February 11th

Gift of the Spirit and Hope of Men

An interview with H.E. Msgr Stanislaw Rylko, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. “Thanks to belonging to a movement, a human companionship that is not generic, many people have been able to encounter Christ as living persons”

Edited by ALBERTO SAVORANA and ALESSANDRA BUZZETTI

Your Excellency has been said, also by authoritative sources, that the Movement’s virtue is that of friendship. Do you agree with this opinion and if so, what does friendship mean to Christian adults or to a mature Christianity?
Friendship is a very important factor in the life of a movement, but it is a special kind of friendship. It is certainly not a merely emotional and sentimental friendship. Instead, it is a much deeper kind of friendship, which springs forth from a shared charism. The genesis of a friendship like this is explained by the Holy Father in Christifideles laici, when he writes about the charisms which the Holy Spirit grants generously today among the lay faithful: “These charisms are given to individual persons, and can even be shared by others in such ways as to continue in time a precious and effective heritage, serving as a source of a particular spiritual affinity among persons” (no. 24). Here is the deepest source of the movements’ strength. This is friendship understood as “spiritual affinity” and an intense, deep communion among persons. In the secularized world, in which faith is reduced to a strictly private affair, we need environments like these more than ever. Friendship understood in this way is a very important component of our faith and our belonging to Christ and His Church. The Gospel confirms this, showing the extent to which the discovery of Christ and the personal encounter with Him has always been mediated through ties of friendship: “The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother and say to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ –which means the Christ–and he took Simon to Jesus” (Jn 1:41). I believe it would be very interesting and instructive to read the twenty-year history of the Fraternity using just this key, i.e., how friendship helps our faith to mature.

In the history of the Church, the lay movements arose around a monastic core or a religious fraternity. This does not seem to be the physiognomy of the Fraternity. How can this originality be explained?
The explanation of this “novelty” was offered us by the Holy Father himself in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope. The Pope places this within the broader context of the history of salvation. In the past, the spiritual renewal of the Church usually came about through the birth of new orders and religious congregations, which have had enormous merits in this sense. Today, instead–without detracting anything from the importance of their testimony, which always remains essential to the life of the Church–renewal comes especially through the lay movements which the Holy Spirit brings forth in the communion of the Church. It is a sign of the times. This is one of the surprises that the Holy Spirit springs in the course of history. Evidently, our times have a special need for testimonies of the evangelical life, lived in a radical way in the heart of the world, and of their missionary thrust. It is one of our age’s great challenges, and very many laypersons, men and women, respond with astounding generosity. The history of the Fraternity of CL can certainly furnish numerous examples of this. This is why the Holy Father calls the movements a “gift of the Spirit and hope for men.”

Within the Fraternity we find a sort of “cross-section” of figures: lay persons who live a dedication to Christ in virginity, priests, married people. Indeed, Fr Giussani has always insisted that “vocation is one and it is the one defined by Baptism”: “lay, ie, Christian” is an expression that is valid for all the baptized. In your opinion, how is the contribution of those who live family life and those who choose a life of virginity integrated in the desire for the common holiness?
I agree completely with Msgr Giussani’s statement. All the experience I have acquired during my years of service to the Pontifical Council for the Laity confirms it. The various charisms of the respective ecclesial movements have just this common denominator: they help the baptized to discover the greatness and beauty of the Christian vocation and to live it to the full. It is the living root of our deepest identity. In this sense, they are a precious fruit of Vatican Council II. This is why the charisms of the respective movements have a “communional” or “cross-sectional” nature; that is to say, a spiritual advantage can be drawn from them not only for a particular condition of life, but all conditions and all the special vocations–lay faithful, consecrated persons, priests, married and unmarried, persons in all walks of life, young and old. Because we are all Christians, and all the specific vocations are born from the fundamental root of Baptism. From Baptism springs forth the call to the fullness of Christian life. The life of an ecclesial movement thus becomes a great workshop of holiness, in which an important role is played by the exchange of testimonies between various conditions of life, between the various specific vocations. An environment like this greatly enriches people; at times it poses a strong challenge to our tiredness and the routine of daily life. The Holy Father encourages us: “Since Baptism is a true entrance into the holiness of God through incorporation into Christ and the indwelling of His Spirit, it would be a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity. To ask catechumens, ‘Do you wish to receive Baptism?’ means at the same time to ask them, ‘Do you wish to become holy?’ It means to set before them the radical nature of the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt 5:48)” (Novo millennio ineunte, no. 31). Every movement has its own “pedagogy of holiness.” Your movement, too, has its own “pedagogy of holiness.” The twenty-year history of the Fraternity of CL is also a history of the holiness of many CL adherents, of a holiness “in the heart of the world,” of a holiness understood–as the Pope says–as a “high measure of ordinary Christian life,” ie, involved in family life, professional work, cultural, social, and political commitment.

