Sunday, August 13, 2006

The Desire for God

.
Sharon who blogs at Clairity's Journal and teaches English at St Scholastica, shares some of her meditations in reading the journal Traces put out by the Communion and Liberation lay apostolate.

In the most recent issue of Traces (2006 no. 7), there's an article by Giancarlo Cesana, "The Response to a Human Need". I always find Cesana's writing to be particularly clear for me.

Cesana tells about the scandal Fr. Giussani caused when he included both boys and girls in his group. At the time, all church groups were segregated because of a "certain fear of sex." Instead, Fr. Giussani recognized the attraction of beauty as a basic human need which could only be fulfilled by Christ. Dangerous as it is, "emphasizing the importance of beauty means facing up to and engaging in a personal comparison with desire." Cesana writes:

Fr. Giussani always stressed, especially as a critique of a certain spiritual direction that was too preoccupied with behavior, that the problem of God is not a moral one, but is the response to a human need that is as strong as hunger, thirst, or the sex drive; the problem of God is a fundamental need. So man cannot live without beauty. [snip] Read it All at Clairity's Journal

No comments: