The fundamental gestures
Some
who come into contact with the life of CL members
are surprised to realize that theirs is a normal life, in the sense
that adherence to the Movement does not involve any special obligations
or strange customs.
One of its characteristics, to which the Movement has always held
fast and which distinguishes it immediately from traditional Catholic
associations, is the absence
of any form of application for membership and the emphasis on the importance
of the individual’s free adherence to the contents and educative method
of the movement. Equally freely, the CL experience indicates some fundamental
gestures for a personal and community journey of education to faith. These are “fundamental” gestures,
but none of them is considered obligatory.
Prayer
One of the distinguishing traits of the Movement is its attention
to acts of personal and community prayer. To this purpose, from CL’s earliest
years, a Book of Hours was published, with ecclesiastical imprimatur,
reproducing part of the Breviary prayed by the universal Church. Special attention
has always been reserved to songs for the liturgy and the learning of hymns and
canticles from tradition. This attention has led to the “invention” of
a sort of Liturgy of the Easter Triduum, made up in a powerfully evocative way
of Bible readings, passages from the poetic works of Christian meditation by
Charles Péguy, and choral and musical passages from the liturgical tradition
and from the repertory of the greatest works inspired by religious themes, like
Mozart’s Requiem or Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater.
Participation in the liturgy and the sacraments, the habit of reciting the Angelus
and of repeating particularly significant traditional ejaculatory prayers (like Veni
Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam) tends to generate in CL adherents a familiarity
with prayer in its truest and simplest sense. This is, in fact, the origin of
communion and the first fruit of an authentically experienced community life.
Prayer is the expression of a dependence on the Other that every reasonable and
realistic person feels.
School of Community
Besides the invitation to prayer and regular practice of the sacraments addressed
to every Catholic, Fr Giussani’s
movement invites its members and anyone else who wishes to participate in a gesture,
usually weekly, of discussion and catechism. In the beginning, in Gioventù Studentesca
life, a similar function was filled by the “Raggio,” or “Ray,” a
meeting on a theme established by the outline for the day. The outlines normally
treated basic topics: not questions to give participants a chance to match their
wits or indulge in subtle explanations, pure exegesis of Gospel or Pauline texts,
but matters having to do with life, to make it easier to communicate who one
is and to share the needs of others.
“School of Community” aims at being a true school which, through the
reading and discussion of texts indicated by the Movement’s Center, shapes
in its participants a clearer understanding of the nature of the Christian fact
and illuminates their life. The assigned texts usually come from the teachings
of the Church or Fr Giussani’s writings.
School of Community is the customary moment for catechism and meeting together,
for high school and university youth and for adults.
Just as Fr Giussani has indicated for every gesture of the community, School
of Community too is “public,” something of value offered to everyone,
in the sense that it is open to participation to all and is often publicly proposed
in places of study or work.
Charitable work
The proposal of charitable work, which has involved tens of thousands of
youths and adults ever since the beginning of GS, has always been clearly explained.
It is not a matter of doing philanthropic projects or claiming to offer exhaustive
answers to needs that are often vast and complex, but of learning, through faithfully
performing an exemplary gesture, that the ultimate law of existence is charity,
gratuitousness.
This “school” of gratuitousness has given rise in Italy and throughout
the world, through the free and responsible initiative of CL members or with
their collaboration, to a vast series of large and small activities with a charitable
purpose, in the most disparate fields: from teaching catechism to children in
the oratory to keeping the elderly company in nursing homes, from taking children
or adults in difficulty into their families to creating actual family-houses
for the most difficult cases (unwed mothers, drug addicts, the mentally ill,
persons with disabilities, terminally ill and AIDS patients); from the creation
of business enterprises whose purpose is inserting persons with disabilities
into the workplace to the foundation of non-governmental organizations for projects
of development and aid to emerging countries (for example, AVSI in
Italy, an organization recognized by the UN, and CESAL in
Spain); from the establishment of foundations like the Food
Bank (which furnishes daily meals to almost a million poor people in Italy
out of the surplus production of middle-sized and large food industries) to the
creation of Solidarity Centers to help unemployed young (and not-so-young) people
to find work; from assistance in the juvenile prisons of Africa and Latin America
to simple economic help to families in difficulty.
Since in a great many cases these are initiatives which combine charitable purpose
with a business-like organization, it could be said that these works continue,
in an up-to-date manner and often under the umbrella of the not-for-profit sector,
the tradition of the great works of charity which mark the history of Christianity.
Vacation
Vacations, especially those taken together at a locale in the mountains,
have always been one of the most important moments for discovering the joy of
Christian companionship and the attitude of wonder and respect to which it educates
in the face of the reality of creation.
From the beginning, the first “observers” were astounded at how Fr
Giussani would take even large groups of young people to the mountains for vacations,
making of these moments (as opposed to what usually happens with school groups
or even with many Catholic associations) an occasion of joyous and orderly companionship
and of a strong Christian proposal.
Besides, it is during so-called free time that one can see what a boy or girl
truly pays attention to in life and to what ideals they are dedicated.
These vacation times, whether lived in the group or within the individual family,
are also a chance to offer to others the experience encountered in the movement.
Reading
Another of the ways in which CL educates its adherents to a critical sense,
to a discovery of human dignity and the true face of the Church, is an invitation
to the reading of books (for example through the so-called “book of the
month”) and to cultural work, urging them not to neglect the value of beauty
as it emerges from certain masterpieces of classical music, painting, and cinema.
CL members have become familiar with and found to be worthy of further study
names like Dante, Leopardi, Pascoli, Ada Negri, Pasolini, Montale, Rebora, Claudel,
Péguy, Eliot, Milosz, Solov’ev, De Lubac, Lagerkvist, Moeller, Mounier,
along with Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninov, Donizetti, and Giotto, Masaccio,
Caravaggio, Antelami, as well as Dreyer and other giants of literature and the
arts.
Singing
One of the gestures that marked the birth and has accompanied the development
of Communion and Liberation is singing, especially group singing. “Singing,” Fr
Giussani has stated, “is the highest expression of man’s heart. There
is no service to the community that can compare with singing.” Whether liturgical
music, songs resulting from the experience of CL members (some of whom have been
around the world) or taken from the popular repertory of other nations, attention
to group singing is one of the distinguishing traits of CL meetings. In song
the community expresses its unity in a synthetic and persuasive way, and the
gladness and new awareness that arise from that unity.
Common fund
From the Movement’s beginnings, one of its most educative actions has
been the so-called “common fund.” This is a fund whose aim is the furthering
of the Movement’s work through support of missionary, charitable, and cultural
activities. Everyone gives freely to this fund, contributing monthly a percentage
of income (at the beginning of the Movement’s history this was called the “tithe”).
The purpose of this gesture is to witness to a communal concept of personal property
and a growth in awareness of poverty as an evangelical virtue. The amount each
one gives is not important, but what matters is the seriousness with which one
fulfills this freely made commitment. It is this seriousness that permits each
person to be educated to charity. |
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