Giussani, Luigi. Le mie letture. I libri dello spirito cristiano. Milano: Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, 2008.

Il presente volume è la riedizione di Le mie letture, pubblicato per la prima volta da BUR nel 1996, nella collana “I libri dello spirito cristiano”. Rispetto alla prima edizione sono state aggiornate le note e corretti i refusi. 

Come si legge nella Nota di edizione redatta per la prima uscita del libro, il volume riunisce alcuni testi di letture “occasionali” tenute da Giussani su autori che si sono rivelati determinanti per la sua formazione umana e spirituale. Trattandosi di letture che si sono svolte per lo più in momenti di conversazione con i giovani, di tale contesto mantengono l’impronta parlata, pur riveduta e corretta dall'Autore, e il carattere di esemplificazione e suggerimento rispetto ai temi affrontati nelle rispettive occasioni (BUR, 2008 e 1996, pp. 5-6). Nel tempo, alcuni dei libri da lui più amati sono stati editati da Rizzoli nella collana “I libri dello spirito cristiano”, sulla base di un elenco stilato da Giussani stesso (cfr. Alberto Savorana, Vita di don Giussani, Rizzoli, 2013, pp. 875-877). 

Il primo scritto, “Giacomo Leopardi al culmine del suo genio profetico” (BUR, 2008 e 1996, pp. 9-31), è una lettura tenuta agli universitari del Politecnico di Milano il 24 marzo 1983, in un incontro dal titolo “L’uomo è tensione alla verità” (dato reperito presso l’Archivio della Fraternità di Comunione e Liberazione). Il testo era stato pubblicato per la prima volta in allegato a Il Sabato con il titolo “Oltre la negazione l’inno” (maggio 21, 1988, pp. 35-42). Rispetto al testo uscito su Il Sabato, in Le mie letture è riportata anche la breve introduzione fatta dall’Autore in apertura dell’incontro del 1983 (BUR, 2008 e 1996, pp. 9-10); è stata invece espunta la parte conclusiva presente in Il Sabato (pp. 41-42), tratta dalla trascrizione della conferenza su “La coscienza religiosa di fronte alla poesia del Leopardi”, che l’Autore ha tenuto a Recanati il 29 settembre 1982 (ora in Cara beltà...: Poesie, BUR, 1996, pp. 7-27; nuova edizione BUR, 2010, pp. 7-27). Nel maggio 1996, per concessione di BUR, la rivista 30 Giorni anticipa il capitolo “Giacomo Leopardi al culmine del suo genio profetico” edito in Le mie letture in uscita a giugno (30 Giorni, 5 1996: pp. 37-48).

Seguono quattro testi inediti.

“Una lettura del Pascoli sui destini ultimi” (BUR, 2008 e 1996, pp. 33-52) è l’esito di un incontro con gli universitari del Politecnico di Milano nel 1985. 

“Il dramma di Clemente Rebora” (BUR, 2008 e 1996, pp. 53-68) è la trascrizione inedita di una lettura svolta a Vercelli il 6 aprile 1987.

“Il problema della conversione in Ada Negri” (BUR, 2008 e 1996, pp. 69-80) è frutto di una lettura tenuta il 21 giugno 1995, in occasione di un raduno dei Memores Domini a Gudo Gambaredo.

Il capitolo intitolato “La forma dell’io: Dante e san Paolo” (BUR, 2008 e 1996, pp. 81-87) riporta una meditazione svolta a Riva del Garda il 28 novembre 1992 in occasione del Ritiro di Avvento dei Memores Domini.

Lo scritto “Montale, la ragione e l’imprevisto” (BUR, 2008 e 1996, pp. 89-98) è il frutto di due conferenze pubbliche.
La maggior parte del testo contenuto in Le mie letture (BUR, 2008, pp. 89-90, pp. 90-94, pp. 95-99; BUR, 1996, pp. 89-90, pp. 90-94, pp. 95-98) è stato estrapolato dalla conferenza sul tema del rischio educativo avvenuta all’Università degli Studi di Bologna il 15 novembre 1995, interamente pubblicata nel libretto Il rischio educativo come creazione di personalità e di storia: un tentativo di verifica (supplemento a Litterae Communionis-Tracce, 5 1996: pp. 7-23) e riproposto con lo stesso titolo da Fondazione CEUR nel 1997. 
La seconda conferenza, da cui sono stati tratti solo pochi brani, si è tenuta a Bassano del Grappa il 6 ottobre 1995, in occasione del conferimento del Premio Nazionale “Medaglia d’oro al merito della Cultura Cattolica”. La trascrizione di questa lectio magistralis in forma di intervista è pubblicata integralmente in Una fede ecumenica: Premio Nazionale Cultura Cattolica a monsignor Luigi Giussani: Bassano del Grappa, 6 ottobre 1995 (supplemento a Litterae Communionis-Tracce, 11 1995: pp. 12-26, p. 29; Le mie letture, BUR, 1996-2008, pp. 90-91, pp. 94-95). Nel 2004 il testo diventa il capitolo “Una fede ecumenica: Cos’è la cultura cristiana” nel volume miscellaneo Un caffè in compagnia: Conversazioni sul presente e sul destino (a cura di Renato Farina. Rizzoli, 2004, pp. 143-167).

