Continuing the tradition of the Rimini Meeting: the title of this year\u2019s festival provokes a reflection and discussion around a theme, central to our lives. During this presentation, conducted in salone Intesa San Paolo (D5), the discussion took up the second part of the title \u201cDestiny Has not Left Man Alone,\u201d rather than the first part \u201cTo the Ends of the Earth and of Existence.\u201d This statement has many implications and repercussions for our lives, particularly in difficult moments and times of crisis, and not simply economic crisis.
\nThe discussion between Giorgio Buccellati, Professor Emeritus of Ancient Near East and History at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), USA, and Ignacio Carbajosa P\u00e9rez, Professor of Old Testament at the San D\u00e1maso Theological University, Madrid, Spain, was moderated by Alberto Savorana, the Spokesperson of Communion&Liberation (CL), in this session titled \u201cIn History, the Company of Destiny to Man.\u201d
\nAlberto Savorana introduced the panel discussion by quoting Fr. Giussani, the founder of CL: \u201cHistory for me is everything. I learned everything from history.\u201d This is the theme underlying the two speakers\u2019 contributions: what destiny is, what his relationship with man is, and how this relationship developed two thousand years ago, and continues today. This is not a rhetorical question, but rather a question begging for \u201ca relentless adhesion to reality.\u201d It also emerged in the analysis of an apparently poetic and folk-like verse of the Bible, allowing for the reconstruction of a historic fact that changed man\u2019s life.
\nGiorgio Buccellati\u2019s talk starts from two different approaches to the relationship between man and his destiny: polytheism and monotheism. His analysis covers the peoples of Mesopotamia \u2013 the focus of his research from the beginning \u2013 as well as the people of Israel, as described in the Bible. According to Buccellati, the second part of this statement (i.e., Destiny Has not Left Man Alone) carries within two affirmations which could go unnoticed: \u201cFirst, that destiny is a subject, capable of action. Secondly, that destiny, as such, at some point, can leave man alone, even though he was previously accompanying him.\u201d
\nAccording to Buccellati, these are two possible answers: \u201cEither destiny is coherent or it is faithful. In the polytheistic approach, destiny is the coherence inherent to things, the DNA of reality, inscribed in all that exists or could exist. Thus, the underlying motive of such a position is the certainty of being\u2019s coherence. This is what we mean when we speak about \u2018mother nature.\u2019 Our conclusion in front what we cannot foresee or comprehend normally is \u2018there must be a reason for it.\u2019 This, however, implies a belief in a system in which everything is articulated in foreseeable and regular ways, where everything is, in fact, coherent.\u201d
\nThe view springing forth from the monotheistic approach is radically different: \u201cGod is the destiny who questions man, who urges him, who even provokes him. Provocation is maybe the most surprising aspect of all, as it seems to declare destiny\u2019s incoherence. Accepting that God is a \u2018living being\u2019 is at the root of such an approach and is one of the central characteristics of the biblical understanding of God. The root of this approach is the concept of a \u201cliving\u201d God. Such \u2018life\u2019 implies a strong element of unpredictability, which can appear as \u2018incoherence\u2019. Thus, in the biblical viewpoint, basic coherence is built from the concept of faithfulness. Destiny is a person, someone faithful to the dynamism of life.\u201d
\nCarbajosa, on the other hand, returns to the theme of \u2018the periphery\u2019. \u201cThe Mystery who makes all things never left man alone but encountered him in a dialogue, of person to person. In history, this happened in on the margins of the great empires of such times. He chose an unknown man from Mesopotamia, Abraham, and a small people, Israel, which was marginal, compared to the other nations of the first and second millennium before Christ.\u201d Carbajosa moved ahead some centuries to arrive to the cultural center of those times, no longer Mesopotamia, but Egypt, to pause for a while on the last quarter of the first century before Christ, in the city of Alexandria. \u201cHere we find a people who moved from the tension in the quest for truth \u2013 typical of the Greek civilization \u2013 to a hedonistic and cynical approach, characterized by despair, due to a lack of meaning in life.\u201d
\nThe parallel with our current times is evident, but Carbajosa points out how God \u201cdid not want to abandon this cultural center, now turned into an existential fringe and so similar to today\u2019s world. He answered this despair through the presence of the small Jewish community.\u201d It is the biblical book of Wisdom that witnesses how \u201cthat Jewish community is challenged, also within its own faith, by the skepticism surrounding it. In God\u2019s answer to the chosen people, we see the caress of destiny who wants to even reach the margins of existence in the great cities.\u201d
\nCarbajosa then discussed the Jewish community\u2019s relationship with a cynical and disenchanted world, where pleasure and immediate satisfaction had become the only reason to live. This was an extreme form of \u2018carpe diem\u2019 (seize the moment) in which the horizon was completely stripped of any connection with transcendence, leading to the exaltation of suicide as free choice in the face of pain, old age, and illness. These issues characterize our time as well, where performance is the supreme value.
\nIn the book of Wisdom, the Jewish community finds the answer to this cultural and human deviation. The answer is simple and direct: \u201cGod\u2019s mysteries (destiny\u2019s mysteries) are accessible to every good and just man, but cryptic to those who are not simple, for the foolish and evil ones.\u201d Carbajosa continues by noting that the small Jewish people, wandering towards Alexandria, became the bearers of a more acute knowledge of reality, thanks to their coexistence with God\u2019s mysteria. \u201cThis is how our destiny meets the fear of death that the heathens feel, by revealing the great mystery: God created man for immortality; we are made in His image.\u201d
\n(F.Pi., L.T.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Continuing the tradition of the Rimini Meeting: the title of this year\u2019s festival provokes a reflection and discussion around a theme, central to our lives. During this presentation, conducted in … <\/p>\n