Communion & Liberation: December 2010 Archives

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The NY Encounter: 4 Days of conferences, presentations, artistic presentations and exhibits

2 Locations:

Manhattan Center (Friday - Sunday, January 14-16, 2011)
311 West 34th Street at 8th Avenue, NY, NY 10001

New Yorker Hotel (Monday, January 17, 2010)
581 Eighth Avenue at 34th Street, NY, NY 10001)


The New York Encounter intends to offer to a large audience opportunities for education, dialogue, and friendship through conferences, artistic performances, and exhibits. Its goal is to foster, in a friendly and welcoming setting, interest in the full spectra of reality and appreciation for what is beautiful, true, good, and worthwhile in various expressions of human life. This openness and desire are the one fruit of the education received in the Catholic Church.

The New York Encounter 2011 program: NY Encounter Program 2011.pdf

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The Tidings Brought to Mary

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Tidings Brought to Mary.jpgPaul Claudel's extraordinary play, "The Tidings Brought to Mary" will be presented by Blackfriars Repertory Theater and the Storm Theater.

Details:

Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Manhattan Center, 311 West 34th Street (at 8th Avenue), New York, NY 10001.


Paul Claudel's 1912 play is situated in 15th century France telling the story of two sisters of the Vercors family, one giving her life to God and the other focused on herself.

Monsignor Luigi Giussani said of the play, "The theme of 'The Tidings Brought to Mary' can be defined like this: love is the generator of the human person according to its total dimension; that is, to say, love is the generator of each person's story in that it generates a people."

Many have said that Tidings is challenging, thought-provoking and well-received. Until Blackfriars Theater produced the play in 2009, it had not been seen in NYC since 1923.

The text of "The Tidings Brought to Mary."

Read the Introduction to Tidings by Monsignor Luigi GiussaniTidings Brought to Mary Luigi Giussani Introduction.pdf

A review of the play

To purchase tickets visit this link. All tickets are picked up at the door.

Traces magazine

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During this giving season, we hope you will consider subscriptions for Traces magazine for your family, friends, and associates. Traces (Litterae Communionis) is the official magazine of the international Movement of Communion and Liberation and it is published in several languages. This unique gift broadens our horizons of awareness and personal conversion (conversion spoken of by Christ and strongly encouraged by Pope Benedict XVI).

The articles in Traces encourages us to make an evaluation on history, literature, politics, education, medicine, law, science and culture and describes our life in the Church in new and incisive ways, ways which help us to be more fully engaged in our own lives and in the society. Traces helps us life more fully our Catholic Faith. 

As Father Julián Carrón, head of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation (CL) suggested at a meeting with CL leaders this summer in La Thuile (Italy): "You must take the initiative that your life be pervaded by God because the substance of our happiness is this infinite enormous Love  which inclined itself over our nothingness."

Subscribe today ... bringing the words and experiences of "that which we hold most dear" into the hearts and homes of others!

For more information, contact Suzanne at stanzi@clhac.com.

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Follow Traces on Facebook.

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Father Julián Carrón, the head of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, gave this message for Christmas. He writes from Milan, Italy.

In the mystery of the Incarnation, man and history

"That Christianity gives joy and breadth is also a thread that runs through my whole life. Ultimately someone who is always only in opposition could probably not endure life at all" (Light of the World, part 1). These words of Benedict XVI challenge us to ask ourselves what it means to be Christians today. Continuing to believe simply out of devotion, habit, or tradition, withdrawing into one's shell, does not meet the challenge. Similarly, reacting strongly and going on the offensive in order to recover lost territory is insufficient; the Pope even says that it would be unendurable.  Neither path -withdrawing from the world or opposing it- are capable of arousing interest in Christianity, because neither respects what will always be the canon of the Christian announcement: the Gospel. Jesus entered the world with a capacity to attract that fascinated the people of His time. As Péguy said, "He did not waste His years groaning and demanding explanations of the wickedness of the times. He cut through ... making Christianity." Christ introduced into history a human presence so fascinating that anyone who ran into it had to take it into consideration, had to reject it or accept it. No one was left indifferent.

I've been conscious of how busy everyone is, or pretends to be. Excuses run rampant as to why one can't do thus-and-such, or ... or .... One person asked the perennial question: How do I maintain my relationship with God? Father Giussani asked a similar of question of members of Communion & Liberation. He answered by telling his questioner that to keep the Lord's name on our lips and to recognize the way the Lord has looked at us He looked at Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree. Giussani also reminded us to be attentive to reality as God has given it to us and not as we want it to be. Maintaining one's relationship with God alive is easy if you move in small but deliberate steps by following a long held custom of praying short prayers that re-focus our attention: Jesus, Mary and Joseph, pray for us; Come Holy Spirit, come through Mary; Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner; O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee; Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for us; and so on. Short prayers such as these examples are remarkable keeping my mind and heart on target and away from sin. I have the practice of praying my own version of the Litany of Saints as I walk up and down the aisle when attending Mass or when I am making the Morning Offering.

Saint Josemaría Escrivá offers some guidance in this regard: "You should maintain throughout the day a constant conversation with Our Lord, a conversation fed even by the things that happen in your professional work. Go in spirit to the Tabernacle... and offer to God the work that is in your hands."

