September with the Fraternity of San Carlo

Witness by John Roderick

October 25, 2008

We were reminded yesterday of the importance of judging what we live during these months as an act of charity towards our brothers, and to make this judgment public. Giving testimony is the heart of the work of Communion and Liberation, sharing concrete experiences of the Mystery’s presence in one’s life, and how it changes or opens new ways of looking at one’s life, and changing how one lives and understands the events of daily life.

Patience

Learning to enter into the logic of God’s sense of time. Learning a new language, developing new friends, entering an environment of seminary formation, learning to adjust to a new culture, studying philosophy (putting Ratzinger, de Lubac and Balthasar aside) and the list could go on and on. These are but a few concrete realities that I have been asked to enter into that have helped me to understand the meaning and importance of patience. Reading the pages of School of Community during the 45 minute commute to school in the morning, that refer to the recognition of an exceptional presence and how the first Apostles followed this presence, and spent a period of time with Jesus in order to come to know who He was and the mission He had for their lives (fuller realization of one’s life and mission). The work of School of Community presents a concrete framework to understand my experience.

I still remain very conscious of my inability to fully comprehend the Italian language, which is at times very frustrating. However, this frustration has led me to accept it as a cross given to me in order to learn patience. As mentioned in the lesson of don Massimo, patience has the same root word as that of suffering –I am starting to believe that suffering is not merely a result of sin, but a manner to enter into the mystery of the life of Christ. Even Christ had to be patient, imagine what he had to suffer watching and living with the Apostles as they grew in understanding of who He was, and for doubting and abandoning him. It is easy to choose not to do my Italian lessons and not face this problem as well, and it is much harder to make it the number one priority when I want to read Ratzinger or de Lubac. The satisfaction I experience by working on my Italian, or coming across a new verb tense or new vocabulary word during the day, seems to be God affirming the work and time given to these lessons. I am being asked to re-appropriate my passion for the Communio school, and am sure I will be better able to appreciate it when I am asked to return to it. I must face and enter into the circumstances that have been given and are in front of me, that is, learning to live within a community of Italian speaking men. That means learning to communicate, speak, write and listen to a foreign language. It is through this language that the Mystery has decided to speak and come to meet me. God is seeking me out, through the concrete reality that is in front of me. I must choose freely to respond to the Mystery, in the way he has chosen to make himself present. It is funny to think about how we try to limit the ways that God is to meet man. At a recent Incontro di Casa, one of seminarian’s mentioned that he was scared for the unexpected ways God may ask him to live his life, and how he tries to calculate the manner in which is the least risky to encounter the Mystery. True freedom, our rector mentioned, is learned through availability, being available to how and where the Mystery seeks to meet us. We can learn this best through learning about the lives of the Saints, especially Virgin Mary and the twelve Apostles. I have a lot to learn in this respect, and am finding it difficult, well culture shock, to think what was so natural to me, living in North America, is now completely different. I have at times thought that since I can’t do a lot of things that I am used to doing, that it is a clear sign that God does not want me here. However, I am drawn back to the fact that one does not choose the manner in which the mystery makes himself available to man. I have come to better appreciate what I have lived as being an incredible gift from God, that I have been given and to learn to possess in a new manner.

God has chosen to make himself present to me in an exceptional manner through the movement of Communion and Liberation, and I have chosen to acknowledge this fact. A couple of years ago, I decided that I wanted to live my life within the framework of the movement, following the work of School of Community as a instrument to better understand my life and an aid for the recognition of God’s presence concretely in my life. This has in turn led me to the novitiate year with the Fraternity of St. Charles, to verify the possibility of having a vocation within this community.
Friendship and the sense of belonging can only grown in time. Some of my initial thoughts upon arrival that certain friendships were going to be impossible, or that certain people avoided speaking or interacting with me since I have difficulty with the language, and have a different experience of the movement and the Fraternity- have completely changed. It is incredible to learn to see God’s work and presence through time, He is always with us, even if we choose not to recognize him.
The struggle to know whether one is called to a life within the Fraternity, this has been on my heart. It seems like most have a certainty that I am lacking. However, I have a great trust that I am here in order for this certainty to grow. It would be irrational not to acknowledge my attraction to the Fraternity of San Carlo, and what I have met following the life of Communion and Liberation, and the desire to give and live my life within the movement. There is great consolation hearing witness from don Massimo and Atta (Rector) of the importance of patience and understanding this time of formation. Although I have not been given the opportunity to deepen these friendships, the way they look upon my life is one of a fatherly love for his child.
Don Massimo’s lessons and homilies are best described as metaphysical pneumatology (logic of the Spirit). I am blown away reading, contemplating and asking the Holy Spirit to deepen my understanding of the mystery of Jesus and of the concrete world around me. This is hard to explain and express, but there is a new awareness of the incarnate nature of God by way of the Spirit, that has touched all created reality. I find myself enjoying the concreteness of life more than usual with the recognition of it as the pathway God has chosen to meet me.

