Volume miscellaneo che raccoglie interventi e conversazioni dell’Autore con i responsabili degli studenti universitari di Comunione e Liberazione svoltisi negli anni 1988 e 1989 (Equipe del CLU); si tratta del sesto volume della serie “L’Equipe” edito nella collana “I libri di Luigi Giussani”.
I testi, raccolti in ordine cronologico, sono preceduti dalla prefazione Un flusso continuo di novità, redatta da Julián Carrón (pp. I-XI).
Ogni Equipe è anticipata da una nota storica a cura di Onorato Grassi (in corsivo nel testo) che contestualizza l’evento. Come riferito nella Nota editoriale (p. 6), in occasione della redazione del presente volume tutti gli scritti sono stati rivisti sulla base della documentazione, scritta e audio, conservata presso l’Archivio della Fraternità di Comunione e Liberazione; è stata mantenuta la forma orale dei dialoghi e delle conversazioni.

1988

Il primo testo, “Ridare identità all’umano” (pp. 7-92), riporta gli interventi dell’Autore e i dialoghi con gli studenti relativi all’Equipe svoltasi a Rimini dal 29 al 31 gennaio 1988, successivamente alle vicende referendarie dell’autunno precedente.
L’“Assemblea” iniziale (pp. 8-55) è un testo inedito.  
Della “Sintesi” (pp. 56-92) vi sono precedenti edizioni, ma la versione qui pubblicata secondo i nuovi criteri redazionali sopra indicati è più ampia e dettagliata.
Nel 1988, una sintesi dell’intervento è editata, sotto forma di appunti, con il titolo “Incontro all’umano” in Il Sabato (maggio 21, 1988, pp. 23-25. Testo non rivisto dall’autore). Probabilmente nello stesso anno, l’intervento dell’Autore viene diffuso in lingua spagnola nel libretto La necesidad de una personalización en la vida de la comunidad (Comunión y Liberación, [1988?]).
Nel 1993, lo scritto è riproposto con lo stesso titolo nel volume miscellaneo Un avvenimento di vita, cioè una storia: Itinerario di quindici anni concepiti e vissuti: Interviste, conversazioni, interventi di monsignor Luigi Giussani a partire da registrazioni, non rivisti dall’autore (a cura di Carmine Di Martino, EDIT: Il Sabato, pp. 219-235; modifiche di carattere redazionale e nella suddivisione e titolazione di alcuni paragrafi; l’incontro è erroneamente datato febbraio 1988). Solo in questa edizione (1993) gli ultimi due capoversi del paragrafo 6 “Gli strumenti” del testo edito in Il Sabato (1988, p. 25; corrispondente a BUR, 2011, p. 90) sono stati spostati a conclusione del paragrafo “La domanda, modalità operativa di appartenenza alla compagnia” (EDIT: Il Sabato, pp. 234-235).
Chiude il capitolo l’“Omelia” (pp. 91-92), inedita. 

Segue lo scritto “Strani uomini” (pp. 93-163). Come spiegato nella nota storica (pp. 93-94), l’argomento dell’Equipe svoltasi a Rimini dal 27 al 29 maggio 1988 fu determinato dalla pubblicazione del Volantone di Comunione e Liberazione (“Pasqua 1988”, pp. 94-95), che riporta un brano di Il racconto dell’Anticristo di Vladimir Solov’ëv, da cui è tratto il titolo del presente volume. Esso fu oggetto di discussione e confronto in tutte le università italiane. Per la sua importanza, questo documento diventerà il manifesto permanente del Movimento (cfr. BUR, 2011, p. 200; cfr. Alberto Savorana, Vita di don Giussani, Rizzoli, 2013, p. 785). 
L’“assemblea” è qui pubblicata per la prima volta (pp. 95-135).
Segue la parte intitolata “Sintesi” (pp. 136-162), già editata nel 1989 in forma concisa con il titolo “Il Mistero presente” in Il Sabato (aprile 22, 1989, pp. 84-91. Con successiva traduzione). Nel 1993 è riproposta in occasione della pubblicazione della miscellanea Un avvenimento di vita, cioè una storia: Itinerario di quindici anni concepiti e vissuti (“Il Mistero presente”, in EDIT: Il Sabato, pp. 237-251; alcune modifiche di carattere redazionale, nuova titolazione di alcuni paragrafi).
L’“Omelia” durante la Santa Messa è un testo inedito (p. 163).

