CL

Twenty Years of an Unheard-of Novelty
Celebrating 20 years of CL presence in Poland. October 25th at Jasna Góra (Cze,stochowa), for the Opening Day of the Year. Bishop Gianni Danzi presided at the Mass. The witness of someone who was there from the beginning

by Alina Rynio

For the Movement in Poland, every Opening Day of the Year is a great event for me, and one full of hope. This year, without a doubt, one of these miracles was the fact of celebrating two jubilees in one for us: the 25th anniversary of John Paul II’s pontificate and the 20th anniversary of the Movement in Poland. So, on October 25, 2003, we had a lot to be thankful for and to wonder at–in particular, the fact that this year’s “new beginning” was marked by a visit from so many of our dear friends from Italy. To a large extent, it is thanks to them that this “contagion” which came to Poland from Italy has spread. Since there were so many guests from Italy and Spain, the Mass of thanksgiving for all that has already happened and continues to happen was celebrated in Latin. The homily was given by the Secretary General of the Governatorato of Vatican City, Bishop Giovanni Danzi, whom the first members of the Movement in Poland remember meeting many years ago. In his homily, Bishop Danzi drew our attention to the exceptional nature of the place and of the occasion, and exhorted us to entrust ourselves to the Virgin and Mother of Jasna Góra, with childlike simplicity.
A great gift for our anniversary was the letter that Fr Giussani sent us for the occasion. Hearing it being read with emotion and great simplicity of heart, I entrusted everything to God. With inexpressible gratitude, I think also of those who have given so much with their presence, so that, thanks to the charism of Fr Giussani, concerned for the integral growth of each one of us, the miracle of the Movement could be possible.
In full awareness and harmony with Fr Giussani’s words, “Salvation does not come from remembering a past history, but from a present event that we experience,” following the meeting at Jasna Góra, countless faces spring to mind of people to whom the history of my life and that of CL in Poland owe so much. I think of Fr Giussani, Fr Francesco Ricci, Maria Grazia Borsalino, Fr Gianni Calchi Novati, Fr Z. Seremak, Fr M. Brzozowski, Fr J. Adamowicz, Fr A. Perzyn´ski, Fr A. Weiss, Ambra Villa, Paola Crescimbeni, Michele Faldi, Fr Fabio Baroncini, Fr Luigi Negri, and many others.
I realize the unfailing wealth of this time that has passed. Embracing each and every one with my thoughts, I am aware of my place in the Movement and I thank God for giving me the taste of a new life and the opportunity to contemplate Him for whom nothing is impossible.
I remember my own “prophetic” meeting twenty years ago with Fr Gianni Calchi Novati. It was in Lublin, immediately after the first meeting with Fr Giussani, with which the Movement took off in Poland, and whom I then didn’t know at all.
In the light of this twentieth anniversary, I think that you have to be very distracted not to see and not to understand that we were made to share in an unheard-of gift. On a day like this, how can we not repeat with the English king, “Non nobis Domine”– “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give the glory.”