Category: Communion & Liberation

A Hope that is Stronger than the Recession

The Italian daily Il Avvenire published a story by Giorgio Paolucci, “A Hope that is Stronger than the Recession,” an interview with the President of Communion and Liberation, Father Julián Carrón.

Speaking of the Year of Faith called by Benedict, Father Carrón stated: 
“Today, too, a new beginning is therefore necessary to testify to how reason and freedom find their fulfillment in faith, making evident that Christianity is something that is humanly worth our while. In this sense, the Year of Faith is directed first of all to Christians, but, in the degree to which we live a ‘new beginning,’ it can benefit everyone, according to the method chosen by Jesus: give the grace to some so that through them it can reach everyone who is open to accepting it.”
I find that the interview is beautiful and striking. Read it and see why I say so, but don’t let skew your impression.

It’s Christianity. Simple.

We seem to be asking the same question: What is Christianity? A perplexing question for believers, I suspect. Test everything, Saint Paul tells us. Indeed, probe the question and don’t be afraid of doubt and the questions. The certainty of faith is known in the experience and the investigation of the reasonableness of the faith.


Antonio Quaglio in article published today on ilsussidiario.net, “It’s Christianity. Simple.” reflects on what Father Julián Carrón spoke on at the New Encounter 2012 this past weekend: that Christianity, in its true sense, need to be lived without reservation and without excuses and justifications.

Continue reading It’s Christianity. Simple.

The temptation of Christmas

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Have we finished the Christmas season in good order? Have we exceeded our expectation to live the season of Christmas differently from what secular culture has given us? Or, have we given up and just given ourselves over to the mediocrity of the the world around us with regard to Christian Faith?  What follows is a very interesting commentary on our Christian observance of the Birth of Jesus, the Nativity of God-Man by Father Julián Carrón. While the today brings to a close the Church’s yearly observance of Christmastide, we have work to do before we put to rest the nagging questions: what difference does this Child make in my life? AND Do we really believe that God is in our midst?


In order to describe our humanity and to see ourselves properly at this moment in the world’s history, it is hard for us to find more appropriate words than those contained in this passage by the Prophet Zephaniah. “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel!”. Why? What reason is there to rejoice, with all that is happening in the world? Because “the Lord has taken away the judgments against you”.

The first repercussion that these words produced in me was surprise at how the Lord looks at us: with a gaze that succeeds in seeing things that we shall not be able to recognize unless we participate in his same gaze at reality. “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you”: in other words, your evil does not have the last word over your life; the usual way you look at yourself is not the right one; the look with which you constantly reproach yourself is not true. The one true look is the Lord’s look. And it is precisely by this look that you will be able to understand that he is with you: if he has taken away the judgment against you, what can you fear? “You shall fear evil no more”. An inexorable positiveness prevails over life. For this reason, the biblical passage continues, “do not fear, O Zion, do not let your hands grow weak” Why? Because “The Lord your God is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory”. There is no other source of joy than this: “he will rejoice over you with gladness. He will renew you with his love, he will exult over you with loud singing” (3:14-17).

Continue reading The temptation of Christmas

Are we engaged in reality?


This blog is dedicated to communion theology. What brings us a Christians–Catholics– in communion of the Trinity, the Church and one another. The trusted witness of another gives me certitude that Faith in Jesus Christ and His the Sacrament, the Church, is real and worthy of belonging, not just following. The head of the Communion and Liberation in the USA, Chris Bacich, wrote the following letter to us today. I offer it for your reflection in these days of Advent. Emphasis given is mine.

Dear Friends,

I’ve been wanting to write to you for some time (since
mid-November, really) about the opportunity I had to be with Fr. Carrón and a
few other friends from around the world in Italy.

