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BLAZEr

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What did you feel when you were leaving the people you had just met days before? Do you think going there answered more questions or gave you more questions? How has it impacted your life...what changes has it brought?

I thirst for so much more! i have so many questions, some questions i cannot even put into words right now...it has made me think a lot about things, friends, life, CL, school, everything....

it was a bittersweet moment leaving those people i just met...but in the end, it was all okay b/c i was coming home with my friends that i knew and could share more intimately with about what happened with me and what happened to them.....i can't wait for to see those people that i met again, but i'm thankful for those who He has placed in front of me now, here, in Indiana, in CL.....thos who are my companions that i can grow, struggle, question, and learn with....

many changes...some small...some huge....but i'm not able to put them fully into thoughts that can come out as sensible wording yet...if that makes any sense ;) ....thanks for asking :D

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I'm with Kat . . . I think we should talk about what Don Gius said in the video . . . but instead of having to type the whole thing at one time, why don't we do it piece by piece . . . maybe starting with the section that struck you the most Kat . . . and we can go from there . . .

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Oh and Desiring more . . . humanity . . . that was a big part of the puzzle . . . I'm not sure if I can share my "intervention" that I made at the Diakonia in this Phorum . . . I'm not sure if the words will quite fit . . . but all the same, for me my humanity was not that just my weknesses . . . but really, in a real way, the realization of my weaknesses and my desire to be strong . . . my desire to be more like Him . . . I said this in my intervention . . . but I recognized my humanity in the way that a painting discovers the model which was the source of his existence . . . in other words, when I met Christ i recognized that who I was came from somewhere . . . that I who I was, and what I desired had a source . . . My humanity became me, who I am, at my most basic and simple . . . not a reduction of me, but a simpleness in front of reality . . .

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The interventions were the 45 or so people who got up to share what the statement "When I met Christ I discovered my humanity" means in relation to the last year in the movement . . .

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Okay here goes, here's the first question, and Guissani's response:

These are the notes (transcript) from a conversation between Luigi Guissani and a Communion and Liberation group. new York, March 8 1986

Question: You have told us the history of the Movement by dividing it into three parts: the beginning, the period of crisis, today. Could you help us, looking at things from this viewpoint, to understand our present here in America? What do we have to watch out for or what risks might we run since we are just starting out?

Fr Guissani:

The prevalent characteristics of the Movement are the following. First of all, going back to the heart of Christian faith, which is that Jesus Christ is the center of the cosmos and history and life. This implies a concept and feeling of Christian life as a constant verification of the connection between Christ and the problems that make up the fabric of our time. This living existential perception of Christ, which is the content of faith, cannot be an individual discovery or rediscovery, but both the discovery and the verification imply belonging to a companionship.

The second moment of our history, brought about by the great destruction of 1968, was the discovery that Christianity is not an ethical, moral impulse, except only as a phenomenom, as a secondary fact. Secondary to what? Secondary to the truth that Christianity is a new fact in history, a new event in history, irreducible, inevitable. Therefore, Christianity as a presence means an event that is present, an event that one can knock up against, that can be seen: You have to find it and run into it, enter inside it.

The third phase was determined by the realization that what we needed was not an alternative to do battle with other forces: not an antithesis to other forces, or an emulation, in short, but the pure multiplication and dilation of this event, therefore of Christian communion. To create communion, to create facts of a new humanity: this is all our task. The danger I see in this your beginning is that of being superficial in your grasp of the values that haave been proposed and given to you, and on the other hand of identifying as the goal of your commitment a result, a success that is easy to see and that gives you, obtains for you, the esteem of others. There is a serious "drawback" to our commitment, which is that our commitment has one sole purpose, which is recognizing with profound wonder what Christ is. In any case, as Eliot observes in his Choruses from "The Rock", if we forget Christ, man is destroyed.

I'm anxious to hear what you all have to think about this, your experiences along these lines, any questions this generates you. I will try to post a question and response from Guissani once a week (or as often as I think we need a new question). My response will come at a later time.

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"This living existential perception of Christ, which is the content of faith, cannot be an individual discovery or rediscovery, but both the discovery and the verification imply belonging to a companionship."

"Therefore, Christianity as a presence means an event that is present, an event that one can knock up against, that can be seen: You have to find it and run into it, enter inside it."

These two sentences stick out to me...

here are some thoughts from my trusty notebook that i jotted down while watching the video....

The VALUE of the person is so important!! value in who you are--people are not objects, they are not means to you end...

a true companionship---discovery and verification....SO IMPORTANT!! which we talked a little about at Traces on Wednesday...but i'm sure we will get into this further when you post another question/answer about that....sorry, getting ahead of myself...to be honest, this question didn't touch me as some of the others ones did...not saying that it didn't affect me, but compared to the begging, the asking, companionship, the prayer...but i'm curious to see the thoughts of you guys so that maybe i can look at things in a new way, differently than my stupid eyes saw....sometimes, more often than not, we need those around us in order to see the bigger picture, to look outside the box, to open our hearts and eyes to new possibilities, to the Presence.....

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There is so much that stuck me, even in this small passage.

Christianity is a presence, an event that can be seen, that you can bump into and enter inside of.

