp. 43-49. Con successive traduzioni).

“Parte prima: Percorso drammatico” (pp. 19-92)
È qui riproposta la sezione principale del volume Alla ricerca del volto umano: Contributo ad una antropologia (Jaca Book, 1984, pp. 9-85; senza alcuna variazione. Con successive traduzioni); si tratta della trascrizione, rivista, dell’intervento di Giussani durante un corso di esercizi spirituali ai sacerdoti nei primi anni Settanta (notizia orale raccolta presso l’Archivio della Fraternità di Comunione e Liberazione).
Lo scritto è stato pubblicato in forma identica anche in Opere: 1966-1992 (secondo dei due volumi che raccolgono gli scritti dell’Autore editi da Jaca Book; Opere: 1966-1992: Vol. 2: Alla ricerca del volto umano: Contributo ad una antropologia. Jaca Book, 1994, pp. 857-947). Nelle edizioni Jaca Book il testo è preceduto dall’Introduzione di Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1984, pp. 5-7) e seguito da un’“Appendice” intitolata “Comunione e Liberazione: un metodo esemplificativo di educazione ad una antropologia cristiana” (1984, pp. 87-103). Entrambi gli scritti sono stati espunti dall’edizione Rizzoli del 1995.

“Parte seconda: Decisione per l’esistenza” (1995, pp. 93-125)
Riedizione integrale del testo Decisione per l’esistenza: Appunti pubblicato per la prima volta da Jaca Book nel 1978 (successive traduzioni) ed in seguito in Opere: 1966-1992: Vol. 2: Decisione per l’esistenza: Appunti (Jaca Book, 1994, pp. 557-599).

“Parte terza: Moralità: memoria e desiderio” (1995, pp. 127-228)
Riedizione del volume omonimo nella versione pubblicata da Jaca Book nel 1980 (nuova edizione Jaca Book, 1990, con aggiunta della “Nota alla nuova edizione” redatta dall’Autore, 1990, pp. 7-8; omessa nell’edizione Rizzoli, 1995. Con successive traduzioni). Lo scritto, nella forma proposta da Jaca Book nel 1990, si trova anche in Opere: 1966-1992: Vol. 2: Moralità: memoria e desiderio (Jaca Book, 1994, pp. 745-855).
Il capitolo “Preghiera: consapevolezza di dipendenza” (1995, pp. 141-145) della sezione intitolata “Preghiera” è il testo dell’articolo “Alcune cose sulla preghiera” pubblicato nel 1958 in Ora et labora, rivista delle claustrali benedettine di Milano (3 1958: pp. 13-15; nella nota al volume Rizzoli 1995, p. 141, il testo è erroneamente datato 1957), poi diventato il capitolo “Alcune cose sulla preghiera (1958)” della miscellanea Porta la speranza: Primi scritti (Marietti, 1997, pp. 174-177. Con successiva traduzione).
Il capitolo “Preghiera e spirito comunitario” (1995, pp. 147-152) è il testo dell’articolo “Osservazioni sullo spirito comunitario e la preghiera” pubblicato in Ora et labora (4 1958: pp. 14-16), anch’esso riproposto in Porta la speranza: Primi scritti (Marietti, 1997, pp. 178-182) con il titolo “Osservazioni sullo spirito comunitario e la preghiera (1958)”. Rispetto alla pubblicazione del 1958, nelle edizioni Jaca Book (1980, p. 39; 1990, p. 31; 1994, p. 771) e Rizzoli (1995, pp. 151-152) è stata aggiunta un breve frase a fine testo (assente in Marietti, 1997, che riporta invece la versione edita in Ora et Labora, 1958).
La sezione “La santità come desiderio di vita” (1995, pp. 161-187) è la “Presentazione” di Giussani all’edizione italiana del volume di Cyril Martindale Santi, pubblicato da Jaca Book nel 1976 (pp. IX-XXXI; riedizioni: Jaca Book, 1992 e 2018, pp. 7-25). Nelle edizioni Jaca Book 1980 e 1994 e in quella Rizzoli 1995 i singoli paragrafi di testo sono ulteriormente suddivisi in punti. I primi due paragrafi, “Il santo è un uomo” e “La coscienza dell’incapacità” (1995, pp. 163-169), sono stati pubblicati anche in CL-Litterae Communionis (10 1979: pp. 31-32) come introduzione a una nuova rubrica intitolata “Cercate ogni giorno il volto dei santi”.