How did you first encounter CL?
My first contacts with CL date to the early 1970s in Krakow. The Italian CL members were among the first foreigners to discover the extraordinary value of the experience of faith and the great pedagogical value of the annual foot pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of the Black Virgin of Czestochowa. At that time, we Poles viewed them with curiosity and a vivid sense of admiration. Times were different then; the Communist regime was still strong. For young people of the West, to go behind the Iron Curtain for religious reasons carried with it numerous risks. So we were struck by their courage. If they run a risk like this, we thought, it means that faith is truly important to them. We were struck by their solid and joyous faith. One felt immediately that for them, the Christian event was not something theoretical and distant, but something that is really lived in the everyday. Thanks to them, we were able to discover another face of the Western Church, not that of the post-Vatican II crisis but that of a strong spiritual rebirth. This was for me the first example of the exchange of gifts between the Eastern and Western Churches. Then, more direct and profound contacts with the Movement followed. I was able to get to know its charism better. I have many friends in the Movement. But this early image of young Christians who were so determined and courageous in their testimony of faith has left a deep groove in my memory.

Fr Giussani insists on the fact that we go to Christ through the sign of a companionship: belonging to a communion in which the person is fulfilled and gives his best. Does this seem to you a distinguishing note of the Movement compared to other lay experiences?
I think that the concepts of belonging and companionship acquire today a special importance not only for a Christian, but for every person as such. The prevailing culture of today generates weak, fragmented personalities, with no inner coherence and a fragile, confused identity. This is true also among Christians. The reason for this unsettling phenomenon lies, among other things, in the fact that many today lack a sense of “total” belonging, of being rooted in a reality (in a charism!) capable of giving true meaning and profound unity to a person’s existence. Many people refuse any form of belonging out of fear of losing their own freedom. Instead, the reverse is true. Without living an experience of belonging, understood in the sense I just described, a person’s integrity and human freedom are today more than ever exposed to great risks. It is precisely thanks to belonging to a movement, thanks to a human companionship that is not generic, that so many people have been able to rediscover and reinforce their own identity as persons and as Christians. They have been able to encounter Christ as a living Person and Christianity not as an historical museum piece, but as an event really present in our life, capable of transforming it in a radical way. In this sense the ecclesial movements are privileged environments of formation, of human and Christian growth. Finally, one more brief consideration: today we sometimes hear that for a Christian, it is enough to belong “normally,” “without adjectives,” to the parish without any mediation through a group. Statements of this sort betray a lack of understanding of the role of charisms in Christian life. The charism of a movement is nothing but a sort of catalyst that makes the fundamental belonging which springs forth from the sacrament of Baptism more vital and profound.

Twenty years of life for the Fraternity... In an experience of Christian education, what is the value of its history?
Twenty years of life for the Fraternity of CL remind us of the importance of memory in Christian life. It is so important to know–like Mary of Nazareth–to preserve in one’s own heart the living memory of the great works that God chose to carry out in us and through us in the Church and in the world. As you celebrate this anniversary, look back with a sense of gratitude and wonder. And look to the future with great hope and a sense of responsibility. The Fraternity’s history is made up of so many personal histories. How many changed lives, how much zeal, how much generosity, how much evangelical radicalness! There is a lot to be thankful for to the Lord. The Fraternity of CL is a great workshop of faith, Christian education, and holiness. It is a profoundly ecclesial experience. This is what Msgr Giussani has always wanted. As long as I have known him, I have been filled with admiration for his thought, so rich, original, and profoundly rooted in the tradition of the Church, but above all I am impressed by his sense of the Church and his love for the person of the Holy Father. The twenty-year history of the Fraternity in serving the Gospel and the communion of the Church is long enough for the Church to verify and give important confirmation of the path you have chosen. And this confirmation has been voiced on various occasions also by the Successor of Peter. All that remains for me to say to the Fraternity is “Duc in altum!” Faithful to the charism of your Movement, “go out into the deep” with courage and generosity. The Church needs you!