He invited us to a
“mini-vacation” over a weekend and we spent a good amount of time
speaking about the Movement and the radical nature of its proposal.  In
particular, Fr. Carrón wanted to hear from us what change the work on the
school of community on chapters 10 and 11 of the Religious Sense and the flyer produced in Italy on
the crisis had wrought in us.  He pointed, in particular, to the very
recent death (it had happened less than a week before we were with him) of a
young man from the CLU [Communion & Liberation University Students] in
Italy who had died in a motorcycle accident.  He held an assembly with the
university students, regarding this event, where he boldly insisted that
reality is always positive. (This assembly will be featured in the next
issue of Traces.) 
Indeed, the theme of the CLU Spiritual Exercises in Italy will be “The
Inexorable Positivity of Reality.” His boldness in front of such a
tragic event, as well as the insistence of our charism at this time that the
crisis in which the world has fallen at this moment is something positive
encapsulates for me the clash of mentality that exists between us and the
mentality generated by the popular culture that so often rules our hearts and
minds, as well.

Continue reading Are we engaged in reality?

Fr Aldo Trento speaks to a new life in Christ amid suffering

aldo trento.2.jpgFather Aldo Trento, 64, hails from Belluno, Italy. Father Aldo is a priest of the Missionary Fraternity of Saint Charles Borromeo and has been living in Paraguay since 1989; currently he is the pastor of San Rafaél Church, Asunción. The life of this parish generated the Clinic “Divine Providence Saint Richard Pampuri Home” for the terminally ill and for the poor. Moreover, Father Aldo has established an elementary school, a shelter for pregnant women who suffered sexual abuse, four homes for orphans affected by HIV/AIDS, a shelter for chronically-ill children, and two residences for poor and abandoned elderly people. At the present time they are building new facilities for the Clinic as well as a vocational school with several subject concentrations to facilitate the introduction of the youths who complete their primary education at Pai Alberto School into the job market. In June 2008, Father Aldo has been named a “Knight of the Star of Solidarity”, by the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano. In September 2008 he was also designated an illustrious citizen of the city of Asunción by the City Council.

Father Aldo’s amazing witness can be heard here on an audio file. It was recorded October 20, 2011, at the NY CL Offices.

Julián Carrón speaks on the New Evagelization, relationship between the Gospel and culture

On October 14, 2011 Pope Benedict XVI received Father Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, in audience in the Apostolic Palace, the day before the Vatican meeting on “New Evangelizers for a New Evangelization,” a two day event that will culminate in the Mass with the Pope on Sunday at 9:30 in Saint Peter’s Square. What follows is an interview with Vatican Radio’s Alessandro Gisotti (emphasis mine).


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Alessandro Gisotti interviewed Fr. Carrón about tomorrow’s meeting and the challenge of the new evangelization.


Father Julián Carrón: The first thing I would like to express is how grateful and moved I am at this opportunity the Holy Father has given me to be with him in this audience, because it enabled me to tell him how, in this moment of travail due to the social, cultural, and economic situation, we are seeing that when people verify the faith in their own life circumstances, they flower into a type of person that leaves us speechless. Being able to share with him living the faith, as he testifies it to us, was a true consolation.

How important is this meeting? How important is the Pope’s challenge for a new evangelization?

Continue reading Julián Carrón speaks on the New Evagelization, relationship between the Gospel and culture

Peter John Cameron speaks on Luigi Giussani, the priest wounded by beauty

Vita Straordinarie - Don Luigi Giussani.jpgOn October 8, 2011, a film series co-sponsored by the Siena Forum for Faith and Culture and Crossroads Cultural Center on extraordinary Christian lives concluded with the showing of the documentary conducted by Elena Guarnieri of “Vita Straordinarie: Don Luigi Giussani” (Extraordinary Lives: Fr. Luigi Giussani”) on the life and work of Monsignor Luigi Giussani, called: the priest wounded by beauty by Pope Benedict when he offered the Sacrifice of the Mass for the repose of Giussani’s soul on 25 February 2005.

Dominican Father Peter John Cameron gave his commentary the film 150 people watched at New York’s Church of Saint Catherine of Siena (E. 68th Str.). Watch it… Cameron’s insights are good to reflect upon….

Traces magazine: there’s an app for it on iPad

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Great news with you: Traces is now available for iPad users and users of Apple’s latest OS, Lion. All that is necessary is to go to the App Store and enter “Traces” and you will find it.   

 

There are many, pretty obvious, advantages to this new form, including receiving Traces as soon as it’s published, paying less for a subscription and the ability to easily tell friends who have an iPad.

 

I hope all of you Apple and iPad users will sign up, immediately, and tell your friends!