Lo scritto a conclusione del volume, “La Chiesa come luogo di moralità” (1995, pp. 229-237), è un contributo di Giussani pubblicato con lo stesso titolo dal periodico Communio: Strumento internazionale per un lavoro teologico (34, 1977: pp. 13-18) nel numero “La morale cristiana”. Nell’edizione Rizzoli (1995) sono stati aggiunti i titoli ai paragrafi.

Nel 2007 il volume Alla ricerca del volto umano è stato riproposto nella collana economica “BUR Saggi” (si tratta di una ristampa conforme all’originale dell’edizione Rizzoli, 1995).

Nel 2016, per iniziativa editoriale di RCS: Corriere della Sera, il 12 marzo Alla ricerca del volto umano esce in abbinamento al quotidiano nella collana “I manuali del Corriere della Sera”. Si tratta del secondo di dieci volumi dell’Autore in edicola settimanalmente. 
Ogni volume è introdotto da una nuova presentazione; per Alla ricerca del volto umano l’autore è Mauro Magatti (pp. I-VI).
Il testo di Giussani è una ristampa conforme all’originale dell’edizione Rizzoli, 1995, comprensiva dell’“Introduzione” dell’Autore redatta per l’occasione il 22 febbraio 1995 (2016, pp. 7-18; Rizzoli,1995, pp. 7-18).

I testi “Decisione per l’esistenza” (Jaca Book, 1978; Rizzoli, 1995, pp. 93-125) e “Moralità: memoria e desiderio” (Jaca Book, 1980; Rizzoli, 1995, pp. 127-228) sono inoltre stati oggetto di riflessione in conversazioni fra l’Autore e alcuni membri dell’associazione Memores Domini raccolte nei seguenti volumi della serie “Quasi Tischreden”: “Tu” (o dell’amicizia) (BUR, 1997, T27 e T34 riferite al testo “Decisione per l’esistenza”, 1995); Vivendo nella carne (BUR, 1998, T28 riferita a “Decisione per l’esistenza”); L’attrattiva Gesù (BUR, 1999, T11 riferita a “Moralità: memoria e desiderio”; T35, riferita a “Decisione per l’esistenza”); L’autocoscienza del cosmo (BUR, 2000, T29 riferita a “Decisione per l’esistenza”); Affezione e dimora (BUR, 2001, T12 riferita a “Moralità: memoria e desiderio”); Dal temperamento un metodo (BUR, 2002, T21 riferita a “Moralità: memoria e desiderio”; T32, T37, T38 riferite a “Decisione per l’esistenza”). [P. M.]

Introduction

The supreme obstacle on our human journey is “neglect” of the “I.” This last word, in fact, hides great confusion today and yet its understanding should be everybody’s primary concern. Such neglect generates a consequent incapability to address anything as “you,” turning one’s relationship to reality into an attempt to assert one’s own power. In this fragmentation of experience, God becomes a useless reality, conceived as an abstract concept; once Mystery is eliminated as the wellspring of life and as the law of reality, that same reality becomes incomprehensible, and with it the factor that ought to be its point of self-awareness. In the face of an existential denial of any ultimate consistency of life, coming across the Christian event has been, for the past two thousand years, an encounter with a companionship of people; and in relating to it, the passion for discovering one’s human face and the openness to reality are constantly alive.