Il capitolo dal titolo “L’amore come generazione dell’umano: Lettura di L’Annunzio a Maria di Paul Claudel” (BUR, 2008, pp. 101-110; BUR, 1996, pp. 99-108) riporta la trascrizione della lettura tenuta a un gruppo di universitari che si sono ritrovati a Colfosco dal 24 al 28 agosto 1982 (Equipe del CLU). Questa stessa lettura costituisce l’introduzione dell’edizione BUR del libro di Claudel L’annuncio a Maria (“L’amore come generazione dell’umano”, BUR, 2001, pp. 5-14).

La parte intitolata “Coscienza della Chiesa nel mondo moderno nei Cori da «La Rocca» di T.S. Eliot” (BUR, 2008, pp. 111-134; BUR, 1996, pp. 109-131) risulta dalla collazione di tre diversi interventi di monsignor Giussani sui Cori eliotiani, che hanno avuto luogo durante le Equipe degli universitari tenutesi rispettivamente a Corvara dal 20 al 25 agosto 1985, a Rimini dal 27 al 29 maggio 1988 e a La Thuile dal 19 al 25 agosto 1992. Nelle prime righe del testo l’Autore giustifica la lettura di alcuni brani di Eliot affermando che servirà per lo sviluppo di quei concetti poi contenuti in La coscienza religiosa nell’uomo moderno: Note per cattolici «impegnati» (Jaca Book, 1985; ora in Il senso di Dio e l’uomo moderno: La «questione umana» e la novità del Cristianesimo, BUR, 2010, pp. 77-135. Prima edizione BUR, 1994).

“La scoperta di Don Giovanni: Lettura da Miguel Mañara di O.V. Milosz” (BUR, 2008, pp. 135-144; BUR, 1996, pp. 133-142) è una lettura inedita tenuta agli esercizi spirituali degli universitari svoltisi a Riva del Garda dal 26 al 28 gennaio 1980. 

Il capitolo intitolato “La voce che resiste nelle tenebre: Intorno alle poesie e a un romanzo di Par Lagerkvist” (BUR, 2008, pp. 145-162; BUR, 1996, 143-160) è una lettura inedita tenuta agli universitari del Politecnico di Milano nel 1987.

“Ravvivare l’umano: Su alcune lettere di E. Mounier” (BUR, 2008, pp. 163-169; BUR, 1996, pp. 161-167) riporta una lettura tenuta a una Equipe del CLU svoltasi a Corvara dal 20 al 25 agosto 1987. La stessa lettura è riproposta nel quinto volume della serie “L’Equipe” L’io rinasce in un incontro: (1986-1987). Il testo si differenzia in alcune parti perché, come in tutti i volumi della serie, è posta particolare attenzione alla forma orale originale dei dialoghi stabilita sulla base della documentazione scritta e audio conservata nell’Archivio della Fraternità di Comunione e Liberazione (“Serata su Emmanuel Mounier”, BUR, 2010, pp. 340-347).

“La libertà e la gratuità: Intorno a due pagine di Charles Péguy” (BUR, 2008, pp. 171-191; BUR, 1996, pp. 169-188) è il testo inedito di una meditazione tenuta a Corvara dal 4 al 6 agosto 1991, durante un corso di Esercizi spirituali per i Memores Domini.

