testimonies

THAT SUBVERSIVE AND
SURPRISING WAY OF LIVING THINGS

Six friends recounted what it has meant for them to go to the heart of their Christian experience, in ways ranging from cultural battles to unexpected encounters.
The testimonies at La Thuile helped listeners realize the cultural importance of the Christian experience, which overcomes the dualism between faith and reason, defined by Fr. Carrón as  “a human diversity that is the expression of a faith that enters into the innermost being of the ‘I’ and doesn’t settle for repeating a discourse.” On Thursday, August 20th, Giorgio Vittadini recounted what was generated when, months ago, Lester Salamon, one of the world experts on non-profits, visited the “Cometa”—a foster home run by CL parents. After him, John Waters, an Irish columnist (and writer for this magazine) spoke of the cultural battle he’s engaged in using the instruments of his profession to express the new way of looking at reality that is born of faith. John Zucchi, in Canada, has first-hand experience of the battle for freedom of education, having to go so far as to file suit against the Quebec government (see Traces, no. 7, 2009, pp. 37–39). Finally, Julián de la Morena, a priest of the Fraternity of Saint Charles, who lives in Sao Paolo, told of a year spent alongside Marcos and Cleuza Zerbini, and how their friendship with Fr. Aldo Trento has changed the way each lives his own work.
Neither big structures nor many participants are requisites for giving life to cultural works that influence one’s environment. The experience you have and your desire to communicate it suffice for becoming creative and encountering the world. In this way, with the initiative of a few friends, the “Library of the Spirit” started in the center of Moscow, and the “Crossroads Cultural Center” was established first in New York and now in other American cities, too. On Friday, August 21st, Jean-François Thiry and Letizia Bardazzi told of these cultural works, which, since 2004, have challenged and enhanced their environments through book presentations, public meetings, and concerts.
Their all-embracing openness to reality has given life to unexpected relationships with important figures that have gone well beyond the single event, so much so that some of these new contacts—who first presented at the Library or Crossroads—were participants at the August Meeting of Rimini, which hosted 800,000 people this year.
Those who have engaged in this impassioned friendship to encounter all that is good and true in the world, and to judge all that happens, have been able to see first hand how faith is “the subversive and surprising way of living the usual things,” as Fr. Giussani asserted, a diversity that amazes others, and us as well.

(P.B.)