cl life
Those “Beer People”

Much More than Just Four Friends in a Bar…
Hundreds of people of all ages, from all over Italy and elsewhere, who meet simply to address their life and “what the Mystery is doing among us”–a phenomenon outside all schemes that began three years ago in a bar. What is it that makes this place so special? We went to take a look.

by Stefano Filippi

What follows is a conver  sation between a journalist and one of the “Beer People.”…“So, 420 of you went to Madrid for the Encuentro [Encounter, a public cultural festival sponsored by people of CL in Spain]?”  “Yes. Three fantastic days.”  “What a lot of organization must’ve been needed!”  “Actually, no.”  “Well, three days in Madrid, with hundreds of people from Milan and elsewhere… you must have needed at least two special flights.”  “We had considered it, but then we realized we couldn’t manage it.”  “So?”  “So we sent an e-mail saying we were not organizing anything, and that whoever wanted to go should see to himself. It was a free proposal, and freedom reacts when something attracts it.”  “Usually people move when things are all organized.”  “Not this time. It meant that we really wanted to go on a personal adventure–and this is  not just an expression.”  “You can see that.”  
This place that escapes every attempt at categorization is “Beer with Nembrini,” Fr. Eugenio Nembrini, to give him his full name, the priest from Bergamo who heads Milan’s Sacro Cuore Institute (a multilevel school serving children from infancy to high school). He is someone who says (its’ not that he says it, though, it shines out of his face), “Life’s like that; beauty attracts you, it makes you giddy; falsehood, whatever is not true, drives you away.” The term “Beer People” refers to the sports hall that fills up every two weeks on Saturday evenings with more and more people who simply want to spend time with Nembrini and his friends. They come from Milan and from Lombardy, but there are also people who travel hundreds of miles, setting off in the afternoon and reaching home at dawn–from Ferrara, from Ravenna, a busload from Rimini, a group from Transacqua, in Trentino, and at times even from as far away as Naples and Sardinia. Lifelong friends and people completely new, “authentic” CLers as well as people who are still discovering–or rediscovering–the wonder of the faith, right here.

From Dante to the stars. At 8:00 pm, the parking lot is already full; people are eating bread, cheese, and salami, while green cans of Heineken beer are making the rounds. There are handshakes and pats on the back; people talk about their lives. In a moment, the 200 chairs are covered with bags and sweaters to reserve places, because there are more than twice that number who remain standing–people of all ages, whole families with grandparents and children in buggies, high school kids and groups of friends. How many? Who knows? Some time ago, they even installed a webcam. It begins around nine, with popular songs, songs of the 60s and 70s, words re-echoing from 30 years ago or more.
Then the questions and answers begin. It’s intense, because in one way or another what it’s all about is Christianity. Something for true friends, not buddy-boys. “Let’s tell each other what the Mystery is working among us,” Fr. Eugenio Nembrini suggests. Madrid, Eluana [a comatose woman, who died after her feeding tube was removed], problems at work, the children. People talk, argue, and even joke, repartee and sometimes very personal remarks, but there is no quarreling, there is no need to shut people up or bring them to order. No one takes notes because it is not that kind of meeting. Rather, there are faces to look at. Nembrini makes this clear with a recollection: “One day in Kazakhstan, I went to visit their Grand Canyon with 100 students, a real wonder in the middle of the steppe. On the way back, a girl of 17, who had been afraid to look down, said, “I spent the day looking not at the canyon, but at the way you were looking at it; it was wonderful.”
 Often at the “Beer,” people are invited for a dialogue, like the high school teacher Franco Nembrini who spoke about Dante; the astrophysicist Marco Bersanelli, about the stars; and the President of the Foundation for Subsidiarity Giorgio Vittadini,   about his experience. One of the finest evenings was with the young teachers who live together in a house of the Memores Domini (a private ecclesial association whose members are lay men and women who dedicate their lives to God) near Bergamo. Also, last year, Fr. Julián Carrón came, and at the beginning of April his sister, Carmen, was here with her family. “We are here for a very simple reason,” her husband said. “Our daughter Maria kept talking about her friends in Abbiategrasso. We wanted to meet what made her so enthusiastic, and they brought us to the ‘Beer People.’ I need to see this beauty in order to work in my home in Spain.”
The dialogue lasts a couple of hours. A girl told us about Madrid, adding, “But the finest thing is to live every circumstance in this way.” Nembrini asked for an example, “because if it doesn’t happen now it didn’t happen even in Madrid.” A young man from Bergamo jumped to his feet: “In a factory in Holland, one of the machines wasn’t working, and I didn’t know what to do. At lunchtime, my wife suggested saying a prayer, and in the afternoon it started working again. The miracle, though, is not that the machine began working again, but that that circumstance made me think of Christ.” “But afterwards, you forget again,” said another. Again, Nembrini: “We can remember one minute, then a minute later forget, but that minute, when something extraordinary happens, is everything.” Someone said, “Here with you, it’s natural to think of Christ in flesh and blood.” Answer: “It is reasonable to travel as far as you have only if Christ is the only thing that interests you.”

Something that generates life. At 11 pm, break ranks. There you understand better that “The Beer” is much more than a evening together. It is something that generates life, something that is at work. Announcements are given. One is about the Rimini Meeting, and it’s not just a communication of dates and requirements. “Our friend Beppe has been working for years in the preparation of the Meeting and he really enjoys it. So get in touch with him and get organized.” Then, there is the charitable work inspired by the “Beer People.” Ugo Comaschi explains, “We go, two by two, to take care of an unemployed person. We keep them company, help them to find hope and to feel that they are not alone in their pain. Those who have lost hope regain the taste for living, and even working–one friend of ours had been out of work for seven  years, and found a new job.”  We need to talk about the other facts that here have found a motor, a flywheel: relationships, friendships, the impulse given to the Solidarity Banks. In a word, life.

Ten years of mission. This is the “Beer People,” something outside any scheme,  which is fascinating, moving, curious, regenerating, and it even arouses suspicion, as is the case with all that is new. It began completely by chance. “It was February 2006, and we had invited Vittadini to Baggio, near Milan, for a public meeting on the Appeal on Education,” Comaschi, Andrea Franchi, and Paolo Ferrari told us. “Since he couldn’t come himself, he sent a priest who was living with him. We had never heard of Nembrini.” He had recently come back from 10 years as a missionary in Kazakhstan. “It was a shock, a real encounter with this crazy but simple priest, in love with Christ and with life. We took hold of him and wouldn’t let him go, following him everywhere.”
During the vacation, the relationship became stronger, and in September the three of them took the step: “Why don’t we meet more often, even regularly. Any time you want, even at night.” Then came the idea of meeting for a beer on Monday evenings, at the end of a meeting. “At eleven, we would cross the city to meet a little before midnight. The theme, like now, was, simply, life.”
Soon the bar was too small. “But we never invited anyone,” Ugo, Andrea, and Paolo said. “It was just that our friends saw that we were changed and asked us what had happened. So we answered, ‘Come and see.’ It is a tried and true method. The 4 people became 10, 20, 50. The “Beer People” moved to the Milanese Bakers in Porta Venezia. After a while, even that was too small, so one of them offered the cafeteria of the firm where he worked. The meetings were held twice a month. Then, the wives asked to come along; they weren’t satisfied with the accounts the morning after. The evening was changed to Saturday. Since last September, the venue has changed again. Nothing is planned, no obligation to take part, no limit to the numbers. “A pulse of life, gratuitous and free.”
Madrid, too, was born like this. “We got to know three Spanish friends, and wanted to go and see them for Christmas. They asked us to come for the Encuentro. Then, the group got bigger and bigger.”