Infine, in appendice (“Appendice: Tre film”, BUR, 2008, p. 193; BUR, 1996, p. 189) sono riportati i commenti dell’Autore a tre film. 
Il primo commento si riferisce al film Ordet (“L’impeto della vita: Sul film Ordet di C.T. Dreyer”, BUR, 2008, pp. 195-200; BUR, 1996, pp. 191-196), di cui l’Autore ha parlato in occasione di un corso di Esercizi spirituali dei Memores Domini il 4 agosto 1992 a Corvara. 
Sempre del regista Dreyer è il secondo film commentato dall’Autore: si tratta di Dies Irae (“La tragedia del moralismo”, BUR, 2008, pp. 201-204; BUR, 1996, pp. 197-200).
L’ultimo testo si riferisce al film Dio ha bisogno degli uomini del regista J. Delannoy (“La concretezza del senso religioso”, BUR, 2008, pp. 205-208; BUR, 1996, pp. 201-204).

2016
Per iniziativa editoriale di BUR: Corriere della Sera, il 23 aprile 2016 Le mie letture esce in abbinamento al quotidiano nella collana “I manuali del Corriere della Sera”. Si tratta dell’ultimo di dieci volumi dell’Autore in edicola settimanalmente. Il volume è corredato di una Presentazione inedita redatta da Franco Branciaroli, attore, regista e drammaturgo (pp. I-IV). Il testo di Giussani è una ristampa conforme all’originale dell’edizione Rizzoli, 2008. 

2019
Nell’agosto 2019 il volume è entrato a far parte della collana “BUR Saggi”. Si tratta di una ristampa (isbn invariato; rinnovata la veste grafica della copertina). [C. C.]

 

copertina edizione 2019

The volume collects texts of “readings” held by Fr. Giussani on some authors who were dear to him and, in the appendix, on some films; they are occasional readings and therefore far from a critical-literary attempt, but the deep observation and empathy they show get to the heart of the work or author that is taken into consideration. The methodological hypothesis is that genius, when most fully expressed, comes to prophesy the level in which all reality consists—that is, Christ.

Giacomo Leopardi at the Culmination of His Prophetic Genius
The text is also an autobiographical glimpse of Fr. Giussani; in recounting his early encounter with Leopardi (age twelve), Fr. Giussani targets the most compelling question of life, “[since] a man is not defined by his own limitation, [since] he is not defined by what he is, [since] attraction to reality remains open, this means the inevitable affirmation of a presence, of an ultimate answer. This affirming an ultimate positive presence is so implicit in reason, understood as consciousness of the real, that Leopardi eventually recognized it.” This reading path shows and documents that Leopardi, in the wake of his hymn To Aspasia, wrote To His Woman as a “sublime prayer,” in a “balanced and powerful” moment, and became a prophet, “in the literal sense of the word,” of the Incarnation.

A Reading of Pascoli on the Ultimate Destiny
This reading deals with Giovanni Pascoli’s Primi poemetti, an author that Fr. Giussani continually read and pondered; his way of reading is well described in the first lines, “Genius cannot be expressed except—even unwillingly—by prophesying.” The first point of emphasis concerns the characteristic of Pascoli’s poetry whereby a “small banality” becomes a “sign” and thus a “cosmic symbol”—reading his poems “The Great Aspiration” and “The Book,” Fr. Giussani introduces and begins to unveil Pascoli’s metaphysics, that is “Pascoli’s image of the ultimate human things.” This image of an “ultimate destiny,” traced in his Primi poemetti, reveals a deeply rooted religiosity, even if concealed from the gaze of a superficial reader. It is primarily based around two issues—a great human loneliness in the universe, infinite and silent, and a great need for forgiveness and companionship. Pascoli’s investigation tacitly comes to imply “something Other” that needs to be manifested in life, something else that is not just a realized human ethic, but springs from an “unknown quid [...], from this positivity, although mysterious.”

The Drama of Clemente Rebora
The main thematic values of Rebora’s expression are soon traced by Fr. Giussani at the beginning of his reading, “an all-embracing nature filled with a longing desire, colliding with the limit (death) and finding the eternal therein.” Rebora is presented above all, even before his priesthood, as a “pauper evangelicus,” as a good man, filled with positivity in the face of the mystery of things, who senses that man “is, and does not ‘invent’ himself,” cooperating with the mysterious reality before which he is placed. Thus, through his intelligence, his words, his body, man cooperates with his understanding of reality, not just with some “fragments of reality, fragments performed according to his own preconceptions, or to estimates.” From this human position, Rebora’s path becomes “a tension to remove the veils of this concealment as much as possible, a tension towards God.” The reading documents, through various Frammenti lirici and later poems, the question that “spasms the soul in all its pangs” and the certainty of an answer, “it will come if I resist” (if I am consistent with my nature, as Fr. Giussani comments), and poetry as mission in respect to the reader, “Thou, reader, in the brief sound / That makes immensity a tiny grain / Thou hearest the meaning of the world: / And may your assenting be of help.”