Cercare Dio. Seeking and looking for God. The Movement proposed the reading of Benedict XVI’s lecture in France at the Institute of Culture. Two of the major highlights are his discussion on how the followers of St. Benedict were encouraged to seek Christ in their work and prayer, Ora e Labora. There is a unity in our work of seeking Christ through our work and through our prayer. I had a unique experience this week when I was looking for a friend to pray the rosary with together in our gardens. I looked for close to 15 minutes, (which seemed to be an eternity) well it may seem like a short time, but looking for someone and not being able to find them, and we were supposed to meet at a certain place at a certain hour. Through this experience, I was able to enter into the experience of God seeking out man. It blew me away to become aware of how God seeks man out. It seems like he is constantly seeking and making himself present for man in all his given and concrete circumstances. However, as I was looking I had no idea where this guy was and was not able to find him, for God it is a different story since he always knows where we are and always finds those he is seeking. Don Jonah (vice rector) gave a beautiful testimony after the gospel last night, reminding us to not close any aspects of our life to God’s searching presence. We often close the doors to particular parts of our life and not enable God’s presence to enter in and bring his light to help in our comprehension of what we are struggling with. We are being asked to seek God and allow our hearts to see His presence in all the many and small details of our lives. The second aspect of the discussion was the importance of the awareness of when we sing and recite the psalms that we are singing with the whole mystical body of Christ, we are praying before the Saints and the Angels and along with them (All Saints Mass was fantastic).

During the month of September, we had lectures and discussions regarding the dialogue between Science and Christianity, between faith and reason. A theme that came up frequently in my thoughts was the development of doctrine, in regards to the lectures on Galileo, Dante, Bioethics and evolution. The initial lecture was on the physical characteristics of light, this was given by an eccentric man who talked about what can and cannot be seen because of light and what often inhibits or blocks us from truly seeing. It is funny, since initially I thought I did not get anything out of this lecture, but today I think it holds the key to understanding the month as a whole, and goes along with the nature of patience and suffering given above. These themes and the underlining concept of reason and its openness to the truths of faith, or its interior openness, meaning that there is a dual unity between faith and reason as ways of understanding. The light that shines upon our comprehension of the very nature of reason oscillates, and at the same time deepens or fades, remaining closed. The current culture’s conception of reason is a closed one and one that remains stuck or limited to scientific experimentation, if one can reproduce a fact with a significant sense of measurability than we can accept it as being true, valid and reasonable. However, anything outside of this realm is deemed un-reasonable. Christianity proposes a different conception of reason, which is talked about in the lesson by don Massimo. However, what I want to highlight is through the history of the Church and that of culture there have been varying conceptions of the nature of reason and its openness to faith, and one can clearly see a development of our understanding as history progresses. The light that enables man to grasp the conception of reason and its openness to faith, increases and deepens in time. This is played out in all spheres of culture, as witnessed in the above lectures (this is also witnessed well at the Rimini Meeting). There is no need to be afraid of truth, the truths of science or the truths of revelation and Christianity since the Truth is a person who became a man in the womb of a young girl. These truths are given in order to deepen our understanding of the one truth which is the Logos, as described by John the Evangelist. There is a patient suffering on behalf of the Church, for only in time will the culture respond to the full truth of the nature of reason which the Church proposes for the world.

This was explained to me quite concretely one morning when I woke and went for a walk in the garden before the sun came up and it was still dark. One could still see the moon and the stars, it was quite special. However, with the passing of time, the stars began to slowly fade into the night and the moon as well. With the first glimpse of the sun and its rays, one was able to see more clearly the distinct shapes of the trees and surrounding nature, the birds soon woke and began to play and sing together and it seemed like all of nature awoke with the dawning of the first rays of light. It is almost as if the growing ability to see the true essence of what is concretely in front of you, and its full integrity was the beginning of a party. I think of this experience often, and am reminded every morning when praying the Benedictus every morning.

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam. This prayer has taken on a whole new meaning that I tried to elaborate in the notes from don Massimo’s lecture to begin the year at Subiaco. It is incredible deepening the understanding of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst, and God’s desire to seek us out in our concrete given circumstances. Who and what is in front of you is the path by which God desires to meet us.

Notes for self

Porciano –House belonging to the Fraternity
Vittorciano –Religious community where many people of the movement have gone
Silenzio –lesson by don Massimo
Poverta –lesson by don Matteo
Vangelo di Marco –Course by don Jonah
Greco –Course by don Konrad
Marco 3:13-15 –Memorizing these verses with Umberto
Storia del Movimento –Trilogy by don Massimo
Liturgy of the Hours –lesson by don Matteo