Part One—A Dramatic Path

For real people, the Lord is everything. The fact that God is the Lord of realities, however, did not emerge as the result of a philosophical wisdom, but always appeared through a historical intervention of the Mystery itself: this is the way of revelation.
In humankind, however, there is a resistance to the truth of one’s self that is manifested as a battle between self and the mysterious measure of an Other. People forget their consistency and search for the meaning of life in what turns out to be nothing, finding themselves prey to corruption and irrationality. Only God’s intervention in history reveals human beings in their deep division between what they are (thirst for the infinite) and their existence that walks in contradiction to their own ontology. Corresponding to this rebellion of humankind is the infinite love of the Mystery, mercy. People begin their journey to the truth of themselves by becoming aware of their own misery and desiring their own change.
Desire and demand are the beginning of the imitation of God, that is, of the tension to make our reality similar to His: human beings, in fact, cannot imitate God in His creative capacity, but in His existential behavior. Christ is the one who lived out God’s behavior. Thus, God truly revealed Himself to humanity by becoming human in the person of Jesus Christ. There are three characteristics of the love revealed in Christ: the agape of the Cross, love “for all people,” and love according to all human components of sympathy and tenderness.
A feature of this new subject resulting from the relationship with Christ is the feeling of belonging. Such awareness is the most immediate expression of an ontological truth of human beings, that of being created. Moving from the self as self-possession to the feeling of self as belonging is, nevertheless, a sacrifice. This “new birth” that seems so difficult for humankind to achieve, however, is possible to God: this is the Christian hope.
If His presence is decisive for the perception one has of oneself, it is rightfully up to the companionship of Christ to recapitulate in His person the meaning of everything. Thus, if culture is the critical and systematic awareness of reality, faith is the quintessential cultural event because it implies encountering the meaning of everything within every detail. Like education, culture is implemented through a unique discipline: adhering to the presence of Christ in history without excluding anything from this adherence. Indeed, what in faith makes you judge the value of things is no longer the enigmatic and confusing depths of our elementary experience, but the gaze on Christ, God’s definitive word on our humanity. If to Jesus Christ as man, a place of such stable certainty was the Father’s companionship, a place—the Church—is necessary, even more so, for us too.
To follow what gives shape to life, then, one must stand in that mystery in which Christ’s presence is concealed and revealed. The tragedy is that human beings, though called to adhere to the plan of salvation that Christ represents, are inclined to give priority to their dreams. Jesus Christ, as the fulfilled image of man, is absolutely the only reality that historically promised salvation to man by telling him that everything about his humanity could be fulfilled. The act of offering, then, which recognizes Christ as the substance of all life and desires that He will manifest Himself, accomplishes man’s liberation by grafting him onto the prolific plant of redemption. In fact, the root of immorality is not about sinning but about not walking toward something; whereas Christian ascesis is not about living particular prescriptions but demanding Christ’s presence in every circumstance of life.

Part Two—Decision for Existence

Existence represents, above all, a decision that continually reoccurs regarding what we recognize as our own meaning. The criterion of our mind and decisions lies in adhering to the presence of God. The person who, instead, places her certainty and joy in any other thing is “cursed”, that is, condemned to sadness and distress. What we lack for a true adherence is the simplicity of heart, that of the child, which is full of wonder at the expression of an Other.
God knows no other method for causing a person to grow than that of proposing a presence for her to follow. This, however, does not mean copying mechanically; following is a human phenomenon which requires the use of the most characteristic energies that most describe personality (intelligence and will). After the coming of Christ, entrusting ourselves to God becomes concrete in following the Christian community that continues, in time and space, the presence of God.
This presence invites us to have an experience in which we can verify the proposal we are offered. Doing so means first of all to adhere to the call we have been addressed with all the critical energy we are capable of, and secondly, to follow it with all the energy of our will. The verification of the Christian proposal must carry within itself the pledge of complete satisfaction: the experience of a hundredfold. The feeling we have of the meaning of life would be vain, therefore, if it did not enable us to generate the new piece of the world in the environment where we are called to live. To experience the consciousness of being constituted by an Other is to bring to the surface the promise made by the risen Christ: a humanity transformed by the encounter with the truth. The journey of this conversion is as simple as that of John and Andrew, of Simon and Philip, who began to follow Christ out of curiosity and desire. There is no other path, in fact, except this curiosity full of desire awakened by the presentiment of the truth.

