CL Life
North europe

A Prevailing Fascination
In England, over 450 people gathered from Great Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Malta for a weekend with Fr. Julián Carrón that challenged everyone with the question, “How can one live?” Many of the stories of the past year bear witness to what makes us “new creations.”

by Luca Fiore

Life is long; the journey is long. It is not a hundred-meter dash, but a marathon. The challenge is how to hang on for the distance. Who knows what Raymond thought, listening to Fr. Julián Carrón open the gathering with the communities of northern Europe with this image? After all, he drove from his home in Mullingar, 50 miles outside Dublin, to the gathering in Reading, near London. He got behind the wheel, took the ferry, reached the coast of Wales, and then drove until he reached the meeting venue. With true Celtic spirit, he wanted to enjoy the beauty of the English countryside. Carron’s metaphor was also apt because of the distance Raymond drives every week to attend School of Community–an hour there and an hour back each time.
The weekend of January 10-12, over 450 people, including children, gathered from Great Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Malta in the De Vere Wokefield Park Hotel. Several communities have been quite transformed in recent years and months by the arrival of many foreigners: Spaniards, Brazilians, and Italians–newcomers who, unlike earlier ones who came as students on the E.U. Erasmus study abroad program, are adults who have accepted jobs in foreign countries. They need a home, school for their children, and help in getting oriented in a new setting. The Dublin community, for years formed around a nucleus of about 50 people, has reached 100 in the past year. In Oxford in 2004, there were 4 members, and now there are 20, half of whom arrived in recent months. It is not so much a question of numbers, but of difficulties, questions, and discoveries that multiply. For this reason, Carrón stressed, it is worthwhile to ask again: How can one live?

Outside life. Maria wonders this, having been catapulted far from her Ravenna, Italy, home and her GS friends. She said that when she was in Italy, she lived more intensely. Now it is no longer so. “Christianity is the religion of a person, not of a place,” responded Fr. Carrón. “God became man and made Himself present in history through people. Are you sure that with the people here you cannot live the experience you had in Italy? Friends are a gift: you do not give them to yourself.” Sean, from Dublin, touched on a similar issue: “The bond between the beautiful things you have experienced and your present life can easily break when reality begins to wound you.” “When we leave Christ outside life, what happens?” queried Fr. Julián. “We need to gain more consciousness of this. Think of the Prodigal Son. At a certain point, he understood what he was losing, and so then he returned to his Father.”

Burning the ship. Chiara has been in the Movement for many years. “I have always said, ‘How beautiful!’ but I never went further. I have never left, but I have limited myself to enjoying the beautiful moments and holding my breath during the ugly ones. Today, I see that the only way to stay in front of this restlessness is to follow. Otherwise, I reduce Christ to what I think.” Again, Carrón is incisive: “We can belong to the Movement for years without feeling that we yearn for Christ, that we need Him. We can talk about Him but, when Christ becomes real, we realize how much we long for Him.”
Giuseppe is from Turin, Italy, and teaches at Oxford. He came to England 10 years ago, and he, too, found it hard in the beginning. After the beautiful years of CLU, his life in England seemed something less. Then, he and his wife said, “We have to burn the ship in which we arrived. Our life today is here and our desire is for the experience of the Movement to blossom here as well.” That was the turning point, and their life has since flowered.
It was the same for Matteo from Milan, Italy. He left six  years ago for Switzerland, and has recently arrived in Ireland. “My wife and I left Italy aware that we had everything we needed to face the adventure awaiting us.” They knew that things happen in ways and times that they would not expect. This was the case for Ylaine, from Holland, who came to London with her husband, Stefano. In Reading, she talked about how the encounter with Christ through the Movement helped her to look her marital crisis in the face and begin again, even to the point of welcoming the arrival of their third child. “When I was in labor, I asked Christ to be there with me. That thought changed the way I felt the contractions. When I took my baby in my arms, I realized that it was a grace that he existed. For the other two, it wasn’t this way.”
Ulisses is Brazilian, and he, too, is in London for work. Six years ago, he had a fiancé whom he believed was the woman of his life. Sadly, they broke up, and no longer saw each other. But one day at a School of Community they met again, although neither of them had been in CL before. Finally, they were able to look at each other with a profundity that they had never had before–because they had met Christ, Love incarnate.
Life also changed for Giulia, who was asked to help Dionino, a member of the Memores Domini living in London, during the final six months of his illness. “The initial intuition of good turned into a personal work, looking at a man who lived his encounter with Jesus in a human way, and finally into a solid judgment, forced by his death. This judgment is that it is true that in accompanying someone to death, one can regain life.” (See her letter on page 33).

