Do We Really Believe This is Possible?

Perhaps part of the reason why in a society like ours, the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience have come to be so often denigrated as irrelevant may have more to do with the fact that they are for the most part seen in terms of a kind of heroic stoicism than as an expedient for placing ourselves in an entirely human relationship with a God who is not only alive and active in our experience, but who is the only possibility for fulfillment. But before even entering into the question of being fulfilled by God, we might back up a bit and ask ourselves a more fundamental question: How is it possible to even know who He is, and know this in a way that is realistic enough to win over one's life, realistic enough to move one to sacrifice even marriage and sexual intimacy, in addition to handing over one's money and obeying a specific group of people that is oftentimes highly flawed?

The title of Luigi Giussani's current book in English, Is it Possible to Live this Way? has been subtitled "An Unusual Approach to Christianity" for a reason, and on October 1 in Washington, at the John Paul II Cultural Center, the question of how exactly unusual that approach is came before an audience of over two-hundred participants, when Roger Scruton, writer and philosopher, Research Professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, Virginia, discussed the book with Father Antonio Lopez, Assistant Professor of Theology at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Studies. The discussion was moderated by John McCarthy, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Catholic University, and in addition, His Excellency the Honorable Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See to the United States, introduced the evening.

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