NewWorld

Communion and Liberation

Read All About It!
“Test everything, retain what is good.” It was with this in mind that, five years ago, Chris Bacich proposed a revision of studies to the GS students in New York and around the country. This proposal became an experience of looking at all aspects of work and personal interests–from mathematics to literature and rock music–in light of what the charism has taught the students about Christ as the presence at the heart of reality. That initiative has born fruit in the advent of the GS News, a lively, thought–provoking newspaper that is distributed online and used as a missionary tool among all of the GS students in the United States.
Thanks to e-mail, GS News represents a long-distance collaboration, with contributing writers hailing from all corners of the country. The Risk of Education Center in Brooklyn, New York, which serves as headquarters, many an afternoon bustles with the activity of teens gathering and editing articles, formatting the text on the laptop, and scanning and cropping the images that will accompany the text.
This April 2005 issue fills twenty-six pages and includes articles by students on topics as wide-ranging as the nature of love, the literary work Miguel Manara, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a commentary on the 2005 March for Life in Washington, DC, as well as the homilies given by Cardinals Ratzinger and Tettamanzi at Msgr. Giussani’s funeral. Look for GS News online at http://www.gsnews.us.

An Unusual Sequel
Some thoughts from Tony Hendra, author of New York Times
best-seller Father Joe, when asked about his encounter with CL.
This summer, Mr. Hendra
will speak at the Meeting,
an international cultural event
held annually in Rimini, Italy.

When the book came out last year, Tom Sullivan from CL reviewed it and asked to meet me. When we met he said something that literally opened my eyes to my own book. He said that Father Joe had been my Jesus–the man who brought to life for me what the incarnation is and must have been.
In talking to other CL-ers, I understood that this is a basic principle of Father Giussani’s approach, so there is one enormously powerful connection–and something that has deepened my own understanding of what Father Joe meant to me.
Secondly, I found, in the two experiences I have had hanging out with people from CL, a great sense of familiarity with the communal aspect of our faith. Someone told me the other night that the model for this part of the CL philosophy is St. Benedict’s rule. So there’s another equally powerful bond. Thirdly, the two readings I have done for CL audiences stand out from all others, in that not only have they been received with a unique fervor, but while they were happening, I felt both times an enormous amount of empathy and focus from the audience. I have felt both times that Father Joe comes especially alive on the stage and in the words.

CLU on Campus
Schools of Community, charitable work, Saturday night dinners: all forms of the CLU life here in New York City. And, in truth, these are tools that aid us in our daily experience. As students, we spend most of our time on campus, hence it is precisely in our universities that we are called to be most alive. Two instances shed light on what it truly means for college students to be a “presence.” One of us writes an essay and, merely through his writing, makes an impact on his professor. Noticing the student’s CLU t-shirt proclaiming: “Happiness is assured,” that professor cannot help but admit that, somehow, the quote “fits” her pupil. Another friend approaches Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, seeking permission to announce the Way of the Cross at a Mass in St. James Cathedral. As a result, a conversation is sparked and soon the two meet for French toast. The bishop expresses his wish to set up the campus ministry at Polytechnic University, our friend acknowledges, and explains instead how he would love to establish a club to approach and understand more fully his studies in engineering. How can a professor see that one of her students has his happiness assured? What can push a bishop to have breakfast with a young engineer? An interesting humanity, fascinating through the newness brought by the Movement as a method for living, a radical method featuring an “I” who discerns the truth and recognizes the unity of those called to this correspondence. Our presence on campus coincides with the experience of an “I” that belongs.

Giussani’s Trilogy: A 5-Part Tour
In the coming months, communities across the country will present a 5-part series introducing the major insights of Giussani’s Trilogy, with an emphasis on the first of the three books, The Religious Sense. In 1997, newly published in English by McGill-Queens, The Religious Sense debuted in a panel presentation at the United Nations, an event Fr. Giussani referred to as a “new beginning.” Since then, this book has been enthusiastically received by a diverse range of readers, and adopted by many secondary school and higher education courses.
Based on Fr. Giussani’s notes, the series commences with methodological considerations and the nature of the religious sense in man. From there, we are introduced to reading reality as a sign of the Mystery. A look at the historical development of religions in history and the hypothesis of revelation are addressed in the third lecture, and the final presentations examine the Christian fact as it presents itself in history.
The series is currently scheduled for Evansville, Indiana, in the Summer, and in the Fall in Philadelphia and Washington, DC. If you are interested in bringing this series to your local community, please contact the CL National Office (tel.:212/337-3580; e-mail: clusa@clhac.com).