A real adherence. Fr. Carrón explained that Giussani called this the generation of the new creature, one with “new awareness, a new capacity for gazing upon reality, having an intelligence of reality that others don’t have, and a new affection, a capacity for real adherence and dedication to the other that is not even imaginable.” This also happened for Francesca with her new Saudi friend. “Religion does not count when it is a matter of what corresponds to our needs,” explains Carrón. He quoted from the 2008 Fraternity Exercises: “This is the way we testify to Christ in the world. It is the face of our mission: a new intelligence and heart in eating and drinking, waking and sleeping, living and dying.”
   This new gaze, which was seen in the assemblies in Reading, does not depend on an effort of the will. It is discovered in following. Fr. Julián explained that it is like a child with her parents at Disneyland. In the beginning, everything is marvelous, but if she gets lost, she begins to cry and all the attractions and fun no longer mean anything. Only when she finds her parents again do things return to the attractiveness they held for her before. In this way, concluded Carrón, life “becomes an adventure to discover together. What prevails is the fascination, not the annoyance: every circumstance becomes a challenge. Each thing holds a promise within. Nothing is useless.” 

GIULIA’S LETTER
“Through a Time of Darkness
I Found the Solid Point of a Restart”
I cannot look at the countless events that happened in the past year but with a great gratitude which moves me to tears. It has, paradoxically, been the toughest year and at the same time the most revolutionary one because of the sign of a great preference for me. I was going through a time of darkness in my life, like Dante in the first Canticle from The Divine Comedy.
I was literally at risk of ruining and throwing away all the dearest things of my life.  At a certain point, the Lord through the brave faces of my friends, decisively put me up against the wall. At that precise moment, right when I discovered that I was in need of everything, I started following these same friends because I glimpsed a proposal of something good for me.
 A little later, another sign of preference came to me (not any sweeter than the first one): the health conditions of  Dionino–a member of the Memores Domini living in London–deteriorated and a friend asked me if I could be the liaison between the doctors in the UK and those in Italy. I started going to visit Dionino, whom I didn’t know very well–the relationship had to be built from scratch. The very first time I walked into the house, I met  this person who was on his deathbed while maintaining his dignity as a man. Initially, it was not simple because Dionino kept asking a lot of questions, both medical and personal, in front of which I had to answer very honestly. Many times, I would have preferred to run away.
For this reason, this simple weekly dialogue forced me to work on myself personally. That is, I realized that to stand in front of him, I had first to be serious and honest with myself. I could not tell him half-truths–Dionino needed loyalty and sincerity. And it was like this the entire time: while he walked toward and prepared himself to see Jesus, I walked with him and, following him, I regained myself. The loyalty to that weekly meeting with him was born within this dynamic.
I realized that I could not help but to continue visiting him because his open humanity was what I was looking for, for myself. Dionino, through his experience, helped to awaken my desire to be alive. Within the reciprocal affection which was born, a familiarity developed  because we shared the same tension toward Destiny.
This affection spread among the others in the Memores Domini  house;  in addition the relationship with my boyfriend and friends flourished again. The initial intuition of good turned into a personal work, looking at a man who lived his encounter with Jesus in a human way, and finally into a solid judgement, forced by his death. This judgment is that it is true that in accompanying someone to death, one can regain life.
Now, in the daily struggle, getting “stuck” again is easy, but thanks to the flesh of His preference seen through the face of my friends and within the circumstances, I have learned to recognize Him, and this will remain always the solid point of a new beginning. It wasn’t the dramatic circumstances that made this past year so extraordinary, but the fact that I have learned to love Jesus more by following a man who wanted to embrace Him. Through this, I learned to love myself, my humanity and then everything around me.
Giulia, London