Communion and Liberation – Page 9

New Fraternity of St Charles priests and deacons

Tremendous joy exists when a man is ordained for the service of Christ and the Church.

Let’s live ”the glory and joy of the priesthood in the service of Christ and His Mystical Body’ in the communal life ‘experiencing the help of Christ in our existence, calling all the brothers to a continual configuration that is always more profound to you your person.”

Saturday, June 25, was a day of joy for 8 religious men of the Fraternity of Saint Charles Borromeo were ordained priests and deacons by His Excellency, Archbishop Rino Fiscihella, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. Monsignor Massimo Camisasca, founder and Superior General of the Fraternity presented his spiritual sons and brothers for the Lord’s service.

The Fraternity now has 2 new priests (Patricio Hacin and Christoph Matyssek) and 6 deacons (Emmanuele Angiola, Diego García Terán, Simone Gulmini, Tommaso Pedroli, Ruben Roncolato & Luca Speziale).

The pictures from the ordination…

Here’s the vocation narrative of the new priests, Don Patricio and Don Christoph.

Father Julián Carrón’s letter to the newly ordained: Fr Carron’s Letter to the newly ordained 2011.pdf

Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: an American witness to the Culture of Life

Last night at the Church of Saint Catherine of Siena (NYC) a remarkable event took place. About 120 people from all over the Metropolitan New York area attended an event co-sponsored by the Siena Forum for Faith and Culture and Crossroads Cultural Center whereby we wanted to know more about a pivotal figure of the 20th century who was truly human and in love with Christ through the poor, the Servant of God Dorothy Day. Ms. Mary Lathrop, a longtime friend and spiritual daughter of Day’s, with Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, spoke about the person of Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker Movement and Catholic Social teaching. Albacete as you know is the well known priest, physicist and theologian who works with the lay movement Communion and Liberation in the USA. Lathrop is a remarkable woman of faith and conviction who gave us a deeper appreciation for the real person that Day was and not the ideaology that is often passed off for the same.

A video of the event is located here.

The following article by Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete was published today on Il Sussidiario (English edition):

This week I was asked to participate in a discussion about Dorothy Day, founder of the “Catholic Worker Movement.” The story of her life captures like none other the history of the Catholic Church in the United States during the last century, and a judgment on her life pretty much indicates how American Catholics look at the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn, NY, on November 8, 1897 and died on November 29, 1980. I must confess that I knew very little about her during the 60’s and 70’s, except that she was a very controversial Catholic pacifist, feminist, and maybe socialist who made many Church authorities very nervous (and still does here and there). I knew about her opposition to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but it was not until recently that I read her stunning editorial excerpted below so you can get a feel for her soul’s style:

Mr. Truman was jubilant. President Truman. True man; what a strange name, come to think of it. We refer to Jesus Christ as true God and true Man. Truman is a true man of his time in that he was jubilant…the newspapers said. Jubilate Deo. We have killed 318,000 Japanese…

Continue reading Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: an American witness to the Culture of Life

Christ is a new creation: Communion & Liberation Spiritual Exercises 2011

The 2011 Spiritual Exercises of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation were given in various parts of the world under the theme of Christ being a new creation. Father Julián Carrón, the President of Communion and Liberation gave the retreat using Saint Paul’s teaching: “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”

One of Father Carrón’s thoughts ran this way: “‘Thus, whoever is in Christ is a new creation,’ because Christ is something that is happening to me. Let us try to identify with the disciples after Easter. What prevailed in their hearts, in their eyes, in their self-awareness, if not His living presence? It was so evident for them that they could not rip it away. It was a Presence that overcame any doubt, any shadow: it imposed itself. Christ was was something that was happening to them. He was not doctrine, a list of things to do, a sentiment. Yes, He was an external presence, different but one that permeated their life.”

The notes of Father Carrón can read here: Fraternity Exercises 2011.pdf

Also, a friend, Webster Bull, wrote about his experience of the Exercises on his blog, Witness: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.

Confronting bourgeois religiosity

Several things have surfaced for me recently that has me wondering about what we are doing as a Christian people living our faith in a parochial setting today. Two things to read are the notes from a recent Communion and Liberation retreat and the Pope’s recent remarks in Croatia. Both go hand-in-hand: God is not a sentimental object and He remains an authority. But in order for me to say this with conviction I’ve got to accept that if I am in Christ I am a new creation (really!) and therefore a living presence. How many times during the Easter season did I understand that Christ was (is) the newness of life? The honest answer is: it is hard to tell.

Father Julián Carrón had the following to say in his introductory remarks for Communion & Liberation’s Fraternity Spiritual Exercises given this spring that bear significant attention for whatever ministry we find ourselves in (or not):

“It seems I am hearing today the same identical question Fr. Giussani was asked by a student. He himself recounts it: “Now people no longer perceive the correspondence between the Christian proposal in its originality, the Christian event, and everyday life. When you try hard to make it understood, they say, ‘But you’re so complicated, you’re so complicated!’ In high school, when I dictated what you study in School of Community, I had in class the son of Manzù, who had a priest he always went to. This priest stirred him up against what he read in the notes from my lessons, and told him, ‘See, this complicates, while, instead, religion is simple.’ In other words, ‘the reasons complicate’-and how many would say the same!–‘the search for the reasons complicates.’ Instead, it illuminates! This mindset is the reason Christ is no longer an authority, but a sentimental object, and God is a boogeyman and not a friend.”

Continue reading Confronting bourgeois religiosity

Siena Forum to host conversation on Dorothy Day with Lorenzo Albacete and Mary Lathrop on June 21

Father Carrón tells us that John Paul was a pope seized by Christ

Father Julián Carrón, president of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation was interviewed by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano on the beatification of Pope John Paul II. Father Carrón said that “beatification of John Paul II … is a ‘strong invitation’ to conversion.”