Il capitolo “Trasformare il presente” (pp. 165-313) riporta i testi inediti degli interventi dell’Autore e le conversazioni con gli studenti durante l’Equipe che si svolse a Corvara dal 20 al 25 agosto 1988: “Introduzione” (pp. 166-167), “Omelia 1” (pp. 168-170); “Lezione” (pp. 171-203), “Omelia 2” (pp. 203-205), “Serata di canti russi” (pp. 206-211); “Introduzione all’Assemblea” (pp. 212-219), “Assemblea” (pp. 220-261), “Incontro su Giovanni Pascoli” (pp. 262-276); “Introduzione all’Angelus” (p. 277), “Sintesi” (pp. 278-307) e “Avvisi” (pp. 308-313).
Inoltre, nel pomeriggio del 21 agosto fu organizzato da Giussani un incontro con un gruppo di monaci buddisti del Monte Koya, giunti in Italia su suo invito per partecipare al Meeting di Rimini (cfr. BUR, 2011, pp. 200-202). Il 24 agosto, invece, ebbe luogo una lezione tenuta dal noto psichiatra Eugenio Borgna, ripresa dall’Autore nella sintesi finale (cfr. BUR, p. 286; cfr. Alberto Savorana, Vita di don Giussani, Rizzoli, 2013, pp. 778-783). Le trascrizioni dei due incontri non sono state pubblicate nel presente volume.

1989

Il capitolo “La testimonianza di una compagnia” (pp. 317-370), relativo all’Equipe tenutasi ad Assago il 27 febbraio 1989, raccoglie gli interventi inediti dei partecipanti all’“Assemblea” (pp. 318-349) e il testo dell’“Omelia” (pp. 366-367). 
Per quanto riguarda la “Sintesi” (pp. 350-365) vi sono precedenti edizioni che differiscono dalla stesura BUR (2011).
La prima pubblicazione dello scritto è del maggio 1989 sulla rivista spagnola Nueva Tierra con il titolo “Para que la verdad nazca de la carne” (Nueva Tierra, 6 1989: pp. 4-8). 
Nell’agosto dello stesso anno il testo è editato in lingua italiana, con il titolo “Appunti presi da una conversazione di Monsignor Luigi Giussani con universitari, 27 febbraio 1989”, nel volumetto Come 2000 anni fa: Tre interviste a monsignor Luigi Giussani. Con gli appunti da una conversazione con un gruppo di universitari, febbraio 1989 (supplemento a Il Sabato, agosto 5, 1989, pp. 85-96; la pubblicazione presenta la dicitura “testo non rivisto dall’autore”).
Nel 1993, lo scritto è riproposto con il titolo “La verità nasce dalla carne” nel volume Un avvenimento di vita, cioè una storia: Itinerario di quindici anni concepiti e vissuti (EDIT: Il Sabato, pp. 255-264; lieve revisione, inseriti titoli dei paragrafi).

“Dalla terra, la verità” (pp. 371-419) riguarda l’Equipe svoltasi a Milano l’11 giugno 1989. L’incontro con gli studenti ebbe a tema la vita nelle comunità, le elezioni universitarie e il testo del Volantone pasquale (“Pasqua 1989”, p. 370), che riporta un brano tratto dall’opera di Emmanuel Mounier intitolata Lettere sul dolore (BUR, 2001, p. 40).
Il testo dell’“Assemblea” è inedito (pp. 371-403).
Una prima redazione della sintesi (pp. 404-419), ancora inedita in italiano, era stata pubblicata nel 1989 in lingua portoghese per la diffusione in Brasile con il titolo “Para ser protagonista da história” (CL-Comunhão e Libertação, 15 1989: pp. 4-7). 

