Tag: Julián Carrón

Can God still surprise me?

Emmaus detail Caravaggio.jpgEarlier this evening at the School of Community we were talking about our problem recognizing Christ in daily living. In what ways am I moved by Christ? A (vigorous) prayer life keeps us focussed on the meaning of our life in Christ.

Taking some clues from Father Julián Carrón may be helpful to those who want to make sense of the spiritual life.  Father Carrón encourages a few things:
1. to understand that we need an awareness of ourself;
2. to be mindful that we never fully possess Christ in this life because Christ is a Mystery; that to possess we’d be alone and that is not what the Holy Trinity has promised;
3. yes, it is easy to complain about not being “connected” to Christ in a meaningful manner but we need to consider that to really engage in the Fact and Event of the Incarnation of the Word Made Flesh is to accept that Christ is not reducible to an idea or an opinion;
4. to recall that to have real confidence that God loves me unconditionally; that is not say that God doesn’t care about the sinful things we do, He does and he desires true Charity and justice, but His Mercy for our being is stronger than anything we could imagine.

Continue reading Can God still surprise me?

Communion and Liberation opens cause for beatification and canonization for Luigi Giussani today

LGiussani.jpgFather Julián Carrón, the President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, the ecclesial movement founded Father Luigi Giussani (who died 7 years ago today) and which was approved by the Church 30 years this past February 11, gave the preliminary research to Angelo Cardinal Scola, Archbishop of Milan, to open the diocesan phase of investigating the eventual beatification and canonization of Father Luigi Giussani.

Christ is something that is happening to me now –our engagement with Giussani’s At the Origins of the Christian Claim


Fraternity CL Logo.JPGThose who follow the lay ecclesial movement, Communion
and Liberation, and attend the weekly School of Community, know that we’ve come
to end of our work on Father Luigi Giussani book, the The Religious Sense. For the
coming year we will be working on Giussani’s At the Origin of the Christian
Claim. On January 25, 2012, at the Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Milan, Father Julián
Carrón’s made a presentation of Father Luigi Giussani’s book. 


That presentation
is noted here: Christ is something that is happening to me now.pdf


Quoting Don Giussani, 

Et incarnatus est-Father Giussani says-“is singing at its purest,
when all man’s straining melts in the original clarity, the absolute purity of
the gaze that sees and recognizes. Et incarnatus est is contemplation and
entreaty at the same time, a stream of peace and joy welling up from the
heart’s wonder at being placed before the arrival of what it has been waiting
for, the miracle of the fulfillment of its quest. […]

As we approach the 30th anniversary of papal approval of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation on February 11th, let’s call on the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Benedict, co-patrons of the Movement to guide our way to the Word Made Flesh.

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

Nativity of the Lord JFlanders.jpg

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?

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).


AGisotti.jpg


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

God launches us into life’s adventure with the grace needed to succeed, Father Julián Carrón reminds


The Mystery, however has not launched us into the
adventure of life without providing us with a compass with which to find our
bearings. This compass is the heart. In our epoch, the heart has been reduced
to a feeling, a question of mood, but we can all recognize in our experience
that the heart does not allow itself to be reduced, it will not be conformed to
anything. “Men and women were created for something great, for infinity.
Nothing else will ever be enough.” The Pope says in his Message, and we know it
very well.


So whoever takes his heart seriously, made as it is for what is great,
begins to have a criterion for judging the truth or the falsity of whatever
proposal dawns on the horizon of his life. “You are constantly being offered
easier choices, but you yourselves know that these are ultimately deceptive and
cannot bring you serenity and joy.”

Father Julián Carrón
President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation
Alfa and Omega [sic]
28 July 2011

Christ begging for the heart of man

“‘Christ begging for the heart of man, and the heart of man begging for Christ.’ What change needs to take place for our gaze to be able to look at ourselves like this? What familiarity, what a sharing of our lives with a different gaze, until we can look with the same compassion upon our humanity, as we always felt ourselves looked upon by Father Giussani.”
(Father Carrón, “Man is exclusive relationship with God,” 2007)