This is beautiful to me. A different way of thinking about Christianity. This is what strikes me about the CL movement, this is why I stay. Christ wasn't just some guy who came 2000 years ago and lived and then died, end of story. He came and He drew people to Him that continued to live out everything He taught, even long after he died. He drew us to Him, 2000 years later. And we live out His existence every day. Many times we fail, we falter, we mess up. But, we live out this event of Christ, the best way we know how, every moment. And when you come across people who live out Christ, present in our lives, when you bump into them... You bump into Him. You enter inside of them, become part of them, through this Man, this God-man, who entered the world as Albacete said "as a lump of blood in Mary's womb" 2000 years ago. This is companionship, this is communion. This is friendship.

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what we needed was not an alternative to do battle with other forces: not an antithesis to other forces, or an emulation, in short, but the pure multiplication and dilation of this event, therefore of Christian communion.

This whole thing is amesome to me, especially as someone who is trying to make the movement present in a place it has never been before. In fact, here in Brenham, I am starting to move and so the mvoement is becoming a reality. All of Don Gius' comments here remind me what my task is, but especially the one I just quoted.

In my parish there are "forces" at work that are destroying our life here. In a real way it is a temptation for me to just become an alternative force. To be more attractive so that more people can be on my side rather than their side. But here, here is my method. I am not emulating their force, their power, rather I am seeking the multiplication and dilation of the Event of Christ.

This is amazing. To realize that I am seeking it, not just on the level of starting a new School of Community, but really I am seeking it in my life. I am constantly seeking ways to make the Event present to me. I am constantly seeking the Presence. In a way that I don't think I was aware of before, I am aware now that what I desire, this companionship, is being realized as the fruit of my prayer. I begged our Lady to bring the movement to Brenham, and it is clear that she has, but she has brought it through me. So now, in this beginning here, I have to seek to multiply the event, to multiply my encounter and to spread it, to make it wider, to dilate it, so that more and more can encounter as well.

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Some people ask questions and want you to tell them what they want to here. Others ask questions and want the truth even when the truth hurts.

Tonite with GS I watched a movie "Shadowlands" and here I beleieve is the simplest way it touched me.

I didn't even ask a question and I recieved the truth. Tonite the truth was salt poured into an open wound. It hurt, but it was a good hurt. It made me ask why it hurts. I think it hurts because I need to let go, not move on, just let go. This hurt will always hurt, I think, but it won't always be as intense.

As I "experience(d)" this movie, I hope it helps me grow.

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Blazer-

I agreed with a lot of what you said in your last post, most likely because you and I are in similar situations. It's difficult to be a community by yourself, but the more we beg for this companionship, the more it is graced upon us. You were right in that as you begged for the CL movement to be brought to Brenham, it was brought through you. Begging always gives us a response, however it is not always the response that we think we want.

I also take note of Guissani's warning of what he sees as dangers, "that of being superficial in your grasp of the values that haave been proposed and given to you, and on the other hand of identifying as the goal of your commitment a result, a success that is easy to see and that gives you, obtains for you, the esteem of others."

These are two very real dangers that do exist in our beginnings. I am often afraid that I become superficial in my understanding ot what I have experienced through this friendship, but it is by staying with the people that I have met, that I am drawn back away from the superficiality of our society. Also, in the past few months while beginning the new community here, it is easy for me to expect a result, one that I can measure by the number of people or the quality of our discussions. It is often easy for me to come to expect the praise of others for what I have done. But, this is not what I desire. I desire friendship, companionship, community. This is what this movement is all about.

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"Shadowlands" was a great movie. I am still thinking a lot about it, but now it's harder to think (maybe that's bc I only got 4 hours of sleep). I was thinking more about all the questions they asked after most everyone left, the questions they wouldn't let me not answer (4 hours of sleep ok). I identified with the boy, Joy's son, because of the hand he was delt in life, and I said that. I neglected to talk about the scene when I identified with Jack (CS). It was when he and Joy were talking and he finally started talking about when he was hurt. Joy said at the end of the conversation, "Yet you still wait for the sound of her walking down the hall." I've done that, and really as I think about it, that is a deeper part of me than even the kid hit. I understand why Vince and Brandi wanted me to see that film so badly.

And another thing that was said last night about CL and what they are teaching and really just their purpose. "CL teaches us to be true friends to one another, and everything else about the movement just boils down to that." (Ok that wasn't a direct quote but it was the general message.)

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Kat, totally.

One of the biggest challenges I've always had in CL is to not be superficial in my understanding of the values and judgements of the Movement. It's easy for me, cuz I'm a lot like Vince, to make the whole thing a Cerebral affair . . . to think these ideas rather than ask myself how they correspond to my experience. I think that's what Don Gius means when he says we should not be superficial.

Especially now, that I'm begging for a community to start up here in Brenham, and it appears to be starting up . . . especially in these moments I find myself doing a daily school of community by myself and praying that it be real, that I understand it with Don Gius' heart. It's a very powerful judgement.

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Some people ask questions and want you to tell them what they want to here. Others ask questions and want the truth even when the truth hurts.

Tonite with GS I watched a movie "Shadowlands" and here I beleieve is the simplest way it touched me.

I didn't even ask a question and I recieved the truth. Tonite the truth was salt poured into an open wound. It hurt, but it was a good hurt. It made me ask why it hurts. I think it hurts because I need to let go, not move on, just let go. This hurt will always hurt, I think, but it won't always be as intense.

As I "experience(d)" this movie, I hope it helps me grow.

Schmandi and I would like to know "what is the truth you found?"

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umm . . . I think I've completely flipped my lid . . . well, this is the only thread I feel at home at anymore . . . any suprise there? lol

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