“Un dialogo continuo” (pp. 421-528) raccoglie gli interventi inediti relativi all’Equipe che si svolse a Corvara dal 19 al 24 agosto 1989.
Il capitolo si apre con il “Saluto introduttivo” (pp. 422-423), il testo dell’“Omelia 1” (pp. 423-425) e gli avvisi (pp. 425-427).
Seguono i paragrafi relativi alla seconda giornata: “Lezione 1” (pp. 428-439), “Omelia 2” (pp. 440-443) e “Serata di ascolto dell’Arpeggione di Franz Schubert” (pp. 445-446).
Nella giornata di lunedì 21 agosto, all’“Introduzione all’assemblea” (pp. 447-448) seguì l’“Assemblea” con gli studenti (pp. 449-474), in cui fu messo a tema il lavoro svolto durante l’Equipe del giugno precedente (cfr. pp. 371-419)
Dopo i testi “Introduzione” (pp. 475-476) e “Omelia 3” (p. 477) è riportato un breve resoconto dell’incontro, svoltosi nel pomeriggio del 22 agosto, con Li Lu, studente di Fisica all’Università di Nanchino e uno dei protagonisti degli avvenimenti di piazza Tiennamen del 4 giugno 1989, a cui fanno seguito le conclusioni di Giussani (“Incontro con Li Lu”, pp. 478-479). Lo studente cinese intervenne brevemente anche a conclusione della “Serata di ascolto di canti e di Lieder di Schubert” (pp. 480-482).
Come anticipato dall’Autore (p. 483 e 501), la consueta sintesi fu suddivisa in due parti: una prima parte, corrispondente al testo intitolato “Lezione 2” (pp. 483-505), seguita dal testo dell’“Omelia 4” (pp. 506-507); una seconda parte, corrispondente alla “Sintesi”, svoltasi nella mattinata conclusiva del 24 agosto (pp. 509-528). Si segnala che lo scritto “Serata di ascolto di Ludwig van Beethoven” (p. 508) è in realtà un breve commento di Giussani su un brano musicale del compositore, espresso prima della recita delle Lodi e della successiva sintesi (dato reperito presso l’Archivio della Fraternità di Comunione e Liberazione a volume già pubblicato).

In “Appendice” sono raccolti i testi dei primi Volantoni di Pasqua: “Pasqua 1982. Cristo la compagnia di Dio all’uomo” (pp. 531-535), “Pasqua 1983. Le Christ est ressuscité” (pp. 536-537), “Pasqua 1984” (p. 538), “Pasqua 1985” (p. 539), “Pasqua 1986” (p. 540) e “Pasqua 1987” (p. 541).

Il volume si chiude con la “Legenda” (pp. 542-546), gli “Indici” (pp. 547-565) e il “Sommario” (pp. 567-569). [C. C.]

