Meeting: An Expansion of the Heart

The theme of the 2010 Meeting, ""That nature which pushes us to desire great things is the heart", quoted from Camus' Caligula, started from a characteristically contemporary expression of doubt:

This sentence is part of the response of Don Giussani to a young woman who had confessed her doubt that it was all an illusion to wish for great things. His response continued like this: "Then follow it. What does it mean to follow? It means to compare all the encounters you have with what your heart tells you and when they correspond, to follow them. So, going forward you will have no fear that it is an illusion, but understand that in fact this is not an illusion. What seems an illusion, is in fact, a bias, a suspicion."

The Meeting explores a humanity which is not reduced to biological and psychological boundaries.  The participants are not in lockstep, politically, socially or otherwise.  They are open and ready for something new and great.

What was evident at one time is not obvious today: does there really exist a universality of the human? Is there something objective in the subjectivity of each of us? Can we speak of an "elementary experience" common to all men, whatever their race, history and culture?

On this an unprecedented cultural battle is being waged. It is enough to make a careful and honest observation about ourselves to realize that we have an infinite desire. This is the stature of the human heart.

Even more than a discussion about ideas, the Meeting introduces individuals who demonstrate this expansion of the heart.

The Meeting intends to document that the original nature of the heart exists and is the only resource to resist any attack against the humanity of each one. It will do so primarily through the intervention of Don Stefano Alberto, a professor of introductory theology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, which will be dedicated to the title of the Meeting; by the conference by Cardinal Scola and by an exceptional dialogue between the Metropolitan Filaret and Cardinal Erdo. Further, it will try to bring forth people for whom the "I" is not reduced and who are a testimony to a new subject who lives the reality of everything with a positive and constructive gaze.

(Rimini Meeting: "That nature which pushes us to desire great things is the heart", Alberto Savorana)