Make a spiritual communion.

At 7:30 this morning in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI offered the Sacrifice of the Mass in the Paoline Chapel of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, for peaceful repose of the soul of Manuela Camagni, the Memor Domini who was a part of the Papal Family who died November 24 as a consequence of being hit by a car.
 It is not a frequent occurrence that we hear much of the inner life of the Apostolic Household and equally little is revealed about the consecrated lay people who make up the Memores Domini community of Communion & Liberation. Plus, Manuela's death, for some reason, has had interesting affect on me, not only because I am a member of the Fraternity of Communion & Liberation but because of the recorded witness of Manuela herself, and how Manuela affected the Holy Father and those with whom he lives. What follows is Pope Benedict's homily:

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

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In the last days of her life, our dear Manuela used to talk about the fact that on November 29 she would have belonged to the community of Memores Domini for thirty years. And she said that with a great joy, getting ready - such was the impression - for an interior feast celebrating her path of thirty years towards the Lord, in communion with the Lord's friends. But the feast was different from what was expected: precisely on November 29 we took her to the cemetery, we sang asking for the Angels to accompany her to Heaven, we guided her to the ultimate feast, to God's great feast, to the Lamb's Wedding. Thirty years walking towards the Lord, entering the Lord's feast. Manuela was a "wise, prudent virgin," she had oil in her lamp, the oil of faith, a lived faith, a faith nourished by prayer, by a dialogue with the Lord, by her meditation on the Word of God, by communion in her friendship with Christ. And this faith was hope, wisdom, it was certainty that faith opens up to the real future. And faith was charity, it was giving herself for the others, it was living in the service of the Lord for the others. I, personally, must thank for her availability to put her energies at work in my house, with this spirit of charity and of hope that comes from faith.

She entered the Lord's feast as a prudent and wise virgin because she lived not in the superficiality of those who forget the greatness of our vocation, but in the great expectation of the eternal life; so she was ready when the Lord came.

Manuela Camagni2.jpgWhat follows is Pope Benedict XVI's message sent on the occasion of the Mass of Christian Burial for Manuela Camagni, 56, a member of the association of Memores Domini (the consecrated lay group of Communion & Liberation) who with 3 other Memores worked for the Pope in his personal apartments at the Vatican. As mentioned in a blog post last week, Manuela was killed Tuesday/Wednesday after being struck by a car. The Reverend Monsignor Georg Ganswein, the Pope's personal secretary, read the message at the funeral, Monday in Bagno di Romagna, Emilia-Romagna (northern Italian city). The Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at La Chiesa di San Piero in Bagno di Romagna.

I would willingly have presided over the funeral of dear Manuela Camagni, but --as you can imagine-- it was not possible for me. However, communion in Christ allows us Christians a real spiritual closeness, in which we share the prayer and affection of the heart. In this profound bond I greet all of you, in particular Manuela's family, the diocesan bishop, the priests, the Memores Domini, and her friends.

I would like to give here very briefly my testimony of our sister, who has gone to heaven. Many of you knew Manuela for a long time. I was able to benefit from her presence and her service in the papal apartment, in the last five years, in a family dimension. Because of this I wish to thank the Lord for the gift of Manuela's life, for her faith, for her generous response to her vocation. Divine Providence led her to a discreet but precious service in the Pope's house. She was happy about this and took part joyfully in family moments: at Holy Mass in the morning, at vespers, at meals in common and in the various and significant happenings of the house.

Her departure, so sudden, and also the way in which she was taken, have given us great grief, which only faith can console. I find much support in thinking of the words that form the name of her community: Memores Domini. Meditating on these words, on the meaning, I find a sense of peace, because they call to a profound relationship that is stronger than death. Memores Domini means: "those who remember the Lord," namely, persons who live in the memory of God and Jesus, and in this daily remembrance, full of faith and love, they find the meaning of everything, from small actions to great choices, of work, study and fraternity. The memory of the Lord fills the heart with profound joy, as an ancient hymn of the Church says: "Jesu dulcis memoria, dans vera cordis gaudia" [Jesus sweet memory, that gives true joy to the heart].

Hence, because of this it gives me peace to think that Manuela is a "memor Domini," a person who lived in the memory of the Lord. This relationship with him is more profound than the abyss of death. It is a bond that nothing and no one can break, as St. Paul says: "[Nothing] can separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39). Yes, if we remember the Lord, it is because he first remembers us. We are "memores Domini" because he is "memor nostri," he remembers us with love of a parent, a brother, a friend, also at the moment of death. If at times it seems that at that moment he is absent, that he forgets us, in reality we are always present to him, we are in his heart. Wherever we fall, we fall into his hands. Precisely there, where no one can accompany us, God awaits us: He is our Life.

Dear brothers and sisters, in this faith full of hope, which is Mary's faith near the cross of Jesus, I celebrated the Mass for Manuela's soul the very morning of her death. And while I accompany with prayer the Christian rite of her burial, I impart with affection to her family, her fellow sisters and all of you my blessing.

About the author

Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.

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This page is a archive of entries in the Communion & Liberation category from December 2010.

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