1988
To Restore the Human Person to Himself 
The referendums held in November 1987 challenged university students of Communion and Liberation by confronting them once again with the question of power. More than a political crisis, there lingered a sense of radical decadence of human existence itself: it was increasingly difficult to answer the question of who man was. Thus, the journey for making faith personal which had begun in previous years started to undertake a new task—to restore the human person to himself. Violence is what marked this historical time. The result is that a person is conceived simply as a bundle of reactions. This entails two consequences: first, the “I” remains divided, that is, reason and affection are disconnected; second, fear and presumption prevail. It is precisely by virtue of this progressive reduction of humanity that power governs and determines the individual. Therefore, there comes about a kind of anorexia of the human that dissociates the individual and makes him or her live in fear. The task of the Christian community, then, is to give human beings back their identity. So what defines this identity? Human beings are characterized first of all by freedom, that is, the capacity to perceive reality through the comparison between what they encounter and their hearts. Freedom thus arises as perception of reality (knowledge) and affection to it. The second factor of freedom is judgment, which as such is the fruit of a non-random correspondence and a work. The third characteristic of freedom is creative praxis, which means that it exalts the ultimate correspondence between the total reality and the human heart as they are both created by the one intelligence of God. How can we reawaken the identity of the human person? Through the encounter with a human reality that is alive, qualitatively different, able to attract because it corresponds to one’s heart. The encounter then expands into a companionship that is, geographically and socially, the place where we are called to experience what the encounter has awakened. However, we must avoid the risk of instrumentally reducing it to a project of the power. As a matter of fact, if considered this way, a companionship can only imply the degeneration of industriousness to activism and the reduction of community life to predetermined patterns, whether vocal (speech) or operational (activity). As such, this is a self-centered companionship. Whereas asking is the operative modality of belonging to the companionship. Reason and affection interweave therein. Asking and gratitude abide where the companionship is conceived and experienced as a journey, that is the wellspring from which the call and aid to one’s own identity flow. Pretense and complaint emerge instead when the companionship is experienced in a self-centered way. Prayer is the greatest expression of the companionship, asking for the Event we have been involved in to take place.

Strange People
The university students’ reading of The Tale of the Antichrist by Solovyov—later chosen as the text of the Easter Poster—caused surprise and raised new questions in the life of the communities. At a time when they were experiencing a phase of great vibrancy, Solovyov’s tale was caught as an invitation to come to terms with the original nature of Christianity. The place where the “I” expresses itself is the environment in which it lives. However, as this was organically connected with the devastating presence of power, those students realized that it was possible to read the passage by Solovyov and agree with its content, but without being provoked by it. Faced with the challenge posed by that text, a serious unease emerged and a question arose: what relevance does Christianity have to everyday life? Unease both detects and generates fragility, because what one adheres to, theoretically and practically, cannot transform everyday life. What cannot affect and transform the present is something fragile. This fragility comes from a lived dualism (agreeing but not being provoked) and is identified with fragmentariness. This way, the initiatives of the community do not generate a personality. Being aware of this uneasiness, however, is already the beginning of maturity. Now, the dominant mentality tries to destroy the richness of the Christian proposal and the personality it can generate. For the Christian fact is characterized by a presence that, by disrupting the present, makes every dynamism restless and disturbs every mechanism that has been pre-established by power. The awareness of this fact makes life a continual current of newness. His presence bodily comes out in a companionship: the community is a story in which the encounter becomes permanent; it is a place where the weave of relationships constitutes the instrument by which Christ meets the individual. This companionship is for the person—because Christ’s presence is for the person—and this person is formed in the response she gives to the companionship itself. The Christian community is a community that liberates, because what makes us true is the experience of freedom, and freedom is connection to meaning. On the contrary, the consequences on personality that power is capable of generating can be devastating. The first consequence is a difficulty in understanding, which in turn leads to a weakening of reason. The second consequence is a rupture between recognition and affectivity. Christian friendship, on the other hand, introduces the single person into everyday reality, inviting everyone to verify whether Christ is what they hold most dear. Following is the great law of this instrument that Christ chose to be present, namely, the Church.  The outcome of following is a belonging where the Mystery becomes more and more familiar to the “I,” as well as a significant change in the subject; the signs of this change are—gladness, a missionary spirit as the “epiphany of an identity,” one’s ability to challenge circumstances, and, finally, asking, that means making way for the Mystery to manifest itself.