The Problem of Conversion in Ada Negri
Through this reading Fr. Giussani aims to “help us understand how conversion takes place in Ada Negri, that is, the discovery that everything is an act of love, that everything is united by this, and that this unity also concerns evil, because evil too is won by this unity.” In his overview of the author, his comment to the poem Mia giovinezza, “the moment when Ada Negri best perceived the reason for her conversion,” is noteworthy, as is the final passage on the poem La verità where the author finds out “that unconditional love is possible, that impossible things become possible”.

The Nature of the “I”—Dante and Saint Paul
Fr. Giussani holds a lesson on the original and ultimate nature of the “I” starting from some suggestions he gathered from the Divine Comedy and Saint Paul’s letters. At the heart of this itinerary is Saint Paul’s statement, “It is no longer I who live, but it is You who live in me,” well describing the fact that the “I” is first and foremost relationship, or Dante’s quote, “The hour / of that good sorrow which to God reweds us,” that is, “to adhere to God as a bride adheres to her bridegroom.” Since the “I” is structurally a companionship, in normal life the awareness of belonging to Christ becomes the awareness of belonging to a people, to the companionship of Christ, and therefore “if companionship originates in a divine initiative, the gaze we need to learn is that of companionship itself.”

Montale, Reason and the Unforeseen
Montale, “a teacher of life since I was a teenager,” is quoted and commented on as a reference point for understanding the question of “reason” (and its possible reduction) and the need for something “unforeseen” that can realize “the expectation of human wisdom.” In reading the poems Perhaps Some Morning and Before the Journey, Fr. Giussani shows how Montale’s great insights are emblematic of the human condition; observing reality leads to the troublesome realization that “things are ephemeral,” that they are seemingly nothing, and thus opens up the great option between nihilism or affirmation of the Mystery— affirmation of the Mystery, and that is a tireless affirmation, even against the manipulations of power, of the category of possibility.

Love Generating What is Human. Reading The Tidings Brought to Mary by Paul Claudel
This reading offers a guide to the work upon which, according to Fr. Giussani, the Movement of Communion and Liberation was born and which represented for him “the greatest poem of this century.” The subject is the very title of the reading, and it is an exploration of both the human attitude for which life flourishes and that which denies it. The discriminating factor is love understood in its true meaning as love “to be for, to be for the Ideal, to be for the whole design, where beauty and justice are safe.” Those who live for love and accept its necessary dimension of sacrifice experience the miracle of something new and of meaning in their daily lives; those who live for love but reduce it to a project, calculation, rejecting its share of pain, live for death. The work is presented by Fr. Giussani as a great dialogue between these two human positions (to which all the main characters can be traced) where only one bears beauty and positivity. Pierre de Craon’s observation, “Why get yourself worked up so much when it is so simple just to obey?” indicates the rule of those who want to live according to the whole design.

The Consciousness of the Church in the Modern World in Choruses from “The Rock” by T. S. Eliot
The reading is a deep consideration of the consciousness of the Church in the world, through Eliot’s poetry and genius; the ultimate issue is his dismaying indictment of “renouncing to Christ, [of] rebelling against Christ and, therefore, [of] eliminating God” and the consequences of this conduct—consequences that are observed in their social and cultural reach. In following Eliot, Fr. Giussani shows the epochal significance of the renunciation of Christ—by renouncing the centrality of the Incarnation, the “cornerstone,” in the name of a “pure sublime,” in fact, a “dangerous heresy” is accomplished in the name of a “perfect society”; an ultimate murderous violence—denying the human being as such, in his carnal imperfection—is accomplished. that denies the human being as such, in his carnal imperfection. The arrogance of those who have forsaken Christ is contrasted with the humility, “God’s first character in man,” of those who accept that they are creatures and depend on a God who became flesh.

Don Giovanni’s Discovery. A Reading from Miguel Mañara by O. V. Milosz
The itinerary on Miguel Mañara by Milosz, “one of the texts that helped to build the beginning of our movement’s history,” develops on four points—the first is centered on the figure of Miguel Mañara, an emblem of the human attempt to satisfy one’s desires by force (the violence and the subsequent desperate cry noted the insufficiency of this attempt); the second concerns the encounter with Girolama, that is a holy and obedient presence, who is capable of true and satisfying possession; the third is the loss, after three months of marriage, of this presence (Girolama dies); the fourth is centered on the encounter with the Abbot who revives Miguel, despite all his weakness, in recognizing the Being who makes everything, Destiny. In this parable, therefore, the true consistency of human love and desire emerges, which can flourish and not die only in grateful obedience to God.

