School of Community Update

Dear Friends,

Below is a message from Chris Bacich, national responsible for CL in the US, regarding the SoC text and attached is an article by Fr. Carron that is particularly helpful as we begin the 3rd chapter of the SoC.

John

Dear Friends,

I wanted to write a couple of lines to you regarding the Fraternity
Exercises and the School of Community.

First, I would like to remind you-as we move closer to the Fraternity
Exercises-of the section of the Journey to Truth Is an Experience,
entitled
"Commitment," which ends the second chapter. In that section Fr. Giussani
speaks of the need to, "take seriously our experience, and live our
existence intensely," while, "acknowledging Him as the only possible answer
to our human pathway"
(p. 67). I want to encourage each of us to attend this great moment in our
lives together with this seriousness and commitment to our own humanity,
coupled with the certainty that these exercises will propose to our freedom
an answer to all of the desire and difficulty of our lives. Earlier in the
Journey to Truth is an Experience Fr. Giussani writes, "Adherence to
Christianity, in as much as it is purely mechanical, has no value." Let us
not go to the exercises mechanically, just because that's "what we do."
Let's go with our full desire, transformed into real begging to Christ,
present in this charism. I sincerely hope that each of us has also invited
people who participate
in our lives but do not know Christ as we-due to the grace of Fr.
Giussani's
charism-to come to the Fraternity Exercises in order to experience this
answer. If we have not yet done so, let us invite at least one new person
to join us at the Fraternity Exercises, as an expression of real charity
towards the world, beginning from the place in which we live.

Second, some have written asking about "where we should be" at this point
in
the School of ommunity. I believe that in Italy, Carron is in the middle
of the third chapter. Here in New York, we are just beginning that third
chapter. In order to help us with the work on this chapter, I wanted to
alert you to the imminent posting of a new article, just published on the
Italian Tracce site, entitled "Rome and the Gift of the Spirit." It will
be
available on the US website over the next couple of days. For your
convenience, we have attached this text. Please read it as a help to
understanding this third chapter. I would also like to remind you of the
critical importance of our personal work on the School of Community. It is
the first place that we must engage ourselves,
if we want to live our commitment (in the sense in which Fr. Giussani
teaches us to understand that word) to our fulfillment and the encounter
with Christ. I would particularly recall you to all that Fr. Carron said
to
us in San Diego about the School of Community and that you can find online,
as part of the entire transcript of his contributions to our gathering.

I will be visiting with Carron and Vitta next week in Italy and I assure
you that I will bring a deep and growing love for you and your destiny with
me.

In fraternal communion,

Chris