Trasforming the Present
Original innocence is restored by the contact with the ideal that is revealed. This being made innocent again is possible because of a real Presence that coincides with the Christian community. By adhering to it, a continuing memory is realized. Every morning (morning is when you regain the consciousness of living) this recovery is possible, and this depends deeply on freedom as the memory of a fact that is there and as the willingness to adhere to Destiny. The content of this recovery is the recognition of belonging to a living reality. Thus, every morning you struggle to redefine yourself. You can decide whether to be pulled along by all the circumstances in which God unfolds His mysterious plan or to freely adhere. This requires a strength that comes from a love for your life, from a tenderness toward yourself. This morning recovery is therefore the most important and greatest human endeavor. There is a lack of balance in humankind from which comes a restlessness that generates dissatisfaction. This lack of balance has a deep root that is called original sin. Everything tends to tear man away from the identity in which his innocence resides. It must then necessarily become a struggle; the correct term is work. We must not be scandalized by the “madness” that determines life, whatever degree it may reach; that the innocence of the morning should struggle must not become a scandal because being accepted is always possible. We are embraced by God. To give proof of His closeness, He became a man and died giving Himself. Today Christ embraces man with all his madness through the embrace of a human companionship. It is the gratuitousness of Christ that encompasses human madness leading it into unimagined positivity. The companionship also helps you to experience innocence. If it brings help, then the first question is to identify where this companionship really is. In fact, a friend is one who draws you from instinctiveness. You are helped in the contact with the ideal that becomes work. In order to be helped, however, you cannot just wish, you need the boundaries of pettiness to be broken down, that is you need to ask. Asking, in fact, oversteps the limits and opens you to the totality. It is the essential form of morning recovery. Without asking, there is no work. Thus, man is a beggar.

1989
The Testimony of a Companionship
The impact made by the Poster and the previous Équipes led to an increasingly tireless work within CLU communities that changed their connotation. The community itself became more a locus for the personalization of faith and the construction of human identity. Restarting comes from gratitude, but the truth of this gratitude concerns the connection between Mystery and man. Starting with our gratitude for Christ, we cannot fail to recognize the presence of an unknown seed of diversity inside the Christian companionship—the seed of faith. However, we need to ensure that the novelty that has been introduced, as Mounier said, “does not crystallize into doctrine” and that talking becomes experience. That talking becomes experience means that it increasingly permeates the relationship between the “I” and reality. To be less fragile in our impact with reality, then, a struggle is needed in taking seriously the talking, the word that has been spoken, the ongoing provocation of the Christian companionship, both as the reason behind its establishment and as the reason for its faithfulness. The condition is a real effort that translates the ideal into time and space. There is a new hope in life—it is the seed that differentiates the Christian community from all that surrounds it. The fundamental factor of hope is waiting—what we hold most dear in life is Christ that is awaited, more awaited than seen. In this experience, anticipation quantitatively outweighs what we can touch. Such is the nature of faith, hope and charity, all of these stages following one another calmly, confidently. Quoting Mounier again, “truth must be born from the flesh,” and this means that truth determines a change in ourselves as we look at the present; we cannot understand and get to Christ except from within this change. His power reveals itself within the present experience of a change that becomes birth; it is a generating experience that grows into permanent history. Two factors constitute our striving towards this change—the first is reason, that is recognizing why, and why is the correspondence between what is proposed and your heart; the second factor is affectivity intended as willingness to adhere. There is also a third factor—grace, namely that companionship from which we originate. The work to be done will therefore be a spreading of the familiarity, as recognition and affection, of this Presence—an education related to reason and an education related to one’s own will. This reality, which can be penetrated through sacrifice and struggle, constitutes the first aspect of birth, the growing of work and the unfolding of history. Friendship is the first sign of the change brought about by recognizing His Presence—friendship understood as a different social reality, that is, generated differently (work), and projected in the path of time and space differently (history). All intimism and sentimentality are torn away by this conception of friendship that comes from the struggle to make the ideal into flesh. Without sacrifice, instead, we fall into doctrinality. The last aspect to consider is that the truth arising from the flesh is capable of unleashing cultural taste. The fact that talk has become experience is first revealed by an awakening taste for true knowledge. The form this cultural taste takes is the School of Community, which helps the individual penetrate everyday experience in a constant comparison with the origin.

Truth from the Earth
Experiencing a path to a new self-awareness that is more critical and at the same time more moved is possible because only that which moves becomes movement. The first issue is longing for life to be useful. Without usefulness, we cannot even speak of gladness. The usefulness of life consists in generating, and the outcome of this generation is communionality, that is, a network of relationships among people and between people and things that is reflected in every particular and from every particular flows back to totality. This is the origin of joy. From this point of view, generating means participating in reality as a single living organism. A fundamental rule for this usefulness to be fulfilled is called obedience, in the sense of following an event. Ethics is obedience to the Mystery, and the Mystery is communicated through an event. Historically, the Mystery-event connection has a name—Jesus Christ. The outburst of life comes from openness to this event and it is made possible by a recognition. As the presence of Christ is within reality, it is a recognition inside reality. The consequences of this openness are—the possibility of saying “dear” to someone; a new seriousness of the “I” towards life; the possibility of overcoming the “break between things”; and the discovery of humility. Thus, Christ increasingly becomes a point that is determined carnally, temporally and spatially—a guided companionship where the value of authority stands out. Ethically, the word that describes the dynamic of this companionship is “following.” Following involves freedom as a comparison to the companionship insofar as it is guided. Following is therefore the truest freedom. A challenging aspect of this rule is diversity. For if diversity prevails more than what unites, then the fact that unites is not Christ and this leads you out of the community. The objection of diversity makes forgiveness almost ethically impossible. On the contrary, the most fascinating implication of accepting the sacrifice of diversity is forgiveness, that is the most important value prevailing over the less important one. Those who truly experience the Christian companionship feel much more themselves than before; they are no longer themselves, they are someone else. The absence of a true generation, of a new protagonism in life, is unlocked only by obedience. It is obedience, in fact, that makes us capable of generating, that is, of a new protagonism.

A Constant Dialogue
Man is that level of nature where reality becomes a sign, a summons to something Other. This is not a call to scientific knowledge but to an encounter. For we do not truly look at reality except in the surprise of an encounter where awe and humility prevail. It is from this humility, from the recognition that welcomes the proposition of reality, that comes what is ethically and morally called “value of the instant.” It is in the discovery of the value of the contingent moment that the value of the “I” emerges. Thus, memory makes the whole course of our living different—a true way of intelligere, that is, a new intelligence of reality. Intelligence grasps things differently through a motion of affectivity. The meaning to which the Mystery calls through all circumstances became a gift in life through the encounter with a man, “The Word became flesh.” It is not so much the encounter in its ephemeral factuality that counts, but what was made present in the encounter. Everything becomes messianic through it, implying that every moment of the day is part of the body of Christ, sign of the presence of meaning. Meaning became flesh by becoming irreversible; it is here and now through a tangible unity. Therefore, every moment becomes a step in the creation of our relationship with the Infinite; every moment is an opportunity to give glory to the present meaning. Studying, working, our most cherished relationships find the fullness of meaning in Christ, because that relationship is the circumstance by which the Mystery calls the individual. Outside the relationship with those who freely and consciously responded to the initiative of the Spirit of Christ by belonging to the Christian companionship, the memory of what happened would not withstand the impact of time and circumstances. So, it is only in the relationship with the origin of that companionship that a personal path is made clear. By living the life of the community, therefore, the memory of the individual endures over time as it becomes a totalizing dimension. The companionship has the task of unmasking sin by being itself a sign of forgiveness. However, its value is diminished when being together is favored over love for Destiny. Destiny, that is Christ, belongs to the person. The companionship embraces individuals in all their incoherence because it embodies the arms of Christ Himself. There are two mistakes one can make against the unity of the companionship—an individual interpretation stating that the reason for being together is nothing more than an opinion; identifying service with power. Instead, “we cannot experience the movement by handling more and more things (that is, more and more power), but by going deep into a work,” that is, by accepting the circumstance that God gives us. Developing unity in the companionship requires patience and relentless asking, which is the greatest gesture in life, “The dwelling of our answer can be built on asking.” Asking Christ together is the ultimate essence of expressing our belonging to the companionship. Joy is the sign that something is happening again, and this is the ultimate challenge the community is throwing out to the world, “With Me you will know joy.”