A Voice that Endures in the Darkness. Around the Poems and a Novel by Pär Lagerkvist
This reading considers some poems and the novel Barabbas by author Pär Lagerkvist, whom Fr. Giussani calls “a volcano in his need for meaning” immersed, however, in a pantheistically understood reality—to the urgency for meaning, Lagerkvist seems to respond with an “adogmatic faith, [...] without precisions, corresponding to man’s religious need but without revelation.” In the end, as Fr. Giussani further analyzes, the reality and mystery that Lagerkvist communicates, though “introducing some vibration of life,” is perceived on a purely aesthetic level. But “alongside the aesthetic vibration in which the inevitable attractiveness and suggestion of the mystery of things reverberates, alongside, or rather impending, stands reality’s lack of pity [...]” as if “evil [were] as immortal as good”—finally even the escape from reality, effugium, is countered definitively by the harshness of reality. In this awareness of the datum, Lagerkvist appears to exclude the hypothesis of revelation since he makes no mention of it in any poem. Even his best-known character, Barabbas, who remains a great paradigm of modern man, as Papini suggests, “is the man who has his life saved by Christ and does not know why,” as if to say that revelation no longer seems to have a place on the modern horizon.

Reviving Humanity. Concerning Some Letters by E. Mounier
This reading revolves around some letters showing the grief Mr. And Mrs. Mounier experienced in the face of the severe and permanent illness that occurred to their little daughter Paulette. Through faith, Mounier, “a great Catholic who understood the Christian message to the fullest,” experiences the miracle of overturning one’s limitation and transforming this event into a great call—“faith,” as Fr. Giussani says, “is the hypothesis capable of valuing life and the instant, of transforming death into life and of making creative power out of what would be a burial.” Indeed, the miracle of Christ, as Mounier himself states, goes through Paulette’s offended body, “As I approached her little voiceless bed, I could feel I was approaching an altar, some sacred place where God spoke through a sign.”

Freedom and Gratuitousness. A Look at Two Pages from Charles Péguy
This meditation unfolds the issue of freedom in four points on the basis of some extracts by Charles Péguy. Point number one is a reminder of what freedom is through Péguy’s quote, “A salvation which was not free, which did not come from a free man would mean nothing to us.” As to number two, “the first characteristic of freedom is to recognize an Other to whom we belong.” Number three is that freedom is expressed in “following” the One to whom we belong. Number four, a condition of authentic following, is that it be “a heartfelt attempt to empathize with the deep motives of what is being proposed to you.” Using another passage from Péguy, the theme of gratuitousness is then addressed as the second characteristic of freedom; the French author’s quotation—“Finally, says God, I like that they love, not only freely, but gratuitously”—introduces an issue that will be developed in three points: gratuitousness is wonder and admiration that Christ is the Mystery who makes all things; gratuitousness is availability to His presence, to His companionship; gratuitousness is a glimpse of the truth and therefore a constant asking the great Presence.

Appendix. Three Films
The Impetus of Life. On C. T. Dreyer’s Film Ordet and the Tragedy of Moralism. On the Film Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) by C. T. Dreyer.
The point that Fr. Giussani mainly emphasizes, proposing a reading of these Dreyer films, is the tremendous and dark opposition of “moralism” to life. Within the context of Protestantism, and thus—more or less systematically—of a denial of the Incarnation, the impulse to life and meaning is poorly tolerated and at times violently excluded. Without the strength of a Church that is rooted in the Incarnation, all that remains is the confused and suffering yearning of some who, nevertheless, cannot withstand the pressure of power—“great is the power of evil”—except for a vague concern for the afterlife.

The Concreteness of the Religious Sense. On the Film God Needs Men by J. Delannoy
The three leading facts that Fr. Giussani identifies in this film include the religious sense as the “original sense of an unavoidable, ineradicable, inescapable dependence”; the fact that the religious sense needs man, that it cannot be disembodied, devoid of concrete callings, and that this need to be presence is so alive that, despite all the limitation of the Church, nothing hinders the way, the encounter between God and men—therefore this film “expresses an intelligence of Catholic genius that is rarely found.”