Part Three—Morality: Memory and Desire

To bear witness of the faith within one’s life is the main task of a Christian. Christian experience develops, therefore, according to the following points: 1) the living consciousness that salvation has an answer in a reality already present in a person’s life 2) the presence of Christ is manifested through the experience of the Church 3) the existential consciousness of what faith is, and thus of what Christ is, are not the result of reasoning but of a human encounter 4) a truly new change cannot come except from outside man (this is the grace of Christ’s presence recognized and loved in the mystery of the Church) 5) the living Christian community faces all the problems of society in the consciousness of its faith in Christ and in the consciousness of its belonging to the Church. Faith creates a new subject, it makes man “human”. The task of the Christian community to collaborate in this new creation consists, therefore, in the maturation of its faith, because therein lies the ideal capable of changing the human adventure.
In this path of ascesis, prayer coincides with becoming aware of God, of one’s original dependence. The realization that one’s own life depends entirely on God results in the demand to actualize one’s true self, that is, to adhere to the will of an Other. Like every other spiritual reality in this world, also prayer is accomplished in the humility of certain material conditions: time and the forms of expression that are proper to humankind (thought, word, gesture). But people are weak and inconsistent; although they know duty, in fact, they do not perform it out of laziness. We can understand, then, the value of prayer formulas (fixed words) or rituals (fixed gestures). One human condition that prayer assumes is community expression: not only does it not limit a person’s experience, but it achieves it to its fullest expressiveness.
This new content of consciousness is, literally, the memory of Christ, and liturgy educates to this true form of prayer. Christ himself set the structure of his own expressiveness, the supreme form of prayer as memory: the sacrament, of which Baptism is the origin and the Eucharist the end. To live the sacrament, then, is to live in concrete relationships the salvation that is already given.
If prayer conveys the original consciousness of Christians, holiness is the fabric which is proper to Christian life. In fact, saints are not superhumans but true people as they adhere to God, that is, to the ideal for which their heart was made. They experience fragility more acutely and dramatically than others. The vivid awareness of their own original powerlessness makes them experience a mortification whose blossoming is poverty of spirit. In fact, the poor accept with simplicity the paradox that the maturation of self must pass within the strangeness of renunciation and through the mysterious permissibility of evil.
Only the companionship of the son of God provides a person’s life with the ability to fulfill which is proportionate to her destiny. What a saint craves, therefore, is not holiness as perfection, but holiness as encounter, adherence and identification with Christ. The moral theme does not so much coincide with the despoiling of self, except as a result of seeking Christ: for saints do not give up something for Christ, but want Christ, the only event that can release the energy their self. Along the flow of history, holy is the one who has been called to recognize and live the mystery of Christ in the Church. The latter appears more and more, in the journey of life, to be the only area where morality becomes possible, both as a long-lasting effort and as an outcome. This is the responsibility we hold: not instantly our virtue, our projects or moral feelings, but our perceiving Someone who has happened to us.

Conclusion—The Church as a Place of Morality

The moral figure is the person who lives the original attitude in which God’s creative gesture shaped her. The human face is built up in adherence to His presence. But obedience to Him imposes the necessity of recognizing where the opus Dei, or work of God, actually applies to us—the Church. It is the locus of this gift bringing clarity and security out of the relationships that exist between us, the things around us and the time in which we live. The certitude that time is favorable, our affective inclination toward righteousness, as well as the power of our wills, will mature as a consequence. For homo viator, the sign-memory is the Eucharist, but it is enlarged and made explicit in a greater sign, the Church, the only adequate sign of the presence “of the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” The immanence of self to the mystery of ecclesial communion makes our being penetrate, as if by osmosis, into a new standard that makes life capable of hoping “against hope.”