The overarching framework by which I will view and judge my experiences -since my arrival in Rome Wednesday August 20th 2008 to my departure for Canada (September 30th) in order to attain a student Visa, -is L’OPERA DELLO SPIRITO, Lezione inaugurale dell’anno di seminario di don Massimo Camisasca, al Monastero di Santa Scolastica, il 7 settembre 2008. The lesson titled “The Work of the Spirit” highlights, deepens and reviews the important components of the first lesson given by Fr. Julian Carron at the Spiritual Exercises for the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation –This is the Victory that Conquers the World: Our Faith. In order to begin I will highlight the key components emphasized at the lesson and follow with an analysis of my experience.
The insistence on the personalization of our experience and work. The goal of our work for the year is the deepening of the personal character of our encounter with the Mystery. The Mystery comes to meet us only in and through our personal experience, that is, by what is given and in front of us. We must learn to be attentive to the work that is given and proposed to us. For it is here, where we are being asked to meet the Mystery. Only through a deepening of one’s life and personal experiences is one able to recognize the presence of the Mystery. The more we familiarize ourselves with the presence of the Mystery in our lives, the more freely we will be able to stay in front of Him.
1. Il Mistero come Reale. The Mystery as Real. We need to recognize the Mystery as being really present in our midst. Giussani preferred to use the word Mystery as opposed to the word God, since he believed there was a greater disconnect between the relationship between man and God, than man and the Mystery. There is the potential for abstractedness when using the term God that Mystery seems to avoid, meaning that most people can and do recognize that there is a link and a relationship between man and a mystery as opposed to one with God. Giussani highlights that the link between our lives and the Mystery is the apex of man’s reason -the complete work of Giussani is based on educating man to use his reason, that is, man’s ability to recognize the link between the Mystery and one’s daily life. Giussani helped to show man his interior desire for satisfaction and fulfillment (The Religious Sense), -his need for an Other-, since that which is merely materially in front us will never satisfy the deepest longing of our hearts. Also, that this thirst for happiness and fulfillment God wrote on the human heart in order for us to help recognize his presence.
What is real? Real is everything that is, that which has being. And the summit of what is real is God. There is major distinction between God and all other things. Everything that has being is dependent on another (God) for its existence, however God is different and does not depend on any other being for his existence. What is real is not only what is measurable and weighable. When a mother loves her children, and hugs them and is present when life is not going well, or when a friend falls in love for the first time, are these sentiments not real since they cannot be measured numerically? Although unable to measure, they are more real since they consider man’s affectivity. When we are struck or moved by the presence of something extraordinary, we must take this affection seriously.
Recognizing the Mystery as real does not mean the recognition of a tree or a great bottle of wine as the Mystery itself, but as being signs of the Mystery. We are only able to recognize the Mystery by that which is in front of us. Everything that is created carries the presence of God within it. There is no knowledge of God other than through what is given and concretely in front of us. Slowly, we become more aware of God’s presence and how he seeks to meet us in the daily environment.
2. Risks of Running Away or Escaping from Reality. Camisasca highlighted three common temptations that often inhibit man from truly being present to what is in front of him, and thus becoming aware of God’s presence. These are ultimately rooted in man’s fear of reality.
A) Living in a dream world –we often live within a dreamed up vision of ourselves and our lives which inhibits us from truly recognizing our temperament, personality, limitations and weaknesses. Accepting our limitations means living with an acceptance of ourselves, our history and weaknesses. There must be self reconciliation prior to self-acceptance. We need to return to a real understanding and acceptance of our lives and leave any false imaginary conceptions we have. God desires to meet and love us in ourselves, and not as anyone else. God made each person the way he did so that he could love them in and through their uniqueness.
B) Escaping what is in front of us because we are scandalized by ourselves and others. We are too often scandalized by the way we and other people live to truly believe that the Mystery is made present in the world. Why do we get so hooked up when someone hurts us, or hear of someone who has done something wrong. In whatever we live, there is going to be a balance of good, evil and suffering. Why must a mother suffer and experience so much pain before giving birth? What about the parable Jesus taught about the wheat and weeds growing up together in the field. The weeds are inevitable. We are not saying to call what is bad and evil good, but to call it as it is and accept it. God chose to come into and remain in a fallen and broken world, and to continue his work of redemption through fallen and sinful humans.
C) Impatience –We get very tired and frustrated seeking God’s presence and will for our lives, and therefore give up. We must learn that God is patient. Patience is the key to entering into the logic and ways of God as witnessed in the history of Church. Patience has the same Latin root word as that of suffering, we must learn to enter into God’s way of time through suffering and asking. Our conversion and conformation to the plan God has for our lives grows inasmuch as we enter into this logic. Like the Apostles, we must stay in front of Christ even if we are scandalized by the lack of a quick fix to our lives and questions regarding our destiny.
3. God has overcome the distance. The distance between the Mystery and man has been overcome by way of the Incarnation. The logic of the Incarnation points the way to the method of recognizing God’s presence in the world. Through the Incarnation, God in a mysterious manner touched all of creation, and thus all created manner has become a sign of God’s presence. We are able to recognize His presence, because he has first overcome the distance between God and created reality. Without his help and grace, we would be forever stuck in the risks of living in a dream world, escaping what is in front of us because we are scandalized, or that of being impatient and give up our pursuit. Man by himself is incapable of coming to an understanding of his life and God without the help of God, therefore God decided to reveal Himself to man and his sublime calling, to life and friendship with God. John tells us that Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life”.