Keeping in mind what Blessed John Paul did for Communion and Liberation in recognizing the charism proposed by Father Luigi Giussani, Father Carrón recalled the words of John Paul who considered that a Movement “becomes a special instrument for a personal and ever-new adherence to the mystery of Christ.” For those who follow the path to Christ offered by Communion and Liberation will know that the vocation of being a part of Communion and Liberation –given by the Holy Spirit– means bringing “the truth, beauty and peace that are encountered in Christ the Redeemer” to the world.

Father Carrón’s remarks can be read here: Interview with Fr Carrón on the JP II Beatification.pdf

Mauro Lepori: “…Only by re-proposing the fascination of the Mystery of Christ” does one overcome difficulties

The newly elected Abbot General of the Order of Cistercians, Abbot Mauro-Giuseppi Lepori, OCist, has been a part of the lay ecclesial Movement, Communion and Liberation for many years.

In the February issue of Traces, Abbot Mauro was interviewed by Davide Perillo in an article titled, “Called to Live for Him.” Here Abbot Mauro talks about his election as Abbot General of the Order of Cistercians, his vocation, Jesus Christ, community life, individualism life within the Movement of Communion and Liberation, St Benedict, and more. I recommend the article.

The article is post here: Called to Live for Him an Interview with Fr Mauro Lepori.pdf

A previous post on Abbot Mauro-Giuseppi can be read here.

Rossella Teregnoli: the new woman in the papal household

The pope’s household –the Pope’s family– gets a fourth assistant with Rossella Teragnoli. She joins three other Memores Domini women, Loredana, Carmela and Cristina.

Rossella Tereganoli comes from Soresina in the Italian Province of Cremona. She will take up the duties formerly done by the late Manuela Camagni who died in November as the result of a car accident.

Memores Domini is the consecrated lay group of men and women who live a life of virginity, obedience and poverty living in community and active in the world. Memores Domini is not a religious order but a new way of total dedication to God. The Memores are part of Communion and Liberation.

But the Pope doesn’t only work with the Memores Domini but he also is assisted by Birgit, a consecrated lay woman who belongs to the Schoenstatt movement.

More detail on the papal household is found here. If you are interested, the Pope answers Peter Seewald’s question about his life in the Apostolic Palace in his recent interview, Light of the World.

“Reality holds a signature from God … we must seek to decipher”

The transcript for the talk on whether a scientist can be a believer that was given at a lecture hosted by the New York Encounter in January has just been released by the Crossroads Cultural Center. Faith and reason is being explored here. It is a great question to ask if a believer in Christ –or perhaps a Jew or Muslim adherent– can be credible, true to his or her being given a certain intellectual formation. Does belief in God forfeit our true search for the Divine? Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete’s portion of the discussion is the most interesting to me and it is noted below (emphasis mine). A believer sometime has to work overtime to convince him or herself that faith and science are compatible. The other day my attention was drawn to what a little girl said about Lent: her view of life and the simplicity by which we have to look everything realizing that we don’t make ourselves; everything is given. Albacete answers the question of the compatibility of faith and science: The answer, I propose, is not only yes he can, but, in fact, it is faith that will sustain his or her passion for investigating nature, and prevent the process itself and its results from becoming enslaved to political, economic, and religious ideology.Let me know what you think.

In such a case, is awe, wonder, and joy at scientific
discoveries possible? When I was thinking about this, a friend sent me the text
of a speech given by Msgr. Luigi Giussani about the “love of being” that is
remarkably appropriate to this reflection. Giussani’s argument is that the truth of Christianity can be
verified by a proper consideration of the evidence for it. Evidence, he says,
is the correct word, even if the evidence for the Christian claim is given to
us through signs. Signs are things that can be touched, seen, and experienced. The Apostles had Jesus in front of them and this presence was a sign of His
victory over death, and therefore of His mysterious identity. But what about
us? What happens with the passage of time? What signs are there for us as
evidence of the truth of the Christian claim, of the reasonableness of the
Christian claim?

The interpretation of the signs available to us engages our
liberty, he says. In this drama, our liberty is a manifestation of our love for
being. Without this love for being we are not truly free and we will never
grasp the evidence of the signs given to us. At this point, as an example of
this love for being, Giussani invokes the Magi.

Continue reading “Reality holds a signature from God … we must seek to decipher”

Charitable work and the common fund: 2 wings of the Christian witness

I always look for evidence –that is, I am looking for light on a situation that may not be very clear for me– i.e., for the reality, the truth and beauty of a vigorous Catholic life by seeing if people are willing to live the Gospel. We do our best given the graces we’ve received and our own open hearts. I find myself in need to know that others belief that that the promises (and extraordinary claims) of Christ are true and are lived. Novel, right? Not really. We Catholics have been concerned for the welfare of others since the time Jesus and because our Christianity has its roots in Judaism, even before Jesus. Just read the Old Testament and dig into the narrative there. But it is Jesus gives a new lens by which to see life and to live differently today by the fact of the Paschal Mystery (His life, death, resurrection and ascension).

When one follows the lay ecclesial movement of Communion and Liberation (CL) you quickly find out that you belong to a group of friends larger than oneself and that we aim to care for the needs (the faith, education, culture, social assistance) of others. The idea is rooted in what we read int he Acts of the Apostles and various letters of Saint Paul. Our doing good is not just another forum of activism. It is based on the Savior’s life and example.

Here are two points made by Father Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation and the successor of Father Luigi Giussani, to flesh out these two wings of our companionship –either as Catholics who live their life only in the parish, and for those who belong to a group like CL.

Continue reading Charitable work and the common fund: 2 wings of the Christian witness