The Merit of a Charism

On the occasion of the 19th anniversary of the pontifical recognition of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, Father Giussani sent the following message to all the Fraternity groups

Life is relationship with God, with the Father of Jesus, the merciful.
“Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the one, the only Yahweh. You must love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Let the words I enjoin on you today stay in your heart. You shall tell them to your children, and keep on telling them, when you are out and about, when you are lying down and when you are standing up” (Deut 6:4-7).
If God is merciful with us, we too must be merciful with each other, as St. Paul says: “Any bitterness or bad temper or anger or shouting or abuse must be far removed from you–as must every kind of malice. Be generous to one another, sympathetic, forgiving each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ” (Eph 4:31-32).
This is what I want to say to all of you, friends in the Fraternity, as we remember the anniversary of the recognition of our Fraternity by the Church, which has in this way approved and blessed the road to holiness that God has opened for us.
May this be your intention in all the prayer initiatives which each group of the Fraternity will do in these days.
Fr. Giussani

Here below are excerpts from the words addressed by the Most Reverend Angelo Comastri, Archbishop of Loreto, to the Fraternity groups during the Mass for the 19th anniversary of the recognition of the Fraternity, at the Sanctuary of Nostra Signora di Loreto, February 11, 2001
When the Church recognizes a charism, she recognizes herself, she recognizes her mystery, she recognizes her life in a charism.
Father Giussani has written, “Charism is the most peripheral articulation in which the Event of Christ makes itself present.” But a charism is not an alternative to the Church. The charism is Church. It is the Church lived in a charism. In the Church, there are dead branches and living branches, withered branches and luxuriant branches: a charism is a branch which draws life, and this life is born of the mystery of the Church, it is the Church that lives in a charism.
We bless the Lord today for this day. We thank God because everything is His gift, the gift of His mercy, and we must always feel ourselves to be unworthy of the Lord’s gifts; we must let ourselves always be astounded by His gifts.
It has happened to me a number of times, traveling through Italy in my ministry as a bishop, to use the words, “Event of Christ,” and after the lecture someone almost always comes up to me and asks, “Are you a CL member?” I answer, “No, I am a Christian.”
I say this because CL is Christianity. And when Father Giussani used for the first time, in a brilliant and intelligent way, the word “Event” to mean Christianity, he only said what Christianity has always said from the beginning. Christianity is a gift, a surprise, a grace. The Pope said this beautifully in his latest Apostolic Letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte: “Christianity is grace, it is the wonder of a God who is not satisfied with creating the world and man, but puts Himself on the same level as the creature He has made. Christianity is a religion rooted in history!” (NMI, 4 and 5).
So we thank Father Giussani because he has taken up God’s grace, multiplied it, and molded it into an ecclesial experience; that is, he has made it become a charism, a way of living the Church today, a way of living the Christian Event in this time. But Father Giussani deserves credit for another beautiful thing: he has emphasized that Christianity, if on one hand it is grace and thus takes us by surprise, on the other it responds profoundly to the desire and expectations of the human heart.
Christianity, that is, Jesus Christ, gives the answer to what man seeks and has always been seeking. I recall a very strong statement by André Gide which I found again in some early writings by Father Giussani. André Gide, who certainly did not shine with the light of a consistent Christian life, said one day, “I do not believe in the words of Jesus Christ because His words are divine, because His words are inexplicable, but because they are words that no other human mouth has uttered in the span of human history.” Christianity surprises, and yet it answers our expectations.
Christianity is grace, it is gift, and yet it is the answer, to the point that we could not be rational if we were not Christian.
Reason without faith becomes irrational because faith provides light for reason. How beautiful is what Father Giussani has constantly reminded us in precisely this direction. Father Giussani uses another wonderful word: companionship. Where can the Event be encountered today, where do these words today take on life and visibility? In a group of persons who have made them become their own life and who witness to them. How important it is that each of us feel himself to be the locus where the Gospel can be experienced! The locus where the Gospel is made flesh and becomes, for today’s man, something contemporary with them!
How beautiful it is to have this awareness! Today, O Lord, through us You become contemporary with this world and this humanity: what a great responsibility, what a great calling, what a great mission!