EUROPE/ITALY Collaborate in the mission of the Church in every area of society. This is the goal of Communion and Liberation, started in Milan in 1954 by don Luigi Giussani and today present all over the world.

Tuesday, 22 February 2005

Rome (Fides Service) - Communion and Liberation is a Church movement and its main goal is mature Christian education of its members and their collaboration in the mission of the Church in every area of society. It began in Italy in 1954 when don Luigi Giussani started a youth group GS at the Berchet High School in Milan. The present name Communion and Liberation, used for the first time in 1969, is a summary of the conviction that the Christian event lived in communion is the foundation of authentic human freedom. Today CL is present in about 70 countries all over the world. There is no membership, only voluntary participation. A fundamental tool for the formation of the adherents is weekly catechesis called “School of Community”. The movement has a monthly publication now international «Tracce - Litterae Communionis». Tracce reports on viewpoints and life of Cl in the world. It is available in Italian, Brazilian, English, French, German, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish and less frequently in Japanese and Hungarian. It contains letters and testimonials from Italy and the world, interventions by don Giussani, Church life, culture, society and politics, all in a spirit of authentic ecumenism. «A charisma - don Giussani wrote - can be defined a gift of the Spirit given to a person in a certain context in history so that this person may start an experience of faith which can be of use for the life of the Church. I underline the existential character of a charisma: it renders the Christian message of apostolic tradition more convincing, persuasive, more approachable”.
A charisma is the terminus of the Incarnation, a special means by which the Fact of Jesus Christ Man and God, reaches me and through me reaches others». The essence of the charisma given to Communion and Liberation can be indicated with three factors: - first of all the announcement that God became man (wonder, reasoning and enthusiasm): «The Word was made Flesh and Lived amongst us»; - secondly the affirmation that this Man - Jesus of Nazareth who died and is risen from the dead - it an event present in a «sign» of «communion», or unity of people guided as a guarantee by a person, ultimately the Bishop of Rome; - third factor: only in God made man, therefore only in his presence and therefore only through - in some way - the experience of His presence (ultimately only within the life of the Church), can the individual and humanity be truly human. St Gregory Nazianzeno writes: «If it were not for you my Christ, I would be but a finite creature». Therefore it is from His presence that morality and passion for the salvation of mankind flow (mission). « From the beginning at Berchet High School in Milan - don Giussani recalls - I tried to show the young people what moved me: not a desire to convince them that I was right, but the desire to show them the reasonableness of the faith; that the adhesion of their freedom to the Christian message was demanded by the discovery that what I said corresponded to the desires of their heart implicated in the definition of reasonableness. Only this dynamic of recognition renders those who join our movement creative and protagonist and not simply people who repeat formulas and discourses. This is why, I think, this charisma generates a social fact which is not a project but rather a movement of people changed by an encounter who attempt to render more human the world and the environment and circumstances they encounter. The lived memory of Christ tends inevitably to generate a presence in society, prescinding from any programmed outcome ». (P.L.R.) (Agenzia Fides 22/02/2005 - Righe 43; Parole 622)


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