On Becoming Friends of The Movement

We walked down the long corridor of St. Francis Cabrini High School in the Fort Washington section of New York just as Mass ended. Suddenly, a torrent of serene and smiling people headed our way. I held my boy aloft as the Blushing Bride took a powder. Frankie cooed the name "Wilson", the name of the boy next to him. Funny thing, Wilson's father was a Frank, too!

One of the friends invited us to the cafeteria. We followed him down a steep staircase and entered the spacious student cafeteria of the college prep high school. After a moving Grace, the capacity crowd openned bags and picnic baskets. Their tables were soon filled with lunch of all varieties. Including wine.

The Blushing Bride and I looked at each other with that perplexed expression of worry and confusion. I had thought that the flyer for the New York Community of Communion and Liberation's Community Day said lunch would be served. Apparently, I was wrong!

Now, this could have been a unfortunate turning point. We could have remained strangers among strangers, left watching while more informed and intimate friends dined away. That's not what friends of the Movement are about, however. Father Eugene, having just joined the Movement in August, gave BB and I two bottles of water from his own lunch. He led us to Riro, the gentleman from the national office whom had invited me to attend the Community day a week before. Upon hearing our plight, Riro immediately took two sesame-seeded bagels and some cold cuts from his family's own lunch and gave them to us. He then introduced us to Jonathan and his wife, from whom we received an esquisite Italian stew, Chardonney, slices of cheesecake, and even Chips Ahoy and boxed juices for Frankie! Jonathan then brought over Francesco and Susanna, a young couple from Italy that lived in Tarrytown. They invited us to join their weekly School of Community in Sleepy Hollow, NY, not far from our hometown. These friends offered us true charity and genuine hospitality. We already felt at home.

A School of Community for the gathered friends followed lunch. Babysitters were available, so the BB and I took the chance and entrusted Frankie to their care. Now, when we first sat and sang with the community, we again exchanged a knowing look. We had both been down this road before. A Catholic Young Adult Group had once met at Transfiguration Church in Tarrytown, NY. That group had begun their reflections with songs--some inspiring, others banal. What followed could enliven the soul or leave us starving. It depended on the meeting. We knew all this because we had met through this group. Still, as nostalgic as we might be for the now-desceased young adult fellowship from which we came, we had no desire to relive that experience. For a moment, this SOC appeared to be a dangerous rerun.

Then the singing ended. Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete filled the silence with his melodious Italian accent and his profound counsel. His lit cigarette burned in his right hand, while he made the required gestures of all Paisan with the left. His words, down-to-earth and yet sublime, challenged all of us to not take Christianity for granted. Indeed, he spoke of encounters with Christ through scripture and his Church as provocations, which is not the serene encounter I long for. Nonetheless, it remains the truth.

Friends responded. One, then another, spoke on the selected chapter that the various gathered schools of community had studied in CL founder Msgr. Luigi Giussani's Why the Church? That chapter was "Why Humanity?"

As they reflected on a book that I hadn't even read, I found myself drawn to their responses. I suddenly perceived the sheer hilarity, the insanity, of it all--the unadulterated Foolishness of the Lord God. He chose to reveal himself through his flawed creation. The Limitless sought expression through the limited. The Most High chose to encounter us through the low faces of one another! God, the omnipotent, makes himself known and felt through we the everlasting ignorant! Imagine that for a moment!

He reveals himself through us! And we, who've somehow come to experience his presence in our lives, however imperfectly, become the very community through whom others will encounter him. For we're marked by our experience from him; we really are. We've somehow been so powerfully moved by his presence that we've literally bet our lives and chosen to believe in him. We've chosen to order our lives according to him and the communion in whom he continues to live, the Church!

And that's who we are when we believe in him. We are church--his people. His Mystical Body. His chosen sacrament of his presence in the world. And we still fall apart at the seams. We still lose our patience and our tempers. We still lie when there's no need. We still bicker and squabble, sometimes over God only knows what! We still suffer. In short, we're still human--still flawed. Yet trying. Yearning. We long to live in the presence of him whom we've come to call the Messiah, the son of the Living God. Thus, even our mistakes--our sins!--allow him to touch the rest of us!

As the talks continued, I realized that my presence was no accident. The Blushing Bride and I needed a fellowship in which we could share our Faith in an authentic and living way. We both felt--whether she'll admit it or not--that curious alienation that comes from living our Christianity in relative isolation. We no longer felt at home in our Parish. No other parish appeared any more inviting. We belonged to no fellowship or small Christian community. And our shared prayer life had taken a turn for the worse. Not to mention my own personal prayer--because believe me, it's not worth mentioning.

Suddenly, we're here. We're sharing in the walks and struggles of people that yearn for Christ, as we do. We sharing their Faith after they've literally shared their bread with us. And I realize that we may have found the fellowship we failed to know we needed. We may have discovered the very community our discipleship required.

His parents' profound revelations or not, a nearly-three-year-old will only entertain himself with crayons among strangers for so long. Frankie soon found his way, with the help of Francesco, to our laps. He threw his arms around his mother and said, "Mommy, I missed you!"
How can our hearts not melt at a greeting like that?

We soon departed for fresh air and views of the Hudson that nearby Fort Washington Park offered. The Blushing Bride enjoyed seeing so many young people at the Community Day, especially students from Europe. Having grown up in Portugal and visiting family that still live there, she's seen firsthand how secular and modernist contemporary Europe had become. She found the obvious devotion of the younger friends refreshing and encouraging.

We were ready to leave when we saw them again. A long procession walked the main path from the entrance of the park to the look-out where we were headed. We joined them again, and found that they'd come to sing! There we were, singing the remains of a beautiful autumn afternoon away. In a park in New York City. With the last rays of the setting sun shining just behind the George Washington Bridge.