Camisasca explained that it is critical to enter into Jesus’ experience of sonship in order to comprehend the nature of the love of God the Father. The way to the Father is by the way of sonship. Our adhesion to Christ and participation in his divine sonship grows through the recognition of his presence in the world (signs), and through the witness and testimonies of others (History of the Church).
4. The Work of the Spirit. How does one recognize the presence of God in the world, how did Jesus, the man born of Mary and Joseph, become a sign of God for the world, how was he the Son of God? All these questions can only be answered by the work and power of the Holy Spirit. The principal protagonist throughout the history of the Church and our lives as we conform to Christ is the Holy Spirit. That which makes the created world a sign of God’s presence is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God in our lives and the link that binds our lives to that of the life of the Mystery. The Fathers of the Church recognized that the Father and the Son each have proper names, but the Holy Spirit has one that shares what is common to both the Father and the Son. Therefore, they recognized that the Spirit was the union and love between the Father and the Son, that which binds them together. The work of the Spirit is what enables one to recognize and have knowledge of God through what is concretely in front of us, our given circumstances and work. Every moment we are given an opportunity to encounter the Holy Spirit through the circumstances we are given, this is the apex of what is given and in front of us. It is an incredible path by which God has chosen to meet man, God seeks man out passionately through the circumstances man finds himself.
Here, I was struck by the beauty of the prayer Veni Sante Spiritus, Veni per Maria, which is a plea to the Holy Spirit to make himself present as he made himself present through Mary. It is asking to be given the grace to see God in the given circumstances one finds oneself. Hard to believe that he wants to meet man in front of a computer, or in a book, or through a friend or through silence.
How does an encounter with the Mystery come about? It is impossible to preview or prepare an encounter with the Mystery, but it happens unexpectedly. What is the cause of an encounter? The cause of an encounter with an exceptional presence, and one’s recognition of this exceptional presence as a sign given or revealed through a concrete reality, is in Christian language called the Holy Spirit. What does it mean, is that every encounter we are given and respond to is a path or gateway to knowledge and love for God. Therefore all of creation comes to be known as an expansion of the humanity and divinity of Christ, for it is in created realities themselves that we become aware of the presence of the Mystery, they point to and are signs of this presence.
The work of the Holy Spirit is to enable man to recognize and have knowledge of God’s presence by way of that which is real, creation is a sign of the Mystery. The Spirit enables us to have faith and knowledge of God. Therefore it is critical to always ask and beg for him to enable us to see and respond to the Mystery present in our lives. To ask the Spirit is to ask to have the eyes, ears, heart to see the presence of God incarnate in the world, and that all these instants may be a path to our loving friendship with the Mystery. Even a headache or sore stomach can be a way to know God.
5. Testimonies and Witnesses. God has chosen to meet man through signs and testimonies. A Witness is someone God has given to us to accompany us toward the Mystery, someone to journey with who makes the Mystery present. They are those people which help us to recognize the presence of the Mystery in the world around us, to know and see the Mystery. John, in the last chapters of his Gospel recalls Jesus saying that “the Spirit will bear testimony”, and “you will bear witness to me”. The way of God and the way of the Spirit are through testimonies and signs.
Camisasca explains that there are two types of testimonies, interior and exterior. One which bears witness to the heart and interior life, whereas the other takes the form of exterior action. The pathway to God, and the way of the Spirit is the unity of these two forms of testimonies. Conscience (heart) and authority are the two cardinal points for the life of the Church, -the interior dimension and exterior. Following and being obedient to the authority of the Church is a fruit of a true testimony and witness. God speaks to us directly by way of the heart, and indirectly by way of the teaching authority of the Church. God speaks to us through our conscience, and this clearly shows the great respect God has for our dignity. However, at the same time it clearly points to our responsibility and freedom which he respects. And he speaks to us by way of authority, since we are capable and often make mistakes in our judgment and interpretation of our conscience. This approach takes into account an integral-holistic vision of the human person, seeing the unity of the subjective and interior dimension along with the exterior authoritative character. There is a unity that carries interiorly within it a distinction.
6. La Vita Comune … The Common Life. When Carron spoke about the importance of signs and testimonies at the Spiritual Exercises, he highlighted the privileged place of friendship, la compagnia. The friends and people given to you in your life are critically important, and this is the reason that Jesus willed to remain present in the Church. Camisasca highlighted his experience learning to slowly enter into the lives of the new seminarians and to continually remain in those of the fraternity, and seeing in these people the sacramental presence of Christ. The important point here is learning the decisive importance of the recognition of Christ’s presence within the company that we live and share our lives with. The common life is not living together. If the life lived together is not lived with an awareness of the other as being the sacramental presence of Christ, as the concrete given sign of his presence in our lives, we are not truly living together and there is no common life.
Camisasca remarked that the crisis within the family today has its roots in the lack of recognition of the other as being a sign and presence of the Other. We have lost the sense that the other, that meaning, spouse, parent or child represents a sign of a presence that is much greater than we are. Without the recognition of this reality within the concreteness of the home, the “I” collapses into itself and remains closed to those in front of them, and reduces them to mere objects and subjects for one’s personal interests. Without the experience of our neediness for another, for the Other who has chosen to make himself mysteriously present in a privileged manner through our family and friends, the common life is useless. Carron expounds these ideas in the second lesson.
Seeing and recognizing His presence amongst us is the meaning and essence of the common life, that is, a life lived with an awareness of His concrete and sacramental presence amongst the people we are given and who are in front of us.
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