Customer Reviews

Is It Possible to Live This Way?: An Unusual Approach to Christian Existence, Volume 2: Hope

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

There are many voices in the world which would tell us to give up hope. Yet hope, as one of the great theological virtues, is something needed today. Giussani's words touched my heart: "Hope is to recognize with certainty a future that is born of faith."
Faith, according to Giussani is to "recognize a Presence that is certain." How often do we take our faith for granted? How often do we take hope, and love for granted? This book has been amazing for me as I have read through it and connected with the heart of Giussani in his talks to the "Memores Domini" novices. I have felt on these pages the advise of a father who loves me (to quote St. Benedict in his Rule).
I hope others also discover the richness of this book, and answer for themselves "Is it Possible to Live This Way?" Is it possible to be guided by a hope that does not disappoint? (Romans 5:5)

This book is wonderful food for the soul. This book is an inspiring invitation to discuss and ponder questions of faith. It explores the desires of the heart and the search for a Divine Presence. Highly recommeded for group study in a School of Community Group!!! To be taken in slowly and savored...

This book is changing my perspective on Hope and daily life, with each new section I read. I discuss this book on a weekly basis with other young adults and it is making us a more joyful people! I highly recommend reading it and "digesting it" with another person, or a group.

I read this book in my participation in School of Community. Some of the passages are mind-blowing and incredibly beautiful. Don Giussani, as a number of people have said, was a genius and a gift to the Church. This book was extremely helpful to me in living my life of faith and understanding the anchor of hope, Christ. At the same time, I was very surprised that McGill put this book out. The editors didn't seem to edit it. It suffers also, I am sure, from being translated piecemeal over time. For someone not familiar with Communion and Liberation (CL), I think this would be a hard book to read. This book which is a translation of a series of talks leaves in unnecessary asides (for instance Don Gius thanking someone for bringing him a beer) and so doesn't read very well at times. There were times in reading it that I worried that it employed jargon that can only be understood by someone who has been in or involved with CL for a long time. This is probably a danger of any lay movement, but one would think that CL would be better attuned to this issue given its emphasis on reason and reaction against ideology.

Also, I have to agree with the reviewer "user" who made comments about the texts being used in School of Community.

This is not a negative judgment overall on the book rather I see how beautiful this work was at times and think it suffers from some issues that prevent it from being a home run.

While I think Fr. Giussani's work has much to offer and would heartily suggest people read his work, I can't do so for this book. I cannot imagine how this book would have ever been published but for the decision of Communion and Liberation (the Catholic lay movement that Giussani founded) to make it a basis for its weekly catechesis. First, it hardly qualifies as a book. It is essentially a transcript of a series of talks that Fr. Giussani gave in Italian years ago. This presents many problems. First, it is glaring that this was a live dialogue and not a coherent essay. It is disorganized and rambling. One wonders if the editors (who are members of CL) were too deferential to CL and didn't exercise enough editorial judgment in preparing the text. Next, like many of the translations, there are just things that don't translate well from Italian to English. The intro to the book states that it was translated piecemeal by many people over many years, and it shows. Finally, it is only part of the lecture series. Volume 1 (faith) suffered from some similar problems, but at least felt like you were entering into the dialogue as a participant. This one feels like you are thrust right into the middle with none of the background to prepare you.

Bottom line: if you are looking to learn more about Giussani's thinking and work, and are not buying this book because you have to for a study group, etc., look at The Religious Sense or The Risk of Education or one of his other more popular works.

Finally, I definitely pray that CL exercise some more prudence in the future about which writings or talks of Fr. Giussani are truly worthy of book form. Given that Fr. Giussani is deceased, sooner or later CL will run out of material of his to study. I'd suggest that CL not fear that moment and in fact apply the insights and principles it has learned from Fr. Giussani to other works, such as those of the present pope, etc. Members of CL need not spend their hard earned money on a shelf full of every talk ever given by Fr. Giussani and I have a tough time believing that those outside of CL would have much use for these recent "books" of his that have been published.

Like all of Giussani's books, this one lacks the pedagogical clarity found in so many other faithful Catholic writings like The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales, and The Imitation of Christ. Do not waste your time with it; read the time-proven classics. This one is indeed an "unusual approach."

The most memorable part of this book for me was his discussion of how freedom popularly-conceived differs from freedom as Christians conceive it: "Freedom isn't choice, it's only a possibility to choose because it's imperfect" (p. 76). I still find Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Libertas clearer than Giussani, though, probably because of the Pope's strong Thomistic background. "God loves your freedom more than your salvation" is a contradiction in the true sense of freedom, not the "freedom of choice"-type freedom (license).

Also, then-Cardinal Ratzinger's said in his homily for Msgr. Giussani, summing-up pretty well my impression of CL and Giussani, that "he understood that Christianity is not an intellectual system, a packet of dogmas, a moralism, Christianity is rather an encounter, a love story; it is an event." What does he-and Giussani, too-mean by this? What is Christianity without its rich Thomistic intellectual heritage (e.g., that one can know with natural reason alone at least God's existence and, negatively, some of His nature), its "packet of dogmas" that comprise the Deposit of Faith, and the most highly developed moral system of any other religion? How is Christianity an "event" or "experience"? It does not arise out of ourselves; Christ gave us the Church.